scholarly journals Quarenteners vs. Cloroquiners: a framework to analyze the effect of political polarization on social distance stances

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Régis Ebeling ◽  
Carlos Córdova Sáenz ◽  
Jeferson Campos Nobre ◽  
Karin Becker
Keyword(s):  
Social Distance ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Psychological Aspects ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing

The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has struck people’s lives overnight. With an alarming contagious rate and no effective treatments or vaccines, it has evoked all sorts of reactions. In this paper, we propose a framework to analyze how political polarization affects groups’ behavior with opposed stances, using the Brazilian COVID polarized scenario as a case study. Two Twitter groups represent the pro/against social isolation stances referred to as Chloroquiners and Quarenteners. The framework encompasses: a) techniques to automatically infer from users political orientation, b) topic modeling to discover the homogeneity of concerns expressed by each group; c) network analysis and community detection to characterize their behavior as a social network group and d) analysis of linguistic characteristics to identify psychological aspects. Our main findings confirm that Cloroquiners are right-wing partisans, whereas Quarenteners are more related to the left-wing. The political polarization of Chloroquiners and Quarenteners influence the arguments of economy and life, and support/opposition to the president. As a group, the network of Chloroquiners is more closed and connected, and Quarenteners have a more diverse political engagement. In terms of psychological aspects, polarized groups come together on cognitive issues and negative emotions.

scholarly journals The effect of political polarization on social distance stances in the Brazilian COVID-19 scenario

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Régis Ebeling ◽  
Carlos Abel Córdova Sáenz ◽  
Jeferson Nobre ◽  
Karin Becker
Keyword(s):  
Topic Modeling ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Psychological Aspects ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Multiple Dimensions ◽  
Modeling Techniques

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the routine and concerns of people around the world since 2020. The alarming contagious rate and the lack of treatment or vaccine evoked different reactions to controlling and mitigating the virus's contagious. In this paper, we developed a case study on the Brazilian COVID scenario, investigating the influence of the political polarization in the pro/against stances of social isolation, represented in Twitter by two groups referred to as the Cloroquiners and Quarenteners. We analyzed these groups according to multiple dimensions: a) concerns expressed by each group and main arguments representing each stance; b) techniques to automatically infer from users political orientation, c) network analysis and community detection to characterize their behavior as a social network group and d) analysis of linguistic characteristics to identify psychological aspects. We propose combining two topic modeling techniques, LDA and BERTopics, to understand each stance's concerns in different granularity levels. Our main findings confirm that Cloroquiners are right-wing partisans, whereas Quarenteners are more related to the left-wing. Cloroquiners and Quarenteners' political polarization influences the arguments of economy and life and a stronger support/opposition to the president. As a group, the network of Cloroquiners is more closed and connected, and Quarenteners have a more diverse political engagement with a community of users polarized only with left-wing politicians and his supporters. In terms of psychological aspects, polarized groups come together on cognitive issues and negative emotions.

scholarly journals What Makes Diets Political? Moral Foundations and the Left-Wing-Vegan Connection

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-52
Author(s):  
Thomas Grünhage ◽  
Martin Reuter
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Meat Consumption ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Meat Eating

AbstractThough meat-consumption is known to be a key factor in environmental damage, veganism and vegetarianism are still perceived to be left-wing-phenomena, ironically not penetrating to those who hold ideologies of conservation. Logical contradictions and historical counter-examples cast doubt on a substantive connection between political orientation and meat-eating. Instead, common psychological factors may predispose people toward both: left vs. right-wing political orientation and self-restrictive vs. omnivore eating preferences. Moral foundations have been shown to explain why even seemingly contradictory issue stances are brought forward in the context of the same ideological or political orientation. Here, we expand on these findings by showing the moral foundations to connect political orientation and vegan and vegetarian eating preferences as well as specific strategies of meat-eating justification in a large German sample. Specifically, the binding foundations authority and purity as well as avoidance tendencies are shown to differentially interact with meat-eating across the political spectrum with stronger effects for left-wing adherents and centrists than for the right-wing. Mediation analyses reveal that substantive parts of the association between political orientation and self-restriction in eating are attributable to differences in the moral makeup of left- and right-wing adherents. Connecting our results to prior work on the explanatory power of moral foundations for the political polarization of environmentalism, we discuss how our results may inform inter-ideologically appealing communications of reducing meat consumption, which is a worthwhile and necessary goal for mitigating climate change.

scholarly journals A New Political Scarecrow? The Political Program and Activity of the ”Serbian Right“

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-26
Author(s):  
Srđan Mladenov Jovanović
Keyword(s):  
Political Engagement ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Parliamentary Elections ◽  
Political Program ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Town

The organization known as Srpska desnica (SD; the Serbian Right Wing) during 2019 become increasingly seen in the Serbian media, as well as receiving augmented visibility on posters throughout the country. With their recent electoral success in the town of Medveđa, as well as their announcement that they are turning into an official party that would enter the 2020 parliamentary elections, coupled with the troublesome past of their leader, Miša Vacić, the situation calls for investigation. In this article, we are putting Miša Vacić’s public and political engagement under a magnifying glass, positioning him within the broader nationalist political spectrum of the country, engaging his official political program. We shall furthermore define the concept of the political scarecrow, a political party or figure that serves primarily to frighten, as shall be clear from the case study that this is the role of his organization.

scholarly journals Deeper than you think: partisan-dependent brain response

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noa Katabi ◽  
Hadas Simon ◽  
Sharon Yakim ◽  
Inbal Ravreby ◽  
Yaara Yeshurun
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Resonance Image ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Auditory Cortices

Recent political polarization has highlighted the extent to which individuals with opposing views experience ongoing events in markedly different ways. In this study, we explored the neural mechanisms underpinning this phenomenon. We conducted functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) scanning right- and left-wing participants watching political videos just before the 2019 elections in Israel. Behavioral results demonstrated significant differences between left- and right-wing participants in their interpretation of the videos' content. Neuroimaging results revealed partisanship-dependent differences in both high-order regions and early-motor and somato-sensory regions, although no such differences were found with regard to neutral content. Moreover, we found that most of the political content was more potent in synchronizing participants with right-wing views, and that this synchronization was observed already in early visual and auditory cortices. These results suggest that political polarization is not limited to higher-order processes as previously thought, but rather emerges already in motor and sensory regions.

scholarly journals Design follows politics? The visualization of political orientation in newspaper page layout

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-161 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johanna Schindler ◽  
Philipp Müller
Keyword(s):  
Graphic Design ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Page Layout ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Visual Patterns ◽  
National Quality ◽  
Visual Frame

This article explores how the political orientation of newspapers is reflected in their page layout. The authors compare the layouts of five German national quality newspapers exemplarily and exploratively in a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses. Dimensions of comparison are typography, size, colouration, quantity and arrangement of elements. Results show systematic differences between the page layouts of left-wing and right-wing newspapers. These differences are reflected in the contrast of traditional and contemporary styles and also in the use of ideologically charged typography and colours. In addition, the size of headlines seems to be dependent on political extremity. Graphic design seems to work as an ideological symbol system with different layout styles quite consistently representing partisan positions. If media users could come to learn and recognize such visual patterns, layout could function as a visual frame for political messages.

scholarly journals Ideologies and Censorship in the Discourse of Two Opinion Columns: A Critical Discourse Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 61-74
Author(s):  
Jhon Alejandro Marín González
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Ethical Dilemma ◽  
Freedom Of Speech ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Ideologies

This article examines two opinion columns titled “Dilema Ético” (Ethical Dilemma) and “A Margarita” (To Margarita) from a Critical Discourse Analysis perspective. The relevance of the analysis of these columns is that they were written within a context of social crisis in Colombia where the political polarization has increased over the last years. The study intends to identify and analyze expressions used in the discourse of two columnists that represent opposite political ideologies and how this can enact constraints of freedom of speech. The analysis is conducted through Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The findings show that the columnist identified with right-wing ideologies imposed herself on the columnist aligned with left-wing ideologies, thus restrict her freedom of speech.

Political Orientations and Morality Judgments in the Turkish Context: Considering the Roles of the Needs for Cognition and Recognition

2020 ◽  
pp. 003329411989990
Author(s):  
Burcu Tekeş ◽  
E. Olcay Imamoğlu ◽  
Fatih Özdemir ◽  
Bengi Öner-Özkan
Keyword(s):  
Need For Cognition ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
Moral Foundations ◽  
Moral Foundations Theory ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Group Loyalty ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Collectivistic Culture

The aims of this study were to test: (a) the association of political orientations with morality orientations, specified by moral foundations theory, on a sample of young adults from Turkey, representing a collectivistic culture; and (b) the statistically mediating roles of needs for cognition and recognition in the links between political orientation and morality endorsements. According to the results (a) right-wing orientation and need for recognition were associated with all the three binding foundations (i.e., in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity); (b) right-wing orientation was associated with binding foundations also indirectly via the role of need for recognition; (c) regarding individualizing foundations, left-wing orientation and need for cognition were associated with fairness/reciprocity, whereas only gender was associated with harm/care; and (d) left-wing orientation was associated with fairness dimension also indirectly via the role of need for cognition. The cultural relevance of moral foundations theory as well as the roles of needs for cognition and recognition are discussed.

scholarly journals Images of A.F. Kerensky and the Political Struggle in 1917 (based on the newspapers of A.A. Suvorin)

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 834-883
Author(s):  
Boris I. Kolonitskii
Keyword(s):  
Visual Images ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Personal Authority ◽  
Left And Right ◽  
Cultural Forms ◽  
The Right

The article examines the cultural forms of legitimation / delegitimation of authority of the Provisional Government. Particular attention is paid to the personal authority of Alexander Kerensky, including rhetorical (persuasive) devices and visual images which underlay the tactics of praising or condemning him. As the main source, the article uses the newspapers of A.A. Suvorin, namely Malen'kaya gazeta [Little newspaper], Narodnaya gazeta [People’s newspaper], Rus' [Rus], Novaya Rus' [New Rus]. These newspapers are compared with resolutions, letters and diaries, and with publications in other periodicals. The study clarifies some aspects of political isolation of the Provisional Government in the fall of 1917. By this time, the propaganda attack on Kerensky was conducted not only by the Bolsheviks and other left-wing groups but also by the right-wing and conservative publications. The propaganda of the left- and right-wing opponents was significantly different but they had a point of contact: both of them created the image of the “traitor” who was unworthy to remain in power.

"Agenda setting" in de verkiezingscampagne van november 1991 in Vlaanderen

Res Publica ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-207
Author(s):  
Bart Maddens
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Issue Salience ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Nationalist Party ◽  
System Issue ◽  
The Moment

Voters probably do not take a series of relevant issues into consideration but rather vote on the basis of the few issues that happen to be on their minds at the moment of the decision. Issue salience, i.e. the availability of issue-schema's, is to a certain extent determined by the political communication during the election campaign. A content analysis of the debates during the 1991 campaign shows that the socio-economic issues, the ethnic issue and the immigrant issue were on top of the agenda. A similar analysis of the party political broadcasts and the ads in the national newspapers indicates that the parties tried to focus the campaign on the socio-economie issues (christian-democrats, socialists), the functioning of the political system (socialists, liberals) and to a much lesser extent on the environmental issue (greens) and the communal issue (left-wing and right-wing Flemish nationalists). Only the latter nationalist party attempted to prime the immigrant issue. Survey data show that this issue was exceptionally salient in the electorate, as were the ethnic issue and the political system issue.

Romania

2019 ◽  
pp. 388-434
Author(s):  
Laurențiu Ștefan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Party System ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Coalition Governments ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
The Right

In Romania, a highly segmented and extremely volatile party system has contributed to a predominance of coalition governments. Alternation in power by coalitions led by either left-wing or right-wing parties used to be a major feature of Romanian governments. Thus, until a short-lived grand coalition in 2009, ideologically homogeneous coalitions were the general practice. Since then, parties from the right and left of the political spectrum have learned to work together in government. Given the semi-presidential nature of the political regime and the exclusive power to nominate the prime minister, the Romanian president plays an important role in coalition formation. The president also plays a pivotal role by shadowing the prime minister and therefore influencing the governance of coalitions. She has the power to veto ministerial appointments and therefore she can also shape the cabinet line-up. Pre-election coalitions are a common feature, more than two-thirds of Romanian coalition governments have been predicated on such agreements. Coalition agreements dealt with both policy issues and coalition decision-making bodies and the governance mechanisms that have been in most cases enforced and complied with—until the break-up of the coalition and the downfall of the respective government. One very common decision-making body is the Coalition Committee, which has been backed on the operational level by an inner cabinet made up of the prime minister and the deputy prime ministers, which usually are the heads of the junior coalition parties.

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