2025/07/27 by Thomas M. Meyer, Katjana Gattermann · 1 voice · 2 citations
Arts and Humanities · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Affect (linguistics) #Communication #Economics #Framing (construction) #Media Influence and Health #Media Studies and Communication #Political economy #Political science #Psychology #Social Media and Politics #Social psychology
paper · doi:10.1177/00323217251350742
published in Political Studies 74(3), 1043-1065 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2025/07/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14
This article examines how media framing of election results affects voter perceptions of election winners and losers. We conceive of media framing as equivalency framing because the very same election result can be framed positively or negatively. We expect direct effects on voter perceptions and additionally argue that ambivalent voters should be most affected by such framing in their evaluation of election results. We test these arguments with two pre-registered studies, namely, a survey experiment that employs fictional stimulus material and a two-wave panel survey linked to a news content analysis against the backdrop of the 2021 German Federal Election. The findings reveal framing effects on voter perceptions in fictional settings and conditional effects driven by partisan reasoning in real-world contexts. These findings provide an important mechanism for future research interested in the consequences of election outcomes for government legitimacy or political system support.