Emotional Culture? an Investigation Into the Emotional Coverage of Televised Leader Debates in Newspapers and Twitter
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London South Bank University School of Arts and Creative Industries Emotional Culture? An Investigation into the Emotional Coverage of Televised Leader Debates in Newspapers and Twitter by Morgane Dani`eleKimmich Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of London South Bank University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy September 2016 Abstract This thesis studies how emotions are used in and around TV debates by politi- cians during debates, by newspaper journalists in their coverage of debates and by Twitter users following debates and reacting to their coverage. Although emotions have been the focus of many studies recently, the literature that combines emo- tions with politics, journalism and social media remains limited. To fill this gap in knowledge, my research involves two case studies: the 2010 British election, where TV debates were held for the first time, and the 2012 American election, where debates are a long-standing tradition. For this purpose, my research is guided by the following research question: how far did political candidates, print media and Twitter users use emotions and emotional references in the 2010 British and 2012 American televised leader debates and their coverage? To answer this research question, I carried out a content analysis of the three British and four American debate transcripts; a framing analysis of 104 articles from the New York Post and 223 articles from The New York Times as well as 93 articles from The Sun and 238 articles from The Guardian; and, finally, a content analysis of a sample of American (30 000 tweets) and British tweets (3 000 tweets) posted during the debates period. These analyses reveal two key findings. Firstly, the manipulation of different forms of emotionality by politicians (e.g. to convince voters, defend themselves, criti- cise others) during the debates failed as Twitter users mainly displayed negative emotions in relation to politicians' emotions. Secondly, journalists' attempt at manipulating different forms of emotionality (e.g. to praise their favourite candi- date or discredit another) failed too as Twitter users mainly expressed negative emotions regarding the coverage of the debates. Thus, it appears that emotions are not a means for politicians and journalists to interact with Twitter users as the manipulation of emotions by politicians and journalists failed to convince most Twitter users. i Publications Parts of this thesis have been published as follows: - Kimmich, M. (2015). The uninvited guests of TV debates: emotions, candi- dates' families and friends. Media, Communication and Cultural Studies As- sociation (MeCCSA) Three-D newsletter, Issue 24. Available at: http://www .meccsa.org.uk/news/three-d-issue-24-the-uninvited-guests-of-tv-debates-em otions-candidates-families-and-friends/. - Kimmich, M. (2016). Emotional communication in TV election debates. Conference paper, 24th IPSA World Congress of Political Science, Pozna´n, Poland. Available at: http://paperroom.ipsa.org/papers/paper 49092.pdf. - Kimmich, M. (2018). Emotions, social media communication and TV de- bates. In Sampson, T., Ellis, D. and Maddison, S. (Eds.), Affect and Social Media. Rowman and Littlefield. Finally, a journal paper is currently under preparation. ii Acknowledgements \I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou There are over 90 000 words in this thesis. A dictionary in itself. However, today I cannot seem to find the right words to describe the adventure that this PhD has been. Challenging would certainly come close. Hard, isolating, stressful. But also rewarding, enlightening and fascinating. An adventure I have come to love and take much pride in. Many people have helped me to maintain the balance between positive and neg- ative emotions. First and foremost, my two supervisors. Professor Philip Ham- mond, thank you for being the best supervisor I could have asked for. For the last three years, you have guided me without imposing anything, leaving space for my opinion to grow. Professor Hillegonda Rietveld, thank you for filling our meetings will joy and laughter, for understanding the turmoil I was going through and for guiding me throughout this PhD. A big thank you to London South Bank University, the Centre for Media and Cultural Research, all the \admin" people of the School of Arts and Creative Industries, all the Perry Library staff, Peter Doyle and colleagues for the valuable Key Skills Seminars and all the ICT staff, especially Russell Goodwin. A special thank you to the two persons I have harassed with questions, emails, phone calls and visits and without whom I would not have completed this PhD: Dr Beverley Goring and Louise Thompson. Un grand merci `ama famille et mes proches. Tout d'abord `ama maman et mon papa, mes deux plus grands mod`elesdans la vie. Merci pour tout. Une pens´ee pour ma grand-m`ereador´eeMa. Coralie, merci pour tes encouragements, ta folie et d'^etretoujours mon amie apr`estout ce temps. iii iv To my army of one, Scott. This PhD is as much mine as it is yours. Thank you does not even start to cover how absolutely amazing you have been for the last three years. Thanks for celebrating my achievements and comforting me during hard times, thanks for encouraging me when you were tired, stressed or busy yourself, thanks for being harsh and pushing me to always do better. Every single day. Excelsior. Contents Abstracti Publications ii Acknowledgements iii Introduction1 I. Background...............................1 II. Aims & objectives............................ 11 III. Overview of thesis............................ 12 1 Literature review 14 I. Emotions & society........................... 14 II. Emotions & politics........................... 20 III. Emotions & journalism......................... 35 IV. Emotions & social media........................ 44 2 Methodology 54 I. Consideration of research methods................... 55 II. Data selection procedure........................ 60 III. Acquiring the data........................... 65 IV. Applying content and framing analysis................ 71 3 Emotions & politics: analysis of TV debate transcripts 80 I. Findings................................. 81 A. Emotions across debates.................... 81 B. Emotions across candidates.................. 86 C. Emotions across topics..................... 98 II. Conclusions............................... 112 4 Emotions & journalism: analysis of newspaper articles 114 I. Findings................................. 115 v Contents vi A. Issues.............................. 115 B. Candidates........................... 126 C. Emotions............................ 147 D. Personal stories and relationships............... 176 E. Criticisms............................ 183 F. Recommendations........................ 191 II. Discussion................................ 192 III. Conclusions............................... 194 5 Emotions & Twitter: analysis of tweets 201 I. Findings................................. 202 A. Twitter & candidates...................... 203 B. Twitter & TV debates..................... 220 C. Twitter & the news media................... 232 D. Twitter & other social media................. 239 II. Discussion................................ 246 III. Conclusions............................... 248 Conclusions 253 I. Summary................................ 253 II. Novel contributions to knowledge................... 254 III. Findings................................. 256 A. Content analysis of debate transcripts............. 256 B. Framing analysis of newspaper articles............ 257 C. Content analysis of Twitter feeds............... 259 IV. Recommendations for future research................. 261 References 263 A Dictionary of topics 285 I. 2012 American TV debates....................... 285 II. 2010 British TV debates........................ 296 B Details on framing analysis 310 C Twitter data - User type 312 I. Twitter & candidates.......................... 312 II. Twitter & TV debates......................... 323 III. Twitter & the news media....................... 335 IV. Twitter & other social media...................... 341 Introduction I. Background From Lyndon Johnson's \Daisy Ad" depicting a little girl pulling the petals off a flower with a nuclear bomb going off in the background in 1964 to President Obama tweeting a picture of his wife and himself as his first reaction to his re- election in 2012, politicians have been using emotional bridges to reach out to potential voters and maintain support, particularly during electoral campaigns, for a long time (Hoggett and Thompson, 2012). However, more than a political tool and a journalistic angle, emotions have gained greater importance in academic research and every arena of society, such as politics, journalism and social media. It is, however, not the presence of emotions that is new but rather the fact that emotions are now more visible, explicit and prominent in society (Richards, 2007; Turner, 2009; Beckett, 2015). This rise in visible emotionality coincides with the \emotionalisation of society" that has been taking place for the last few decades (Rieff, 1966; Lasch, 1979, 1984; Hume, 1998; Furedi, 2003; Illouz, 2007; Richards and Brown, 2002; Richards, 2007; Lilleker, 2006; Lilleker and Temple, 2013). The emotionalisation of society has progressively given more space to emotions but also to the expressivity, management and personal reflection linked to emotions