Effects of economic and symbolic threat appeals in right-wing populist advertising on anti-immigrant attitudes: The impact of textual and visual appeals
- Autor(en)
- Desiree Schmuck, Jörg Matthes
- Abstrakt
Right-wing populist parties portray immigrants as economic or symbolic threats in their political advertisements by constructing a moral divide between the good ordinary people and bad immigrants. Yet, it remains unclear how these different threat appeals contribute to the formation of anti-immigrant attitudes among citizens and what role visual elements play in producing these effects. A survey-experiment with a quota sample of 471 participants reveals that, overall, symbolic threat appeals exert stronger effects on anti-immigrant attitudes than economic ones. When presented via text alone, only symbolicnot economicthreat appeals increased anti-immigrant attitudes via the activation of heuristic processing such as the reliance on negative stereotypes or feelings of anxiety, in particular among lower-educated citizens. When visuals were present, both types of threat appeals enhanced anti-immigrant attitudes among citizens across all education levels based on heuristic processing. Additionally, high image-text congruency induced cognitive argument approval resulting in higher anti-immigrant attitudes.
- Organisation(en)
- Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
- Journal
- Political Communication
- Band
- 34
- Seiten
- 607-626
- Anzahl der Seiten
- 20
- ISSN
- 1058-4609
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2017.1316807
- Publikationsdatum
- 2017
- Peer-reviewed
- Ja
- ÖFOS 2012
- 508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft, 508014 Publizistik
- Schlagwörter
- ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
- Communication, Sociology and Political Science
- Link zum Portal
- https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/effects-of-economic-and-symbolic-threat-appeals-in-rightwing-populist-advertising-on-antiimmigrant-attitudes-the-impact-of-textual-and-visual-appeals(ce5ba590-e212-4942-b75b-d659dce7b413).html