Information, Media and Policy Attitudes in a Populist Age

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

How does the information to which citizens are exposed influence their policy preferences? The papers in this panel contribute answer to this question drawing on research from four different countries, each concerned with a different field of policy relevant to this year’s conference theme on Populism and Privilege. The paper by Culpepper and Lee looks at how media frames of blame attribution influence public views about banking, in light of the recent high-profile banking scandal in Australia. The paper by Foos and Bischof uses a quasi-experimental design to identify the effects of reading a tabloid newspaper (The Sun) on English attitudes toward leaving the EU. Hicks, Jacobs and Matthews explore American attitudes to inequality – asking whether greater inequality makes it easier for non-rich citizens to imagine financing arrangements under which the more affluent pay a greater share and, thus, to reject any proposed financing arrangement as insufficiently progressive, even if it benefits them. Kneafsey and Regan use survey experimental evidence in Ireland to show that increases in the nationalist tone of media coverage lead to increases of public support for the way in which the Irish tax code supports multinational companies such as Apple.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 38: Political Communication

Individual Presentations

• Framing the Bankers: Media and Public Attitudes on the Australian Bank Scandal - Pepper D. Culpepper, University of Oxford; Taeku Lee, University of California, Berkeley

• Tabloid Media and Eurosceptic Attitudes - A Quasi-experiment on Media Influence - Florian Foos, London School of Economics and Political Science; Daniel Bischof, University of Zurich

• Inequality, Fairness and Policy Attitudes - Timothy Hicks, University College London; Alan M. Jacobs, University of British Columbia; Scott Matthews, Memorial University

• Explaining Popular Support for Corporate Tax Avoidance in Ireland - Liam Kneafsey, Trinity College Dublin; Aidan Regan, University College Dublin

Chair

• Pepper D. Culpepper University of Oxford

Discussants

• Lucy Barnes University College London

• Sara B Hobolt London School of Economics