Prosecuted, yet popular? Hate speech prosecution of anti-immigration politicians in the news and electoral support

Prosecuting anti-immigration party leaders for hate speech is theorized to yield electoral ramifications. We assess to what extent these trials are mediatized and whether news visibility of hate speech prosecution affects levels of anti-immigration party support. We compare four Western European cou...

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Vydáno v:Comparative European politics (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England) Ročník 18; číslo 6; s. 899 - 924
Hlavní autoři: Jacobs, Laura, van Spanje, Joost
Médium: Journal Article
Jazyk:angličtina
Vydáno: London Palgrave Macmillan UK 01.12.2020
Palgrave Macmillan
Témata:
Aggregate data
Attention
Communication strategies
Comparative Politics
Comparative studies
Discourse strategies
Elections
European Politics
Hate speech
Immigration
International Relations
Mass media
Mass media effects
Media coverage
News
News media
Original Article
Political communication
Political leadership
Political parties
Political Science
Political Science and International Relations
Political Science and International Studies
Politicians
Prosecutions
Public Finance
Public opinion
Trials
Visibility
Netherlands
Belgium
France
Germany
Front national
Hate speech
Legal prosecution
Freedom party
Anti-immigration party
Time-series analysis
Media effects
ISSN:1472-4790, 1740-388X
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Shrnutí:Prosecuting anti-immigration party leaders for hate speech is theorized to yield electoral ramifications. We assess to what extent these trials are mediatized and whether news visibility of hate speech prosecution affects levels of anti-immigration party support. We compare four Western European countries (Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands) for which aggregate-level media and public opinion data are combined. We find that hate speech trials were highly mediatized, and dominated the headlines for protracted periods. This short-term news attention drives general news visibility for anti-immigration party actors. Thus, news about hate speech prosecution of anti-immigration politicians creates a reinforcing spiral of attention by increasing the general newsworthiness of a political actor. The findings seem to point to the cautious conclusion that hate speech prosecution is either directly or indirectly related to increased electoral support. While in France and Germany, general news visibility of anti-immigration party actors is associated with higher levels of electoral support, in the Netherlands and Belgium, news about hate speech prosecution has a weak and direct positive relationship with anti-immigration party support. This finding yields implications for political communication strategies of parties by suggesting that hate speech prosecution does not undermine the electoral performance of anti-immigration parties. In fact, initiating legal actions yields unintended effects by granting these parties a media platform.
Bibliografie:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
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ISSN:1472-4790
1740-388X
DOI:10.1057/s41295-020-00215-4