Elina Lindgren
Biographic Data
| ID | 4036917 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elina Lindgren |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elina |
| FAMILY NAME | Lindgren |
| SIGNATURE | LINDGREN E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Gothenburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9032-1347 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 93 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 20 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Exploring Possible Explanations for the Modest Relationship Between News Media Trust and Use
Despite the widespread assumption that trust in news media drives news use, empirical research consistently finds only a modest correlation between the two. This study investigates possible explanations for the modest relationship between news media trust and use, drawing on recent qualitative insights and testing five hypotheses using a four-wave panel survey of Swedish respondents ( N = 3,542). We examine whether outlet-specific trust better pr…
In the brand we trust? The moderating role of journalistic values and news topics in the relation between news source and trust in news
This paper examines the relation between news source and trust, while considering the moderating role of journalistic values and type of issue the news deals with (politicized/ not politicized). We conducted a survey experiment in the Netherlands and Sweden. Results suggest that source type indeed matters for trust in news, and that information stemming from traditional sources is much more trusted than identical information coming from alternati…
Coded Appeals and Political Gains
Political parties have incentives to appeal to diverse voters to maximize support. This study examines the effect of politicians exploiting dogwhistles—expressions that convey hidden messages to specific audiences while escaping notice by the majority—for this purpose. Findings from a word replacement test and a survey experiment assessing the utility of racial dogwhistles in Sweden suggest that dogwhistling can aid politicians in gaining support…
Closing the Perception Gap
Public perceptions in Western societies often overstate the role of immigration in crime, with important implications for both policy preferences and intergroup relations. Drawing on data from a three-wave experiment in Sweden (N = 1,709), this study evaluates the effectiveness, persistence, and spillover effects of providing corrective information about the risk of being suspected of a crime among individuals with a foreign versus a native backg…
An asymmetrical reinforcing spiral? Disentangling the longitudinal dynamics of media use and mainstream media trust
While numerous studies have documented an association between mainstream media trust and mainstream media use, only little is known about potential causal mechanisms underlying the association. We theorize that selective exposure, social influence, and the reinforcing spirals model offer three possible mechanisms that may underlie the association. These possibilities were studied using random intercept cross-lagged panel models and latent curve m…
Politically Knowledgeable or Directional (Mis)Believers? How to Identify Those Who Are correct About Political Facts for the “Wrong” Reasons
An informed public is essential to democratic representation, and the news media have traditionally played a central role in supporting this ideal. However, the changing media environment and a rise of misinformation have raised new questions about how citizens acquire and retain political knowledge, prompting distinctions between the uninformed and those holding directional or evidence-resistant misbeliefs. We extend this discussion by arguing t…
Political dogwhistles and semantic change in Swedish politics
This article investigates how citizens’ understanding of multivocal political words – dogwhistles – changes over time and varies between groups. Dogwhistles are ambiguous political messages that convey a veiled meaning to a targeted subset of the audience but are inaudible to others. They present challenges from the standpoint of democratic representation and the principles of open and informed deliberation. We use survey data from a two-wave pan…
The utility of (political) dogwhistles – a life cycle perspective
The term dogwhistle refers to an expression conveying a message to a subset of an audience which is not perceived by the rest of the group, in addition to a primary meaning directed at the group at large. We follow up on previous work in linguistics and political communication on defining dogwhistles, taking into account how they likely function in real-life political contexts. We consider the utility of dogwhistles in terms of their sensitivity …
Beyond Cultural Narratives
Amid ongoing debates over integration failures in Europe, this article examines an important yet understudied area: public perceptions of integration. Previous studies have largely focused on isolated aspects of public opinion, especially cultural elements, offering limited insights into how citizens define successful integration and perceive policy shortcomings. This article expands the scope with a data-driven, two-step approach that enables an…
Trusting the Facts
Scholars have raised concerns that on many issues, citizens are reluctant to trust factual evidence and statistics. One factor that has been shown to impact the perceived truth in statistics is how they are presented, where negatively framed statistics are perceived as truer than positive. This study explores when this bias applies and not. Results from a survey experiment confirm the presence of a negativity bias in truth perceptions, but also t…
Political Opinion Leaders in High-Choice Information Environments
One implication of the transition to high-choice media environments is that what information people are exposed to depend less on journalistic curation and more on social, algorithmic, and personal curation. This has sparked a renewed interest in the concept of political opinion leaders, who are often assumed to be more interested in and informed about politics and society. Theoretically, political opinion leaders could hence help disseminate inf…
Taking Political Alternative Media into Account
In most studies on news repertoires and the linkage between media use and (mis)perceptions of social and political matters, the use of political alternative media has not been included. In this paper, we therefore investigate how people combine both traditional and political alternative media into different media repertoires, and how these media repertoires are related to misperceptions. We rely on a two-wave panel survey, conducted in 2020 and 2…
Conspiracy thinking and the role of media use
In contrast to beliefs in specific conspiracy theories, conspiratorial predispositions refer to people's propensity to view the world in conspiratorial terms. As such, they are one of the most important antecedents of beliefs in specific conspiracy theories. Understanding the antecedents of conspiratorial predispositions is hence important. Despite this, there is still only limited research on the antecedents of conspiratorial predispositions. Pr…
(Un)Expected effects of policy rhetoric
What Does Fake Look Like? A Review of the Literature on Intentional Deception in the News and on Social Media
This paper focuses on the content features of intentional deceptive information in the news (i.e., fake news) and on social media. Based on an extensive review of relevant literature (i.e., political journalism and communication, computational linguistics), we take stock of existing knowledge and present an overview of the structural characteristics that are indicative of intentionally deceptive information. We discuss the strength of underlying …
Knowledge and the News
While increasing scholarly attention has been devoted to news avoidance, there are only few studies taking the distinction between intentional and unintentional news avoidance into consideration, and none that has investigated the linkage between the two types of news avoidance and knowledge about politics and society. To fill this void, this study explores this relationship while distinguishing between knowledge related to uncontested issues and…
Causes and consequences of mainstream media dissemination of fake news
Research indicates that the reach of fake news websites is limited to small parts of the population. On the other hand, data demonstrate that large proportions of the public know about notable fake news stories and believe them. These findings imply the possibility that most people hear about fake news stories not from fake news websites but through their coverage in mainstream news outlets. Thus far, only limited attention has been directed to t…
News media trust and its impact on media use
In contemporary high-choice media environments, the issue of media trust and its impact on people's media use has taken on new importance. At the same time, the extent to which people trust the news media and how much it matters for their use of different types of media is not clear. To lay the groundwork for future research, in this article we offer a focused review of (a) how news media trust has been conceptualized and operationalized in previ…
Invitation Timing and Participation Rates in Online Panels
Falling participation rates is one of the most significant challenges facing survey research today. To curb this negative trend, scholars have searched for factors that can increase and decrease citizens’ willingness to participate in surveys. In this article, we investigate the timing effects of survey invitation e-mails on participation rates in a university-based online panel with members of the Swedish public. Through two large-scale experime…
Changing Policy With Words
Parties often frame their election pledges with value-laden words such as freedom and equality, and it is well known that this can influence voters’ support for policies. However, research is not conclusive about why as of yet. This article adds to common explanations of value-framing effects by proposing a linguistic explanation to how citizens are influenced by value words in election pledges. Drawing on what linguistic theory says about persua…
News media trust and its impact on media use
In contemporary high-choice media environments, the issue of media trust and its impact on people's media use has taken on new importance. At the same time, the extent to which people trust the news media and how much it matters for their use of different types of media is not clear. To lay the groundwork for future research, in this article we offer a focused review of (a) how news media trust has been conceptualized and operationalized in previ…
Causes and consequences of mainstream media dissemination of fake news
Research indicates that the reach of fake news websites is limited to small parts of the population. On the other hand, data demonstrate that large proportions of the public know about notable fake news stories and believe them. These findings imply the possibility that most people hear about fake news stories not from fake news websites but through their coverage in mainstream news outlets. Thus far, only limited attention has been directed to t…
(Un)Expected effects of policy rhetoric
Political Opinion Leaders in High-Choice Information Environments
One implication of the transition to high-choice media environments is that what information people are exposed to depend less on journalistic curation and more on social, algorithmic, and personal curation. This has sparked a renewed interest in the concept of political opinion leaders, who are often assumed to be more interested in and informed about politics and society. Theoretically, political opinion leaders could hence help disseminate inf…
Invitation Timing and Participation Rates in Online Panels
Falling participation rates is one of the most significant challenges facing survey research today. To curb this negative trend, scholars have searched for factors that can increase and decrease citizens’ willingness to participate in surveys. In this article, we investigate the timing effects of survey invitation e-mails on participation rates in a university-based online panel with members of the Swedish public. Through two large-scale experime…
Beyond Cultural Narratives
Amid ongoing debates over integration failures in Europe, this article examines an important yet understudied area: public perceptions of integration. Previous studies have largely focused on isolated aspects of public opinion, especially cultural elements, offering limited insights into how citizens define successful integration and perceive policy shortcomings. This article expands the scope with a data-driven, two-step approach that enables an…
The utility of (political) dogwhistles – a life cycle perspective
The term dogwhistle refers to an expression conveying a message to a subset of an audience which is not perceived by the rest of the group, in addition to a primary meaning directed at the group at large. We follow up on previous work in linguistics and political communication on defining dogwhistles, taking into account how they likely function in real-life political contexts. We consider the utility of dogwhistles in terms of their sensitivity …
Taking Political Alternative Media into Account
In most studies on news repertoires and the linkage between media use and (mis)perceptions of social and political matters, the use of political alternative media has not been included. In this paper, we therefore investigate how people combine both traditional and political alternative media into different media repertoires, and how these media repertoires are related to misperceptions. We rely on a two-wave panel survey, conducted in 2020 and 2…
Conspiracy thinking and the role of media use
In contrast to beliefs in specific conspiracy theories, conspiratorial predispositions refer to people's propensity to view the world in conspiratorial terms. As such, they are one of the most important antecedents of beliefs in specific conspiracy theories. Understanding the antecedents of conspiratorial predispositions is hence important. Despite this, there is still only limited research on the antecedents of conspiratorial predispositions. Pr…
Changing Policy With Words
Parties often frame their election pledges with value-laden words such as freedom and equality, and it is well known that this can influence voters’ support for policies. However, research is not conclusive about why as of yet. This article adds to common explanations of value-framing effects by proposing a linguistic explanation to how citizens are influenced by value words in election pledges. Drawing on what linguistic theory says about persua…
Knowledge and the News
While increasing scholarly attention has been devoted to news avoidance, there are only few studies taking the distinction between intentional and unintentional news avoidance into consideration, and none that has investigated the linkage between the two types of news avoidance and knowledge about politics and society. To fill this void, this study explores this relationship while distinguishing between knowledge related to uncontested issues and…
Changing Policy With Words
Parties often frame their election pledges with value-laden words such as freedom and equality, and it is well known that this can influence voters’ support for policies. However, research is not conclusive about why as of yet. This article adds to common explanations of value-framing effects by proposing a linguistic explanation to how citizens are influenced by value words in election pledges. Drawing on what linguistic theory says about persua…
Invitation Timing and Participation Rates in Online Panels
Falling participation rates is one of the most significant challenges facing survey research today. To curb this negative trend, scholars have searched for factors that can increase and decrease citizens’ willingness to participate in surveys. In this article, we investigate the timing effects of survey invitation e-mails on participation rates in a university-based online panel with members of the Swedish public. Through two large-scale experime…
Causes and consequences of mainstream media dissemination of fake news
Research indicates that the reach of fake news websites is limited to small parts of the population. On the other hand, data demonstrate that large proportions of the public know about notable fake news stories and believe them. These findings imply the possibility that most people hear about fake news stories not from fake news websites but through their coverage in mainstream news outlets. Thus far, only limited attention has been directed to t…
News media trust and its impact on media use
In contemporary high-choice media environments, the issue of media trust and its impact on people's media use has taken on new importance. At the same time, the extent to which people trust the news media and how much it matters for their use of different types of media is not clear. To lay the groundwork for future research, in this article we offer a focused review of (a) how news media trust has been conceptualized and operationalized in previ…
What Does Fake Look Like? A Review of the Literature on Intentional Deception in the News and on Social Media
This paper focuses on the content features of intentional deceptive information in the news (i.e., fake news) and on social media. Based on an extensive review of relevant literature (i.e., political journalism and communication, computational linguistics), we take stock of existing knowledge and present an overview of the structural characteristics that are indicative of intentionally deceptive information. We discuss the strength of underlying …
Knowledge and the News
While increasing scholarly attention has been devoted to news avoidance, there are only few studies taking the distinction between intentional and unintentional news avoidance into consideration, and none that has investigated the linkage between the two types of news avoidance and knowledge about politics and society. To fill this void, this study explores this relationship while distinguishing between knowledge related to uncontested issues and…
(Un)Expected effects of policy rhetoric
Political Opinion Leaders in High-Choice Information Environments
One implication of the transition to high-choice media environments is that what information people are exposed to depend less on journalistic curation and more on social, algorithmic, and personal curation. This has sparked a renewed interest in the concept of political opinion leaders, who are often assumed to be more interested in and informed about politics and society. Theoretically, political opinion leaders could hence help disseminate inf…
Taking Political Alternative Media into Account
In most studies on news repertoires and the linkage between media use and (mis)perceptions of social and political matters, the use of political alternative media has not been included. In this paper, we therefore investigate how people combine both traditional and political alternative media into different media repertoires, and how these media repertoires are related to misperceptions. We rely on a two-wave panel survey, conducted in 2020 and 2…
Conspiracy thinking and the role of media use
In contrast to beliefs in specific conspiracy theories, conspiratorial predispositions refer to people's propensity to view the world in conspiratorial terms. As such, they are one of the most important antecedents of beliefs in specific conspiracy theories. Understanding the antecedents of conspiratorial predispositions is hence important. Despite this, there is still only limited research on the antecedents of conspiratorial predispositions. Pr…
Trusting the Facts
Scholars have raised concerns that on many issues, citizens are reluctant to trust factual evidence and statistics. One factor that has been shown to impact the perceived truth in statistics is how they are presented, where negatively framed statistics are perceived as truer than positive. This study explores when this bias applies and not. Results from a survey experiment confirm the presence of a negativity bias in truth perceptions, but also t…
An asymmetrical reinforcing spiral? Disentangling the longitudinal dynamics of media use and mainstream media trust
While numerous studies have documented an association between mainstream media trust and mainstream media use, only little is known about potential causal mechanisms underlying the association. We theorize that selective exposure, social influence, and the reinforcing spirals model offer three possible mechanisms that may underlie the association. These possibilities were studied using random intercept cross-lagged panel models and latent curve m…
Politically Knowledgeable or Directional (Mis)Believers? How to Identify Those Who Are correct About Political Facts for the “Wrong” Reasons
An informed public is essential to democratic representation, and the news media have traditionally played a central role in supporting this ideal. However, the changing media environment and a rise of misinformation have raised new questions about how citizens acquire and retain political knowledge, prompting distinctions between the uninformed and those holding directional or evidence-resistant misbeliefs. We extend this discussion by arguing t…
Political dogwhistles and semantic change in Swedish politics
This article investigates how citizens’ understanding of multivocal political words – dogwhistles – changes over time and varies between groups. Dogwhistles are ambiguous political messages that convey a veiled meaning to a targeted subset of the audience but are inaudible to others. They present challenges from the standpoint of democratic representation and the principles of open and informed deliberation. We use survey data from a two-wave pan…
The utility of (political) dogwhistles – a life cycle perspective
The term dogwhistle refers to an expression conveying a message to a subset of an audience which is not perceived by the rest of the group, in addition to a primary meaning directed at the group at large. We follow up on previous work in linguistics and political communication on defining dogwhistles, taking into account how they likely function in real-life political contexts. We consider the utility of dogwhistles in terms of their sensitivity …
Beyond Cultural Narratives
Amid ongoing debates over integration failures in Europe, this article examines an important yet understudied area: public perceptions of integration. Previous studies have largely focused on isolated aspects of public opinion, especially cultural elements, offering limited insights into how citizens define successful integration and perceive policy shortcomings. This article expands the scope with a data-driven, two-step approach that enables an…
Exploring Possible Explanations for the Modest Relationship Between News Media Trust and Use
Despite the widespread assumption that trust in news media drives news use, empirical research consistently finds only a modest correlation between the two. This study investigates possible explanations for the modest relationship between news media trust and use, drawing on recent qualitative insights and testing five hypotheses using a four-wave panel survey of Swedish respondents ( N = 3,542). We examine whether outlet-specific trust better pr…
In the brand we trust? The moderating role of journalistic values and news topics in the relation between news source and trust in news
This paper examines the relation between news source and trust, while considering the moderating role of journalistic values and type of issue the news deals with (politicized/ not politicized). We conducted a survey experiment in the Netherlands and Sweden. Results suggest that source type indeed matters for trust in news, and that information stemming from traditional sources is much more trusted than identical information coming from alternati…
Coded Appeals and Political Gains
Political parties have incentives to appeal to diverse voters to maximize support. This study examines the effect of politicians exploiting dogwhistles—expressions that convey hidden messages to specific audiences while escaping notice by the majority—for this purpose. Findings from a word replacement test and a survey experiment assessing the utility of racial dogwhistles in Sweden suggest that dogwhistling can aid politicians in gaining support…
Closing the Perception Gap
Public perceptions in Western societies often overstate the role of immigration in crime, with important implications for both policy preferences and intergroup relations. Drawing on data from a three-wave experiment in Sweden (N = 1,709), this study evaluates the effectiveness, persistence, and spillover effects of providing corrective information about the risk of being suspected of a crime among individuals with a foreign versus a native backg…
Political science (16 works) · Social Media and Politics (13 works) · Psychology (12 works) · Politics (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Social Psychology (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Misinformation and Its Impacts (9 works) · Law (7 works) · Media Studies and Communication (7 works)