How Do the Nationalists Write? Language Cues and Perceptions of Nationalism

• In Event: Poster Session: Comparative Politics II

Abstract

How do members of the public determine whether a politician is a nationalist? We argue that the public believes that politicians are more nationalist when they use language-based cues typically associated with nationalism, regardless of the content of the message. We field a survey experiment on Facebook in Serbia, a context where members of the public read Serbian in both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets and where the Cyrillic alphabet is traditionally associated with nationalism. Our results show that respondents exposed to a politicians' message in Cyrillic viewed that politician as significantly more nationalist than respondents exposed to the same message in Latin. We then show that politicians strategically use the Cyrillic alphabet on their public Facebook pages to discuss topics traditionally associated with nationalism. These results suggest that language-based cues alone are enough to influence both how the public views politicians and how politicians themselves communicate. In keeping with this year’s conference theme, this paper rethinks the role of language as a subtle nationalist cue and suggests that careful attention to politician language use could help to manage the growing salience of nationalist rhetoric worldwide.

Authors

• William O'Brochta, Louisiana Tech University

• Patrick Cunha Silva, Loyola University, Chicago