How Emotional Displays of Political Leaders Shape Citizen Attitudes: The Case of German Chancellor Angela Merkel

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 158-179
Author(s):  
Lena Masch ◽  
Oscar W. Gabriel
Keyword(s):  
Political Leaders ◽  
Emotional Displays ◽  
Citizen Attitudes ◽  
Angela Merkel

Politicians' Expressions of Anger and Leadership Evaluations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lena Masch
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Party Leader ◽  
Heinrich Heine ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
System P ◽  
The Social ◽  
Angela Merkel ◽  
Emotional Behaviour ◽  
The Impact

This book explores the impact of politicians’ expressions of anger on viewers. Electoral candidates may alter their emotional behaviour strategically during election campaigns as a means of gaining voters’ support. Hence, this study investigates empirically how expressions of anger affect leadership evaluations. An experiment was conducted to establish the impact of politicians’ expressions of emotions on viewers. This study focuses on politicians as a social group, as well as three politicians in particular: Chancellor Angela Merkel; Gregor Gysi, the former parliamentary leader of the Left; and Sigmar Gabriel, the former party leader of the Social Democrats. These three case studies are well-suited to testing the effects of expressions of emotion by political leaders with varying positions in the political system. Lena Masch is a lecturer at the Institute of Social Sciences at the Heinrich-Heine-Universität in Düsseldorf.

scholarly journals Quem cuida das crianças? A representação das mulheres do alto escalão político pelos media

Compolítica ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christina Holtz-Bacha
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Women Politicians ◽  
Media Representation ◽  
Public Image ◽  
The Political ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Angela Merkel ◽  
The Media

Abstract: The essay reflects on the media representation commonly associates with women politicians. Starting with a critique of media coverage about some political leaders in several countries, such as Angela Merkel, Michelle Bachelet, Ségolène Royal, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and Hillary Clinton, the paper discusses the phenomenon of the double bind to which women are subjected in politics: if a woman presents herself as being cool, calculating and aggressive as it is expected in the political business she risks to be rejected as a virago. If she recommends herself with allegedly female traits, she will be regarded as not being viable for the serious challenges of the political business. There is no easy formula for how women should represent themselves. Since there are only few opportunities for direct contact between politicians and the electorate, it is necessary to deal with public image reported by media.Key-words: Political Communication; Election ; Gender; Representation.Resumo: O ensaio reflete sobre as representações mediáticas comumente associadas às mulheres na política. A partir da crítica à cobertura midiática sobre algumas líderes políticas em diversos países, a exemplo de Angela Merkel, Michelle Bachelet, Ségolène Royal, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner e Hillary Clinton, o trabalho discute o fenômeno do duplo vínculo ao qual as mulheres estão submetidas na política: elas estão em situação desfavorável na competição política quando assumem uma postura fria, calculada ou agressiva e lidam com hard issues, mas também quando se dedicam a questões tradicionalmente vistas como femininas, soft issues, que as caracterizam como inviáveis para a administração pública. Não há formula a ser reproduzida, e, uma vez que há poucas oportunidades para um contato direto entre políticos e eleitores, há que se lidar com a construção da imagem pública produzida pelos media.Palavras-chave: Comunicação Política; Eleições; Gênero; Representação.

scholarly journals Gender, Candidate Emotional Expression, and Voter Reactions During Televised Debates

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
CONSTANTINE BOUSSALIS ◽  
TRAVIS G. COAN ◽  
MIRYA R. HOLMAN ◽  
STEFAN MÜLLER
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Expression ◽  
Role Congruity ◽  
Emotional Displays ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Facial Displays ◽  
Vocal Pitch ◽  
Candidate Characteristics ◽  
Angela Merkel ◽  
Continuous Responses ◽  
A Minor

Voters evaluate politicians not just by what they say, but also how they say it, via facial displays of emotions and vocal pitch. Candidate characteristics can shape how leaders use—and how voters react to—nonverbal cues. Drawing on role congruity expectations, we study how the use of and reactions to facial, vocal, and textual communication in political debates varies by candidate gender. Relying on full-length videos of four German federal election debates (2005–2017) and a minor party debate, we use video, audio, and text data to measure candidate facial displays of emotion, vocal pitch, and speech sentiment. Consistent with our expectations, Angela Merkel expresses less anger than her male opponents, but she is just as emotive in other respects. Combining these measures of emotional expression with continuous responses recorded by live audiences, we find that voters punish Merkel for anger displays and reward her happiness and general emotional displays.

scholarly journals Gender, Candidate Emotional Expression, and Voter Reactions During Televised Debates

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constantine Boussalis ◽  
Travis Coan ◽  
Mirya Holman ◽  
Stefan Müller
Keyword(s):  
National Elections ◽  
Role Congruity ◽  
Emotional Displays ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Facial Displays ◽  
Vocal Pitch ◽  
Candidate Characteristics ◽  
Angela Merkel ◽  
Continuous Responses ◽  
A Minor

Voters evaluate politicians not just by what they say, but also how they say it, via facial displays of emotions and vocal pitch. Candidate characteristics can shape how leaders use – and how voters react to – nonverbal cues. Drawing on role congruity expectations, we focus on how gender shapes the use of and reactions to facial, voice, and textual communication in political debates. Using full-length debate videos from four German national elections (2005–2017) and a minor debate in 2017, we employ computer vision, machine learning, and text analysis to extract facial displays of emotion, vocal pitch, and speech sentiment. Consistent with our expectations, Angela Merkel expresses less anger and is less emotive than her male opponents. We combine second-by-second candidate emotions data with continuous responses recorded by live audiences. We find that voters punish Merkel for anger displays and reward her happiness and general emotional displays.

So happy (and sad) together: Contagious emotional displays and descriptive emotion norms impact the maintenance of affect

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Anne Aguilar ◽  
Caroline Robles ◽  
Jordan Zuber ◽  
James Hin ◽  
Micah Millard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Displays

Europe’s Migration Crisis: An American Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 307-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip L. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
American Perspective ◽  
The Us ◽  
Angela Merkel ◽  
Migration Crisis

The European Union’s 28 member nations received over 1.2 million asylum seekers in 2015, including 1.1 million in Germany[1] and over 150,000 in Sweden. The US, by comparison, has been receiving 75,000 asylum applications a year. One reason for the upsurge in asylum applicants is that German Chancellor Angela Merkel in August 2015 announced that Syrians could apply for asylum in Germany even if they passed through safe countries en route. The challenges of integrating asylum seekers are becoming clearer, prompting talk of reducing the influx, reforming EU institutions, and integrating migrants.[1] Some 1.1 million foreigners were registered in Germany’s EASY system in 2015, but only 476,500 were able to complete asylum applications because of backlogs in asylum offices.

Democratic Legitimacy

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Rosanvallon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
International Debate ◽  
The Past ◽  
Democratic Authority ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
Western Democracies

It's a commonplace occurrence that citizens in Western democracies are disaffected with their political leaders and traditional democratic institutions. But this book argues that this crisis of confidence is partly a crisis of understanding. The book makes the case that the sources of democratic legitimacy have shifted and multiplied over the past thirty years and that we need to comprehend and make better use of these new sources of legitimacy in order to strengthen our political self-belief and commitment to democracy. Drawing on examples from France and the United States, the book notes that there has been a major expansion of independent commissions, NGOs, regulatory authorities, and watchdogs in recent decades. At the same time, constitutional courts have become more willing and able to challenge legislatures. These institutional developments, which serve the democratic values of impartiality and reflexivity, have been accompanied by a new attentiveness to what the book calls the value of proximity, as governing structures have sought to find new spaces for minorities, the particular, and the local. To improve our democracies, we need to use these new sources of legitimacy more effectively and we need to incorporate them into our accounts of democratic government. This book is an original contribution to the vigorous international debate about democratic authority and legitimacy.

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