Rachid Azrout
Biographic Data
| ID | 4376444 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rachid Azrout |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rachid |
| FAMILY NAME | Azrout |
| SIGNATURE | AZROUT R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6774-3472 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 220 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The next media-fueled moral technology panic? News media’s and audience’s views on ChatGPT
With the diffusion of new technologies, “moral panics” often tend to emerge, with news outlets frequently seen as catalysts. However, empirical evidence on their specific role still remains scarce. The rise of ChatGPT offers a unique chance to observe a new form of moral technology panic in real time. Using a longitudinal survey of a Dutch quota sample and computational content analysis of Dutch news coverage on ChatGPT, we examined whether both …
Field of greens
Niche parties have emerged in many democracies worldwide. Various aspects of these parties have been studied, including the role of mainstream parties in their electoral success. Key to that success, arguably, is news media attention. Is the media attention that niche parties receive affected by mainstream parties as well? In this paper, we combine news value theory with party competition theory to argue that other parties influence niche party v…
Cascades or salmons? Longitudinal upstream and downstream effects of political participation
Digitally networked and new, unconventional activities allow citizens to participate politically in activities that are low in the effort and risks they bear. At the same time, low-effort types of participation are more loosely connected to democratic political systems, thereby challenging established modes of political decision-making. This can set in motion two competing dynamics: While some citizens move closer to the political system in their…
Mutually Reinforcing or Excluding? How Compatibility Perceptions of Economy and Environment Link to Issue-Related Attitudes and Media Use
With growing discussions about the possible contribution of economic growth to increasingly severe environmental crises, scholars have called for greater attention to public opinion on the possible tradeoffs between continuous growths and protecting the environment. While ample research investigates public opinion on the environment-economy dilemma, so far, the role of the media environment has not been considered. Using a scale for perceived com…
Can Product Information Steer towards Sustainable and Healthy Food Choices? A Pilot Study in an Online Supermarket
Sustainable dietary choices have become increasingly important because of the current environmental threats the world is facing. Nonetheless, consumers find it difficult to assess a product's sustainability and therefore make better choices. This pilot study tested whether explanatory product information about sustainability increased sustainable purchases in an online supermarket and whether additional health information increased message effect…
The plight of the discredited
A smoker’s choice? Identifying the most autonomy-supportive message frame in an online computer-tailored smoking cessation intervention
OBJECTIVE: To test the effect of autonomy-supportive message framing on people's perceived autonomy-support while considering the individual need for autonomy as a moderator. Also, to test whether autonomy-supportive message frames - through increased perceived autonomy-support - lead to more self-determined motivation, and increased intention to quit smoking. DESIGN: = 626). MAIN OUTCOME: Intention to quit smoking (Theory of Planned Behaviour). …
The (Null) Effects of Happiness on Affective Polarization, Conspiracy Endorsement, and Deep Fake Recognition
Affective polarization is a key concern in America and other democracies. Although past evidence suggests some ways to minimize it, there are no easily applicable interventions that have been found to work in the increasingly polarized climate. This project examines whether irrelevant factors, or incidental happiness more specifically, have the power to reduce affective polarization (i.e., misattribution of affect or “carryover effect”). On the f…
Are would-be authoritarians right? Democratic support and citizens’ left-right self-placement in former left- and right- authoritarian countries
Conventional wisdom dictates that the more citizens lean towards either end of the ideological spectrum, the lower their support for democracy. The main model pitted against this “rigidity-of-the-extremes model” is the “rigidity-of-the-right model”. This model assumes that rightist citizens are less supportive. This study proposes and empirically demonstrates the validity of an alternative model, which we call “the authoritarian legacy model”. Th…
After All This Time? The Impact of Media and Authoritarian History on Political News Coverage in Twelve Western Countries
Historical classifications of journalistic traditions are the backbone of comparative explanations for political news coverage. This study assesses the validity of the dominant media systems framework and proposes and tests a novel framework, which states that a history of authoritarianism affects today’s coverage. To facilitate a clean cross-national comparison, we focus on the same person and measurement in 12 Western democracies, that is, the …
Killing them softly? Two complementary studies on visibility and framing of new parties in the news
Democratic systems need some degree of openness to new ideas and to new competitors. New parties depend on news media to survive. Which new parties receive news media coverage, and what kind of coverage do these parties receive? This article brings in the media into the literature of new parties. Based on two original datasets compiled for this study, the news media coverage of dozens of parties in a variety of offline and online news media sourc…
Bringing background back in
News media’s position-taking regarding the European Union
We analyse whether a newspaper’s editorial position regarding the European Union is related to its selection decisions in the news section. We ask whether such a synchronization between news and editorials exists, whether it is conditioned by the type of media system and under which conditions it also affects the selection of transnational voices. Our study is based on a quantitative content analysis of the quality press in seven European countri…
Migration threat priming and Macedonian public preferences towards executive powers
Does the perception of migration in times of crisis have implications that transcend the domain of policy support and alter systemic preferences among citizens? In an experimental study (N = 312) conducted in Macedonia, a postcommunist country on the "Balkan route", we test how perceived threat from migrants affects attitudes towards increased concentration of political authority, conceptualised as support for presidential powers (such as veto ri…
The moderating role of identification and campaign exposure in party cueing effects
In a democracy, citizens are expected to have political opinions. Previous research has shown that citizens, in part, form their opinions by following cues from political parties. Building on this literature, this article argues that these cueing effects are the result of individuals identifying with political parties, leading to parties as credible sources and alignment of attitudes to maintain in-group coherence (motivated reasoning). However, …
Waving the Red Cloth
This study extends the boundary conditions of the work on media effects on polarization by (1) examining whether exposure to news coverage about a contentious political issue polarizes attitudes, especially among the already-polarized citizens; (2) analyzing "easy" and "hard" dimensions of EU attitudes; and (3) offering causal and generalizable evidence in a non-US context. Individual-level data from a representative four-wave panel survey are ma…
What’s Islam got to do with it? Attitudes toward specific religious and national out-groups, and support for EU policies
Previous studies predicted European Union attitudes using anti-immigrant attitudes, but without explicitly accounting for attitudes toward different out-groups. We propose that group-specific attitudes independently predict attitudes toward the European Union, but only when the out-group is linked to the European Union issue in question. We additionally argue that realistic or symbolic threat associated with specific out-groups determines whether…
I Saw You in the News
This study extends the boundary conditions of mediated contact theory by (a) differentiating between mediated contact quantity and quality, (b) examining whether mediated contact exerts effects above and beyond direct contact, and (c) offering causal and generalizable evidence on the effects of exposure to numerous individual outgroup members in news media. We match individual-level data from a representative panel survey with data on the amount …
Cross Road Elections
The 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections were held after a period where public opinion about the EU changed significantly. In this paper we investigate evaluations of the performance of the European Union, as this dimension of EU attitudes is particularly relevant ahead of elections. We look at public opinion developments since 2009 and then zoom in on the role played by the news media in shaping public opinion about EU performance by linking …
Getting the Message Across
Do political actors communicate effectively during electoral campaigns? We introduce a novel concept in electoral research, the “perceived effectiveness of political parties' election campaigns.” This evaluation concentrates on the extent to which a party is seen as getting its message across to the voter. Empirical analyses using survey data and a media content analysis during the 2009 European Parliamentary elections show that the more exposed …
Explaining Campaign News Coverage
It is an open question why news media cover political campaigns the way they do. Framing elections in terms of conflict or strategy or focusing on horse-race framing and the role media and journalists themselves play in elections is commonplace, but this study investigates the factors that explain the variation in campaign news coverage. The context of our study is the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, and we use a cross-national media conte…
Focusing on Differences? Contextual Conditions and Anti-immigrant attitudes' Effects on Support for Turkey's EU Membership
A key predictor of support for Turkey’s EU membership is citizens’ attitudes toward immigrants. How anti-immigrant attitudes relate to support is not obvious and has remained unclear thus far. We argue that the presence of immigrants in a country reduces support for Turkey’s membership. Second, the stronger this presence, the stronger the effect of anti-immigrant attitudes on support. Third, the more salient immigration issues in a country, the s…
A threat called Turkey
Across time and space
News about the E uropean U nion ( EU ) looks different in different countries at different points in time. This study investigates explanations for cross‐national and over‐time variation in news media coverage of EU affairs drawing on large‐scale media content analyses of newspapers and television news in the EU ‐15 (1999), EU ‐25 (2004) and EU ‐27 (2009) in relation to European Parliament ( EP ) elections. The analyses focus in particular on exp…
When News Matters
First, this study tests for media effects on support for EU enlargement in a natural setting, while including actual media content in the analysis. Second, the moderation by anti‐immigrant attitudes of media effects is tested, as it is argued that perceptions of ‘others’ influences how new information on enlargement is received. The study draws on a two‐wave panel survey and a media content analysis in 21 countries. The results suggest there is a…
Across time and space
News about the E uropean U nion ( EU ) looks different in different countries at different points in time. This study investigates explanations for cross‐national and over‐time variation in news media coverage of EU affairs drawing on large‐scale media content analyses of newspapers and television news in the EU ‐15 (1999), EU ‐25 (2004) and EU ‐27 (2009) in relation to European Parliament ( EP ) elections. The analyses focus in particular on exp…
Talking Turkey
Recent studies have shown that the most important factor explaining opinions on European Union issues is attitudes towards immigrants. Two arguments are given to explain this effect. We contend that these arguments are both built on the idea that people with anti-immigrant attitudes frame other Europeans as an out-group. We then test the validity of these arguments by measuring how respondents in a voter survey frame the issue of Turkish membersh…
When News Matters
First, this study tests for media effects on support for EU enlargement in a natural setting, while including actual media content in the analysis. Second, the moderation by anti‐immigrant attitudes of media effects is tested, as it is argued that perceptions of ‘others’ influences how new information on enlargement is received. The study draws on a two‐wave panel survey and a media content analysis in 21 countries. The results suggest there is a…
Waving the Red Cloth
This study extends the boundary conditions of the work on media effects on polarization by (1) examining whether exposure to news coverage about a contentious political issue polarizes attitudes, especially among the already-polarized citizens; (2) analyzing "easy" and "hard" dimensions of EU attitudes; and (3) offering causal and generalizable evidence in a non-US context. Individual-level data from a representative four-wave panel survey are ma…
What’s Islam got to do with it? Attitudes toward specific religious and national out-groups, and support for EU policies
Previous studies predicted European Union attitudes using anti-immigrant attitudes, but without explicitly accounting for attitudes toward different out-groups. We propose that group-specific attitudes independently predict attitudes toward the European Union, but only when the out-group is linked to the European Union issue in question. We additionally argue that realistic or symbolic threat associated with specific out-groups determines whether…
Are would-be authoritarians right? Democratic support and citizens’ left-right self-placement in former left- and right- authoritarian countries
Conventional wisdom dictates that the more citizens lean towards either end of the ideological spectrum, the lower their support for democracy. The main model pitted against this “rigidity-of-the-extremes model” is the “rigidity-of-the-right model”. This model assumes that rightist citizens are less supportive. This study proposes and empirically demonstrates the validity of an alternative model, which we call “the authoritarian legacy model”. Th…
Explaining Campaign News Coverage
It is an open question why news media cover political campaigns the way they do. Framing elections in terms of conflict or strategy or focusing on horse-race framing and the role media and journalists themselves play in elections is commonplace, but this study investigates the factors that explain the variation in campaign news coverage. The context of our study is the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, and we use a cross-national media conte…
A threat called Turkey
News media’s position-taking regarding the European Union
We analyse whether a newspaper’s editorial position regarding the European Union is related to its selection decisions in the news section. We ask whether such a synchronization between news and editorials exists, whether it is conditioned by the type of media system and under which conditions it also affects the selection of transnational voices. Our study is based on a quantitative content analysis of the quality press in seven European countri…
Focusing on Differences? Contextual Conditions and Anti-immigrant attitudes' Effects on Support for Turkey's EU Membership
A key predictor of support for Turkey’s EU membership is citizens’ attitudes toward immigrants. How anti-immigrant attitudes relate to support is not obvious and has remained unclear thus far. We argue that the presence of immigrants in a country reduces support for Turkey’s membership. Second, the stronger this presence, the stronger the effect of anti-immigrant attitudes on support. Third, the more salient immigration issues in a country, the s…
The moderating role of identification and campaign exposure in party cueing effects
In a democracy, citizens are expected to have political opinions. Previous research has shown that citizens, in part, form their opinions by following cues from political parties. Building on this literature, this article argues that these cueing effects are the result of individuals identifying with political parties, leading to parties as credible sources and alignment of attitudes to maintain in-group coherence (motivated reasoning). However, …
The (Null) Effects of Happiness on Affective Polarization, Conspiracy Endorsement, and Deep Fake Recognition
Affective polarization is a key concern in America and other democracies. Although past evidence suggests some ways to minimize it, there are no easily applicable interventions that have been found to work in the increasingly polarized climate. This project examines whether irrelevant factors, or incidental happiness more specifically, have the power to reduce affective polarization (i.e., misattribution of affect or “carryover effect”). On the f…
Cross Road Elections
The 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections were held after a period where public opinion about the EU changed significantly. In this paper we investigate evaluations of the performance of the European Union, as this dimension of EU attitudes is particularly relevant ahead of elections. We look at public opinion developments since 2009 and then zoom in on the role played by the news media in shaping public opinion about EU performance by linking …
Killing them softly? Two complementary studies on visibility and framing of new parties in the news
Democratic systems need some degree of openness to new ideas and to new competitors. New parties depend on news media to survive. Which new parties receive news media coverage, and what kind of coverage do these parties receive? This article brings in the media into the literature of new parties. Based on two original datasets compiled for this study, the news media coverage of dozens of parties in a variety of offline and online news media sourc…
The plight of the discredited
Bringing background back in
Migration threat priming and Macedonian public preferences towards executive powers
Does the perception of migration in times of crisis have implications that transcend the domain of policy support and alter systemic preferences among citizens? In an experimental study (N = 312) conducted in Macedonia, a postcommunist country on the "Balkan route", we test how perceived threat from migrants affects attitudes towards increased concentration of political authority, conceptualised as support for presidential powers (such as veto ri…
Getting the Message Across
Do political actors communicate effectively during electoral campaigns? We introduce a novel concept in electoral research, the “perceived effectiveness of political parties' election campaigns.” This evaluation concentrates on the extent to which a party is seen as getting its message across to the voter. Empirical analyses using survey data and a media content analysis during the 2009 European Parliamentary elections show that the more exposed …
Talking Turkey
Recent studies have shown that the most important factor explaining opinions on European Union issues is attitudes towards immigrants. Two arguments are given to explain this effect. We contend that these arguments are both built on the idea that people with anti-immigrant attitudes frame other Europeans as an out-group. We then test the validity of these arguments by measuring how respondents in a voter survey frame the issue of Turkish membersh…
When News Matters
First, this study tests for media effects on support for EU enlargement in a natural setting, while including actual media content in the analysis. Second, the moderation by anti‐immigrant attitudes of media effects is tested, as it is argued that perceptions of ‘others’ influences how new information on enlargement is received. The study draws on a two‐wave panel survey and a media content analysis in 21 countries. The results suggest there is a…
Getting the Message Across
Do political actors communicate effectively during electoral campaigns? We introduce a novel concept in electoral research, the “perceived effectiveness of political parties' election campaigns.” This evaluation concentrates on the extent to which a party is seen as getting its message across to the voter. Empirical analyses using survey data and a media content analysis during the 2009 European Parliamentary elections show that the more exposed …
Explaining Campaign News Coverage
It is an open question why news media cover political campaigns the way they do. Framing elections in terms of conflict or strategy or focusing on horse-race framing and the role media and journalists themselves play in elections is commonplace, but this study investigates the factors that explain the variation in campaign news coverage. The context of our study is the 2009 European Parliamentary elections, and we use a cross-national media conte…
Focusing on Differences? Contextual Conditions and Anti-immigrant attitudes' Effects on Support for Turkey's EU Membership
A key predictor of support for Turkey’s EU membership is citizens’ attitudes toward immigrants. How anti-immigrant attitudes relate to support is not obvious and has remained unclear thus far. We argue that the presence of immigrants in a country reduces support for Turkey’s membership. Second, the stronger this presence, the stronger the effect of anti-immigrant attitudes on support. Third, the more salient immigration issues in a country, the s…
A threat called Turkey
Across time and space
News about the E uropean U nion ( EU ) looks different in different countries at different points in time. This study investigates explanations for cross‐national and over‐time variation in news media coverage of EU affairs drawing on large‐scale media content analyses of newspapers and television news in the EU ‐15 (1999), EU ‐25 (2004) and EU ‐27 (2009) in relation to European Parliament ( EP ) elections. The analyses focus in particular on exp…
I Saw You in the News
This study extends the boundary conditions of mediated contact theory by (a) differentiating between mediated contact quantity and quality, (b) examining whether mediated contact exerts effects above and beyond direct contact, and (c) offering causal and generalizable evidence on the effects of exposure to numerous individual outgroup members in news media. We match individual-level data from a representative panel survey with data on the amount …
Cross Road Elections
The 2014 European Parliament (EP) elections were held after a period where public opinion about the EU changed significantly. In this paper we investigate evaluations of the performance of the European Union, as this dimension of EU attitudes is particularly relevant ahead of elections. We look at public opinion developments since 2009 and then zoom in on the role played by the news media in shaping public opinion about EU performance by linking …
What’s Islam got to do with it? Attitudes toward specific religious and national out-groups, and support for EU policies
Previous studies predicted European Union attitudes using anti-immigrant attitudes, but without explicitly accounting for attitudes toward different out-groups. We propose that group-specific attitudes independently predict attitudes toward the European Union, but only when the out-group is linked to the European Union issue in question. We additionally argue that realistic or symbolic threat associated with specific out-groups determines whether…
The moderating role of identification and campaign exposure in party cueing effects
In a democracy, citizens are expected to have political opinions. Previous research has shown that citizens, in part, form their opinions by following cues from political parties. Building on this literature, this article argues that these cueing effects are the result of individuals identifying with political parties, leading to parties as credible sources and alignment of attitudes to maintain in-group coherence (motivated reasoning). However, …
Waving the Red Cloth
This study extends the boundary conditions of the work on media effects on polarization by (1) examining whether exposure to news coverage about a contentious political issue polarizes attitudes, especially among the already-polarized citizens; (2) analyzing "easy" and "hard" dimensions of EU attitudes; and (3) offering causal and generalizable evidence in a non-US context. Individual-level data from a representative four-wave panel survey are ma…
Bringing background back in
News media’s position-taking regarding the European Union
We analyse whether a newspaper’s editorial position regarding the European Union is related to its selection decisions in the news section. We ask whether such a synchronization between news and editorials exists, whether it is conditioned by the type of media system and under which conditions it also affects the selection of transnational voices. Our study is based on a quantitative content analysis of the quality press in seven European countri…
Migration threat priming and Macedonian public preferences towards executive powers
Does the perception of migration in times of crisis have implications that transcend the domain of policy support and alter systemic preferences among citizens? In an experimental study (N = 312) conducted in Macedonia, a postcommunist country on the "Balkan route", we test how perceived threat from migrants affects attitudes towards increased concentration of political authority, conceptualised as support for presidential powers (such as veto ri…
After All This Time? The Impact of Media and Authoritarian History on Political News Coverage in Twelve Western Countries
Historical classifications of journalistic traditions are the backbone of comparative explanations for political news coverage. This study assesses the validity of the dominant media systems framework and proposes and tests a novel framework, which states that a history of authoritarianism affects today’s coverage. To facilitate a clean cross-national comparison, we focus on the same person and measurement in 12 Western democracies, that is, the …
Killing them softly? Two complementary studies on visibility and framing of new parties in the news
Democratic systems need some degree of openness to new ideas and to new competitors. New parties depend on news media to survive. Which new parties receive news media coverage, and what kind of coverage do these parties receive? This article brings in the media into the literature of new parties. Based on two original datasets compiled for this study, the news media coverage of dozens of parties in a variety of offline and online news media sourc…
A smoker’s choice? Identifying the most autonomy-supportive message frame in an online computer-tailored smoking cessation intervention
OBJECTIVE: To test the effect of autonomy-supportive message framing on people's perceived autonomy-support while considering the individual need for autonomy as a moderator. Also, to test whether autonomy-supportive message frames - through increased perceived autonomy-support - lead to more self-determined motivation, and increased intention to quit smoking. DESIGN: = 626). MAIN OUTCOME: Intention to quit smoking (Theory of Planned Behaviour). …
The (Null) Effects of Happiness on Affective Polarization, Conspiracy Endorsement, and Deep Fake Recognition
Affective polarization is a key concern in America and other democracies. Although past evidence suggests some ways to minimize it, there are no easily applicable interventions that have been found to work in the increasingly polarized climate. This project examines whether irrelevant factors, or incidental happiness more specifically, have the power to reduce affective polarization (i.e., misattribution of affect or “carryover effect”). On the f…
Are would-be authoritarians right? Democratic support and citizens’ left-right self-placement in former left- and right- authoritarian countries
Conventional wisdom dictates that the more citizens lean towards either end of the ideological spectrum, the lower their support for democracy. The main model pitted against this “rigidity-of-the-extremes model” is the “rigidity-of-the-right model”. This model assumes that rightist citizens are less supportive. This study proposes and empirically demonstrates the validity of an alternative model, which we call “the authoritarian legacy model”. Th…
Can Product Information Steer towards Sustainable and Healthy Food Choices? A Pilot Study in an Online Supermarket
Sustainable dietary choices have become increasingly important because of the current environmental threats the world is facing. Nonetheless, consumers find it difficult to assess a product's sustainability and therefore make better choices. This pilot study tested whether explanatory product information about sustainability increased sustainable purchases in an online supermarket and whether additional health information increased message effect…
The plight of the discredited
The next media-fueled moral technology panic? News media’s and audience’s views on ChatGPT
With the diffusion of new technologies, “moral panics” often tend to emerge, with news outlets frequently seen as catalysts. However, empirical evidence on their specific role still remains scarce. The rise of ChatGPT offers a unique chance to observe a new form of moral technology panic in real time. Using a longitudinal survey of a Dutch quota sample and computational content analysis of Dutch news coverage on ChatGPT, we examined whether both …
Field of greens
Niche parties have emerged in many democracies worldwide. Various aspects of these parties have been studied, including the role of mainstream parties in their electoral success. Key to that success, arguably, is news media attention. Is the media attention that niche parties receive affected by mainstream parties as well? In this paper, we combine news value theory with party competition theory to argue that other parties influence niche party v…
Cascades or salmons? Longitudinal upstream and downstream effects of political participation
Digitally networked and new, unconventional activities allow citizens to participate politically in activities that are low in the effort and risks they bear. At the same time, low-effort types of participation are more loosely connected to democratic political systems, thereby challenging established modes of political decision-making. This can set in motion two competing dynamics: While some citizens move closer to the political system in their…
Political science (22 works) · Politics (18 works) · Law (17 works) · Law (15 works) · Psychology (15 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Social Media and Politics (11 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Social Psychology (10 works) · Economics (9 works)