The study “Amplified News Framing of Social Disturbance and Its Impact on Authoritarian Attitudes: An Experimental Study of Main Effects and Activation of Predispositions” by Mats Ekström and Adam Shehata from University of Gothenburg looked at how social disturbances contribute to the development of authoritarian attitudes via news framing of the former.
Researchers have expressed concerns over the rise of authoritarianism in liberal democracies, and research so far on the relationship between authoritarianism and news media has focused on framing of far right parties in the news, how news media normalizes authoritarianism, and how the far right challenges media legitimacy.
This study fills the gap in looking at why people adopt authoritarian views – assuming a significant role for news media based on the political psychology on authoritarianism and the research on news framing effects.
Research on authoritarianism owes much to Adorno, who developed the concept of “authoritarian personality” and further research which extended the concept to contemporary political and social psychology. However, “authoritarian personality” has also been criticized, with the argument that authoritarianism should more properly be understood as values or beliefs (Duckitt, 2015; Feldman, 2003, 2020).
The literature on authoritarianism suggests that social disturbance, instability, insecurity, and crisis evoke and increase authoritarian attitudes. Adorno already theorized that authoritarianism is a response to social insecurity and an “uncertain world”. Here, the authors focus on social insecurity.
Framing theory was applied to account for the news media’s role in reporting social disturbances and the impact on people’s authoritarian attitudes. The authors suggest that news framing may amplify social disturbances and thus make people more prone to adopt authoritarian attitudes.
There were three hypotheses in the study, based on previous understanding and studies: Hypothesis 1 (H1): Exposure to amplified framings of social disturbance increases levels of authoritarian attitudes. Hypothesis 2 (H2): Individuals’ adherence to authoritarian values (predispositions) is positively related to holding authoritarian attitudes on specific issues.Hypothesis 3 (H3): Exposure to amplified framings of social disturbance in news stories magnifies the impact of authoritarian values (predispositions) on authoritarian attitudes.
Based on the hypotheses, the research question for the study was: to what extent are the news framing effects on authoritarian attitudes, and the activation of predispositions, conditioned by individuals’ perceived threat to social cohesion? The two studies for the article were conducted in Sweden in 2022.
Both of the experimental studies, which were designed to provide robust evidence for the hypotheses, confirmed the first hypothesis (H1), and also revealed that the news topic affects the framing effect.
There was also support for the theory of activation, meaning that when people are exposed to news frames that make authoritarian considerations applicable authoritarian predispositions are activated. There was a clear positive relationship between authoritarian values and authoritarian attitudes (H2), and it was stronger for respondents exposed to amplified news (H3).
Further research on the topic is needed, but this study already contributed to the field by providing a theoretical framework that is relevant beyond the one country. The article “Amplified News Framing of Social Disturbance and Its Impact on Authoritarian Attitudes: An Experimental Study of Main Effects and Activation of Predispositions” by Mats Ekström and Adam Shehata is in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. (open access).
Picture: Police, during #21N social protests in Colombia by Ricardo Arce.
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