Amplified News Framing of Social Disturbance and Its Impact on Authoritarian Attitudes: An Experimental Study of Main Effects and Activation of Predispositions

The emergence of authoritarian attitudes within contemporary democracy puzzles researchers. Under what circumstances do people develop authoritarian attitudes? Research suggests that circumstances of social disturbance have strong impact. There is evidence that predispositions for authoritarianism are activated under such circumstances. In this research, the role of the news media is generally ignored. This article contributes by presenting a theoretically grounded experimental study addressing hypotheses of news framing effects on authoritarian attitudes. Two panel experiments, on news about disturbance in school and public libraries, provide evidence of main effects of amplified framings of social disturbance, as well as an activation mechanism.