Polarizing Patriots
Divergent Responses to Patriotic Imagery in News Coverage of Terrorism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4929031 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christopher Gelpi (0000-0002-1463-9011, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA), Laura Roselle (0000-0003-3545-2253, Elon University, Elon, NC, USA), Brooke Barnett (Elon University, Elon, NC, USA) |
| Year | 2013 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 8-45 |
| Publication date | 2013-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Behavioral Scientist (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-7642 • E-ISSN: 1552-3381 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0002764212463358 |
| OpenAlex | W2057298964 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 38 |
We demonstrate that the use of patriotic imagery in news reporting may increase rather than decrease public polarization regarding foreign policy issues. Specifically, we examine the impact of patriotic imagery in the context of an online news story about terrorism on individuals' attitudes toward civil liberties in the "war on terror" and spillover effects on support for the war in Afghanistan. We expect that images of the American flag will be associated with differing clusters of values depending on the level of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) that an individual's personality exhibits. Specifically, we expect that flag imagery will decrease support for civil liberties and increase support for the war in Afghanistan among individuals who are high in RWA. But we expect flag exposure to have the opposite effect among those who are low in RWA. Finally, we expect patriotic imagery cues will influence only individuals who are not a part of the terrorism "issue public." We test these hypotheses with an experiment that presents participants with a single news story on the Times Square bomber. The experiment frames the news story as coming from Fox News, CNN, or MSNBC and varies the presence or absence of patriotic flag imagery in the pictures accompanying the news story. The results provide strong support for our expectations regarding the contingent impact of patriotic imagery as well as our expectations regarding the spillover effects of news coverage on terrorism on attitudes toward Afghanistan
Authoritarianism · Civil liberties · Context (archaeology) · Democracy · Economics · Polarization (electrochemistry) · Political science · Politics · Spanish Civil War · Spillover effect · Terrorism · History · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Media and Politics · Social Psychology
Assessing mediators between discrimination, health behaviours and physical health outcomes
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Migrants, Caravans, and the Impact of News Photos on Immigration Attitudes
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Conditional impact of facebook as an information source on political opinions
Beyond Polarization
Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification
Paying the Human Costs of War
Effects of Right‐Wing Authoritarianism and Threat from Terrorism on Restriction of Civil Liberties
On the Eve of War
Running experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk
Amazon's Mechanical Turk
U.S. National Identity, Political Elites, and a Patriotic Press Following September 11
Chasing the Bad News
The Fox News Effect
The Authoritarian Dynamic
Framing as a Theory of Media Effects
Remembering Our Shared Past
The role of attitude importance in social evaluation
Attitude importance and attitude change
The Contingency of the Mass Media's Political Agenda Setting Power
Issue Importance as a Moderator of Framing Effects
Liberty and Justice for All? Implications of Exposure to the U.S. Flag for Intergroup Relations
Perceived Threat and Authoritarianism
Effects of Dangerous and Competitive Worldviews on Right‐Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation over a Five‐Month Period
Sowing Patriotism, But Reaping Nationalism? Consequences of Exposure to the American Flag
On the Varieties of National Attachment
Attachment to the Nation and International Relations
Government policy and citizen passion
Shaping Public Opinion
Attitude Importance and the Accumulation of Attitude-Relevant Knowledge in Memory
American = White
Framing
Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation
Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War
Sex, Lies, and War
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,64 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2025 (11) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |