ABSTRACT

Subjective claims about what the public thinks are the most common public opinion cue in the news media and are used especially by populist politicians as a communication strategy to appeal to voters. These references are not based on polling data and may even be in contrast to them. Yet, there is little research on how effective this communication strategy actually is. In the present study, we looked at the effects of politicians’ subjective claims to public opinion on the evaluation of the politicians and on people’s perception of public opinion. In addition, we tested whether this communication strategy resonates especially well with people holding populist attitudes. In a 2 × 4 experiment, we were able to show that the use of subjective claims strongly shaped public opinion perceptions but did not necessarily improve the evaluation of the politician. The effects occurred regardless of people’s populist attitudes.

摘要

关于公众认为什么的主观主张是新闻媒体中最常见的舆论线索，尤其是民粹政客将其用作一种吸引选民的传播策略。这些参考不是基于轮询数据，甚至可能与之相反。然而，关于这种交流策略实际上有多有效的研究很少。在本研究中，我们研究了政客对民意的主观主张对政客的评价和人们对民意的感知的影响。此外，我们测试了这种沟通策略是否能特别引起人们对民粹主义态度的共鸣。在2×4实验中，我们能够证明，主观主张的使用强烈塑造了舆论观念，但并不一定能改善对政治家的评价。无论人们的民粹态度如何，都会产生这种影响。