When Losing Matters: Emotional Response to Political Loss and News Media Choice

Principal Investigator(s):  View help for Principal Investigator(s) Travis N. Ridout, Washington State University; Furkan Cakmak, Washington State University

Version:  View help for Version V3

Name File Type Size Last Modified
  Emotional-Change 01/13/2022 09:13:PM
README.txt text/plain 01/13/2022 04:13:PM
dataset_do_file.do text/plain 13.3 KB 01/13/2022 04:09:PM
media_choice_dataset.dta application/x-stata-dta 815.6 KB 01/13/2022 04:12:PM

Project Citation: 

Ridout, Travis N., and Cakmak, Furkan. When Losing Matters: Emotional Response to Political Loss and News Media Choice. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-01-13. https://doi.org/10.3886/E159101V3

Project Description

Summary:  View help for Summary Why are people attracted to certain news media outlets, and why do they abandon others? And what is the role of the larger political context in shaping such media use decisions? Relying on theories of mood management, we advance the argument that experiencing a political win or loss (e.g., one’s preferred party wins or loses an election) leads to positive and negative emotional responses, which, in turn, influence the choice to use media and the choice of news media outlets.  To test these claims, we employ a survey experiment in which we expose respondents to news about Biden’s victory in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. We measure both the length of their viewing and their emotional responses to the news before asking them to choose among three options: 1) to watch more news about Biden’s victory on MSNBC, 2) watch more news about Biden’s victory on Fox News or 3) to watch a series of television commercials for consumer products. We again measure both the length of viewing and people’s emotional responses. The experiment allows us to track people’s response to political victory and loss—and to better understand the psychological mechanisms behind such choices. Ultimately, we find that as people become less happy, they are less likely to engage in news media and more likely to choose non-political media to regulate emotions.

Scope of Project

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms political loss; emotional regulation; mood management; media choice
Geographic Coverage:  View help for Geographic Coverage United States
Collection Date(s):  View help for Collection Date(s) 7/27/2021 – 10/7/2021 (Summer-Fall 2021)
Universe:  View help for Universe Adult U.S. citizens
Data Type(s):  View help for Data Type(s) survey data

Methodology

Collection Mode(s):  View help for Collection Mode(s) web-based survey

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Published Versions

V3 [2022-01-13]

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