Alina Malin
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Erin Cikanek
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Political Science / LSA
Program: UROP
Session: Session 2 (10:00am – 10:50am)
Authors:
Abstract
Our emotions help drive political decisions; who citizens vote for, campaign contributions, even who citizens will interact with regarding politics. But how do the emotions citizens receive impact perceptions of the government? Specifically, how does American broadcast news affect our emotions and our trust in the government? A large portion of American citizens heavily rely on news to learn political information and better understand what is happening in American politics. In this study, I will examine the effect of emotion from differing partisan news sources on governmental trust, focusing on both trust in political parties and trust in branches of government. For example, does a Democrat perceiving anger coming from a Republican news source begin to trust the Democrats more, trust Republicans less, or perhaps both? This research uses an experimental design, to examine partisan and government trust after being treated with either angry or anxious partisan news. I predict that both the emotion and whether or not a respondent is treated with in-partisan or out-partisan news is critical for governmental trust.
