The Effects of Anti-Immigrant Right-Wing Populist Ads on Implicit and Explicit Attitudes: A Moderated Mediation Model

Across Europe, the use of negative portrayals of immigrants in populist political advertising has dramatically increased. An experimental study tested the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions for the effects of such ads on explicit and implicit attitudes toward foreigners. Findings revealed...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCommunication research Vol. 44; no. 4; pp. 556 - 581
Main Authors Matthes, Jörg, Schmuck, Desirée
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.06.2017
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Anxiety
Asian people
Attitudes
Boundary conditions
Communication research
Effects
Immigrants
Noncitizens
Political advertising
Political communication
Populism
Stereotypes
Studies
political advertising
right-wing populism
IAT
implicit attitudes
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Summary:Across Europe, the use of negative portrayals of immigrants in populist political advertising has dramatically increased. An experimental study tested the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions for the effects of such ads on explicit and implicit attitudes toward foreigners. Findings revealed that populist ads strengthened intergroup anxiety and negative stereotypes for voters with lower educational degrees. This, in turn, led to more negative explicit attitudes. However, we observed stronger effects of populist ads on implicit attitudes for individuals with higher educational degrees. The necessity of including explicit as well as implicit measures in political communication research is discussed.
ISSN:0093-6502
1552-3810
DOI:10.1177/0093650215577859