“The good, the bad, and the ugly”. A panel study on the reciprocal effects of negative, dirty, and positive campaigning on political distrust

Autor(en)
Franz Reiter, Jörg Matthes
Abstrakt

Negative campaigning is a central concept in political communication research. However, most conceptualizations of the term are rather broad, summarizing all kinds of negativity such as substantial criticism and offensive behaviors. In this paper, we distinguish negative, dirty, and positive campaigning. While negative campaigning refers to critical, civil, and non-disrespectful arguments, dirty campaigning, by contrast, is defined as “below-the-belt” attacks including incivility and unfair campaign methods. In a two-wave Austrian national election panel study, we tested the reciprocal effects of perceived negative, dirty, and positive campaigning on distrust in politicians. Using auto-regressive models, we found that perceived dirty campaigning positively predicted distrust in politicians over time. Furthermore, distrust in politicians led to increased perceptions of dirty campaigning over time, suggesting a reciprocal relationship. However, perceived negative and positive campaigning were unrelated to distrust in politicians. Theoretical and methodological implications of distinguishing negative, dirty, and positive campaigning are discussed.

Organisation(en)
Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
Journal
Mass Communication and Society
Band
25
Seiten
649-672
Anzahl der Seiten
24
ISSN
1520-5436
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/15205436.2021.1934702
Publikationsdatum
2021
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Communication
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-a-panel-study-on-the-reciprocal-effects-of-negative-dirty-and-positive-campaigning-on-political-distrust(f5da8134-342b-4912-862a-6e77e9bd5c63).html