Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-c4bhq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-15T08:24:04.593Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The New Videomalaise: Effects of Televised Incivility on Political Trust

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2005

DIANA C. MUTZ  and
BYRON REEVES
DIANA C. MUTZ
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
BYRON REEVES
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Does incivility in political discourse have adverse effects on public regard for politics? If so, why? In this study we present a theory suggesting that when viewers are exposed to televised political disagreement, it often violates well-established face-to-face social norms for the polite expression of opposing views. As a result, incivility in public discourse adversely affects trust in government. Drawing on three laboratory experiments, we find that televised presentations of political differences of opinion do not, in and of themselves, harm attitudes toward politics and politicians. However, political trust is adversely affected by levels of incivility in these exchanges. Our findings suggest that the format of much political television effectively promotes viewer interest, but at the expense of political trust.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 99 , Issue 1 , February 2005 , pp. 1 - 15
Copyright
© 2005 by the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Aiello John R. 1987. “Human Spatial Behavior.” In Handbook of Environmental Psychology, Vol. 1, ed. Irwin Altman and Daniel Stokols. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 389– 504.
Altschuler Glenn C., and Stuart M. Blumin. 2000. Rude Republic: Americans and Their Politics in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Barber Benjamin. 1983. The Logic and Limits of Trust. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Bradley Margaret. 2000. “Emotion and Motivation.” In Handbook of Psychophysiology, ed. John Cacioppo, Louis Tassinary, and Gary Berntson. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 602– 42.
Brown Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Cappella Joseph N., and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. 1997. Spiral of Cynicism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Citrin Jack, and Christopher Muste. 1999. “Trust in Government.” In Measure of Political Attitudes, ed. John P. Robinson, Phillip R. Shaver, and Lawrence S. Wrightsman. New York: Academic Press, 465– 532.
Dawson Michael E., Anne M. Schell, and Diane L. Filion. 2000. “The Electrodermal System.” In Handbook of Psychophysiology, 2nd ed., ed. John T. Cacioppo, Louis G. Tassinary, and Gary G. Berntson. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Druckman James. 2003. “The Power of Television Images: The First Kennedy–Nixon Debate Revisited.” Journal of Politics 65 (May): 559– 71.Google Scholar
Druckman James, and Kjersten R. Nelson. 2003. “Framing and Deliberation: How Citizens' Conversations Limit Elite Influence.” American Journal of Political Science 47: 729– 45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durr Robert H., John B. Gilmour, and Christina Wolbrecht. 1997. “Explaining Congressional Approval.” American Journal of Political Science 41 (January): 175– 207.Google Scholar
Elving Ronald D. 1994. “Brighter Lights, Wider Windows: Presenting Congress in the 1990s.” In Congress, the Press, and the Public, ed. Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute and The Brookings Institution.
Fallows James. 1996. Breaking the News: How the Media Undermine American Democracy. New York: Pantheon.
Funk Carolyn L. 2001. “Process Performance: Public Reaction to Legislative Policy Debate.” In What Is It About Government That Americans Dislike? ed. John R. Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Goldstein Susan. 1999. “Construction and Validation of a Conflict Communication Scale.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 29 (September): 1803– 32.Google Scholar
Gould Jack. [1952] 1972. “The X of the Campaign: TV Personality.” New York Times Magazine, June 22. In The Mass Media and Politics, ed. James F. Fixx. New York: Arno Press.
Hart Roderick P. 1994. Seducing America: How Television Charms the Modern Voter. New York: Oxford.
Hetherington Marc J. 1998. “The Political Relevance of Political Trust.” American Political Science Review 92 (December): 791– 808.Google Scholar
Hetherington Marc J. 1999. “The Effect of Political Trust on the Presidential Vote, 1968–96.” American Political Science Review 93 (June): 311– 26.Google Scholar
Hibbing John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 1995. Congress as Public Enemy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hibbing John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 1998. “The Media's Role in Public Negativity Toward Congress: Distinguishing Emotional Reactions and Cognitive Evaluations.” American Journal of Political Science 42 (April): 475– 98.Google Scholar
Hibbing John R., and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse. 2002. Stealth Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Holtz-Bacha Christina. 1990. “Videomalaise Revisited: Media Exposure and Political Alienation in West Germany.” European Journal of Communication 5 (March): 73– 85.Google Scholar
Keeter Scott. 1987. “The Illusion of Intimacy: Television and the Role of Candidate Personal Qualities in Voter Choice.” Public Opinion Quarterly 51 (Autumn): 344– 58.Google Scholar
Kennedy Randall. 1998. “The Case Against Civility.” The American Prospect 9 (November): 84.Google Scholar
Kingwell Mark. 1995. A Civil Tongue: Justice, Dialogue and the Politics of Pluralism. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Lang Annie. 2000. “The Limited Capacity Model of Mediated Message Processing.” Journal of Communication 50 (March): 46– 70.Google Scholar
Lippmann Walter. 1925. The Phantom Public. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
Lombard Matthew. 1995. “Direct Responses to People on the Screen: Television and Personal Space.” Communication Research 22 (June): 288– 324.Google Scholar
Lombard Matthew, Robert D. Reich, Maria E. Grabe, Cheryl C. Bracken, and Theresa B. Ditton. 2000. “Presence and Television: The Role of Screen Size.” Human Communication Research 26 (January): 75– 98.Google Scholar
Mansbridge Jane J. 1983. Beyond Adversary Democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Marcus George E., W. Russell Neuman, and Michael MacKuen. 2000. Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McGraw Kathleen, Elaine Willey, and William Anderson. 1999. “It's the Process Stupid!? Procedural Considerations in Evaluations of Congress.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago.
McHugo G. J., J. T. Lanzetta, D. G. Sullivan, R. D. Masters, and B. G. Englis 1985. “Emotional Reactions to a Political Leader's Expressive Displays.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 49 (December): 1513– 29.Google Scholar
Miller Arthur H., Edie N. Goldenberg, and Lutz Erbring. 1979. “Typeset Politics: Impact of Newspapers on Public Confidence.” American Political Science Review 73 (March): 67– 84.Google Scholar
O'Reilly Bill. 2001. The No-Spin Zone: Confrontations with the Powerful and Famous in America. New York: Broadway.
Patterson Thomas E. 1993. Out of Order. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Price Vincent, and John Zaller. 1993. “Who Gets the News? Alternative Measures of News Reception and Their Implications for Research.” Public Opinion Quarterly 57 (Summer): 133– 64.Google Scholar
Ranney Austin. 1983. Channels of Power: The Impact of Television on American Politics. New York: Basic Books.
Reeves Byron and Clifford Nass. 1996. The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers,Television and New Media Like Real People and Places. New York: Cambridge University Press. Reeves Byron, Annie Lang, Eun-Young Kim, and Deborah Tatar. 1999. “The Effects of Screen Size and Message Content on Arousal and Attention.” Media Psychology 1: 49–67.
Robinson Michael J. 1975. “American Political Legitimacy in an Era of Electronic Journalism: Reflections on the Evening News.” In Television as a Social Force: New Approaches to TV Criticism, ed. Douglass Cater and Richard Adler. New York: Praeger.
Robinson Michael J., and Kevin R. Appel. 1979. “Network News Coverage of Congress.” Political Science Quarterly 94 (Autumn): 407– 18.Google Scholar
Rodin Judith. 1996. “An Urgent Task.” Keynote Address: Penn National Commission on Society, Culture and Community. December 9. http://www.upenn.edu/pnc/pubkeynote.htm.
Sapiro Virginia. 1999. “Considering Political Civility Historically: A Case Study of the United States.” Presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Political Psychology, Amsterdam.
Schiffenbauer Allen, and R. Steven Schiavo. 1976. “Physical Distance and Attraction: An Intensification Effect.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 12 (May): 274– 82.Google Scholar
Sigelman Lee, and David Bullock. 1991. “Candidates, Issues, Horse Races and Hoopla: Presidential Campaign Coverage, 1888–1988.” American Politics Quarterly 19 (January): 5– 32.Google Scholar
Storms M. D., and G. C. Thomas. 1977. “Reactions to Physical Closeness.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35: 412– 28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sullivan Denis G., and Roger D. Masters. 1987. “‘Gut Reactions’ and the Political Effects of the Media.” PS: Political Science and Politics 20 (December): 880– 89.Google Scholar
Tannen Deborah. 1998. The Argument Culture. New York: Random House.
Tyler Tom R. 1990. Why People Obey the Law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Uslaner Eric M. 1993. The Decline of Comity in Congress. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.