Copyright by Ashley Rae Muddiman 2013

The Dissertation Committee for Ashley Rae Muddiman Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:

The Instability of Incivility: How News Frames and Citizen Perceptions Shape Conflict in American Politics

Committee:

Natalie J. Stroud, Supervisor

Roderick P. Hart

Maxwell McCombs

Regina Lawrence

Sharon J. Hardesty

The Instability of Incivility: How News Frames and Citizen Perceptions Shape Conflict in American Politics

Ashley Rae Muddiman, B.A., M.A.

Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin December 2013

Acknowledgments

I could not have completed this dissertation without an extensive support network. First and foremost, this project would not have been possible without the guidance, support, and friendship of my advisor, Dr. Natalie (Talia) Jomini Stroud. I have learned so much from helping her both in research projects and in the classroom. She has pushed me both to create detailed research designs and to think about the big picture importance of research findings. I could not have asked for a fiercer advocate or for a better mentor. I am a stronger researcher, teacher, and person because I have been fortunate enough to work with Talia. I would also like to thank the members of my dissertation committee. I have had a second exemplary mentor in Dr. Sharon Jarvis Hardesty. Her enthusiasm for research and teaching is infectious, and brainstorming sessions with her are exhilarating. Dr. Maxwell McCombs always has sharp suggestions for strengthening the normative aspects of my research and has been wonderful to work with on outside projects as well. Dr. Regina Lawrence has been a wonderful addition to the Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Life, and consistently pushes me to think about how journalists may react to my findings. Dean Roderick Hart and his stimulating questions challenge me to think in bigger, different, and more interesting ways. Through their thought-provoking questions and valuable suggestions, my committee members have made my project better. The research process also received assistance from multiple avenues. Thank you to the Strauss Institute for granting me a Patricia Witherspoon Research Award to help fund my content analysis and experiments. I appreciate the hours Kayla

Rhidenour and Robert McDonald spent coding news texts, news photos, and

participants’ open-ended responses. The work is tedious, but necessary, and they both deserve all of my thanks for their help. I also had the pleasure of finishing my dissertation in the best writing retreat in Austin. Thank you Drs. Talia and Scott Stroud for sharing your home with me. Your support, company, and friendship helped me find the energy to finish the project. And making friends with Radha was icing on the cake. Finally, I want to thank my family and friends for all of the support they have given me throughout my time in graduate school. Thank you for helping me make time to relax and for encouraging me to stop working long enough to have fun. Mom, Dad, Grandma, Zach, Alex, Zane, Abbie, Robert, Kate, Vysali, Matt, Josh, and Kevin, I couldn’t have made it through this process without you.

The Instability of Incivility: How News Frames and Citizen Perceptions Shape Conflict in American Politics

Ashley Rae Muddiman, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013

Supervisor: Natalie Jomini Stroud

Politicians and media elites have been calling for a return to civility in United States politics, and the vast majority of citizens agree that civility is necessary for a strong democracy. Yet incivility is an ever-present and misunderstood part of politics. In my dissertation, I focus on news, politics, and incivility by asking three questions. First, to what extent does news coverage portray political conflict as uncivil? Second, what political behaviors do citizens perceive as uncivil? Finally, how does news that portrays politics as uncivil affect citizens? I used a mixed method approach to answer these questions. I, first, conducted a content analysis of news surrounding four high-conflict political events to determine whether two conflict frames (interpersonal-level and public-level conflict) emerged. Second, I conducted two experiments and drew from social judgment theory to determine whether citizens perceived multiple types of incivility and whether their partisanship influenced how acceptable they found political behaviors to be. In a final experiment, I tested whether exposure to mediated conflict frames prompted perceptions of incivility from citizens and affected their reactions to politics.

This project makes clear that news coverage of conflict emphasizes incivility and negatively affects citizens. Media elites shape political conflict using interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames. Citizens perceive both types of conflict, as well, and tend to think that likeminded partisans are behaving appropriately while counter-attitudinal partisans are behaving badly. Finally, and importantly, the coverage of political conflict affects citizens in troublesome ways. Particularly when both types of conflict frames are present in the news, citizens feel more anxiety and aversion, have decreased levels of favorability toward political institutions, and think of political arguments in partisan ways. Overall, I conclude that incivility is not stable. Instead, incivility is a two- dimensional concept that is shaped by the media, perceived by citizens, and advanced by partisans. By recognizing these dimensions of incivility, researchers may find new and important effects of incivility, and people interested in ridding politics of incivility may be more successful by beginning with the recognition that what is uncivil to one person is not always uncivil to another.

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Table of Contents

List of Tables ...... x

List of Figures ...... xi

Introduction ...... 1

What is Political Incivility? ...... 3

Political Incivility and U.S. History ...... 4

Political Incivility and Citizens ...... 7

Political Incivility and Elite Discourse ...... 8

Overview of Dissertation ...... 10

Chapter 1: The Many Definitions of Incivility, A Literature Review ...... 13

Incivility: A Shifting Concept ...... 14

Theoretical Backing for Incivility Research ...... 20

Research Questions and Hypotheses ...... 36

Chapter 2: Methodology ...... 57

Media Coverage of Conflict: A Content Analysis ...... 57

Judging Political Behaviors: Experiment 1 ...... 69

Incivility in Partisan News: Experiment 2 ...... 77

Incivility and Immigration Reform: Experiment 3 ...... 80

Chapter 3: Shaping Incivility in the News ...... 86

Frames of Political Conflict ...... 86

Frame Building and Political Conflict ...... 96

Discussion ...... 121

Chapter 4: Incivility from a Citizen Perspective ...... 132

Experiment 1: Judging Political Behaviors ...... 133 viii

Experiment 2: Incivility and Partisan News ...... 163

Discussion ...... 174

Chapter 5: Mediated Conflict and Perceptions of Incivility ...... 183

Overview of Experiment 3: Incivility and Immigration Reform ...... 184

Effects of Mediated Conflict Frames ...... 184

Effects of Small Cues ...... 213

Interaction between Conflict Frames and Small Cues ...... 217

Discussion ...... 218

Chapter 6: Instability of Incivility ...... 232

Incivility is Two-Dimensional ...... 234

Incivility is Shaped by Media Elites ...... 237

Incivility is Perceived by Citizens ...... 239

Incivility is Advanced by Partisans ...... 242

Approaching Incivility in the Future ...... 244

Conclusion ...... 257

Appendix A: Codebook for Content Analysis of News Texts ...... 258

Appendix B: Codebook for Content Analysis of News Photos ...... 264

Appendix C: Statistical Tests from Chapter 3 ...... 267

Appendix D: Stimuli for “Judging Political Behaviors” Experiment ...... 272

Appendix E: Statistical Tests from Chapter 4 ...... 277

Appendix F: Stimuli for “Incivility and Partisan News” Experiment ...... 295

Appendix G: Stimuli for “Incivility and Immigration Reform” Experiment ...... 303

Appendix H: Statistical Tests from Chapter 5 ...... 323

References ...... 324

List of Tables

Table 1. News Sources Analyzed for Each Political Event...... 60

Table 2. Search Information for Each Political Event ...... 61

Table 3. Codes for News Texts and Inter-coder Reliability...... 65

Table 4. Codes for News Images and Inter-coder Reliability...... 69

Table 5. Emotion Factors...... 84

Table 6. Descriptive Statistics for Emotion Factors...... 84

Table 7. Perceived Incivility in Political Behaviors...... 135

Table 8. Factor Loadings for Political Conflict Factors...... 140

Table 9. Descriptive Statistics for Political Conflict Factors...... 141

Table 10. Multi-level Model Predicting Perceptions of Objectionable Behavior...... 147 Table 11. Multi-Level Models Predicting Differences between Perceptions of Objectionable Behavior and Perceptions of Uncivil Behavior...... 151

Table 12. Logistic Regression Predicting Intention to Read from News Source in Future. . 171

Table 13. Behaviors Included in Experimental Stimuli...... 186

Table 14. Perceptions of Incivility Factors...... 191

Table 15. Descriptive Statistics for Perceptions of Incivility Factors...... 191

Table 16. Summary of Chapter 5 Results...... 220

List of Figures

Figure 1. Number of articles in the New York Times that contained incivility terms...... 7 Figure 2. % of texts with (or without) conflict frames that include (do not include) small cues...... 93

Figure 3. % of texts for each political event with (or without) conflict frames...... 99

Figure 4.% of texts for each political event with (or without) small cues...... 101

Figure 5. % of texts for media format with (or without) conflict frames...... 103

Figure 6. % of texts for each media format with (or without) small cues...... 104

Figure 7. % of images for different events with (or without) conflict frames...... 107

Figure 8.% of images for different events with (or without) small cues...... 108 Figure 9. U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) greeted in the House of Representatives...... 109

Figure 10.Tea Party Protest...... 110 Figure 11.% of texts for opinionated or non-opinionated news with (or without) conflict frames...... 113

Figure 12.% of opinionated/non-opinionated news texts with (or without) small cues ..... 113

Figure 13.% of partisan news texts with (or without) partisans framing the conflicts...... 117

Figure 14. Avg. width of latitude of acceptance by political conflict factor...... 156

Figure 15. Avg. width of latitude of rejection by political conflict factor...... 157

Figure 16. Avg. width of latitude of acceptance by partisan condition...... 159

Figure 17. Avg. width of latitude of rejection by partisan condition...... 160 Figure 18. Avg. width of latitude of acceptance by political conflict factor and partisan condition...... 161 Figure 19. Avg. width of latitude of rejection by political conflict factor and partisan condition...... 162

Figure 20. Perceptions of incivility by political conflict condition...... 165

Figure 21.Perceptions of incivility by partisan condition...... 168

Figure 22. Mean perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict between control condition and conflict frame conditions...... 192 Figure 23.Mean perceptions of public-level conflict between control condition and conflict frame conditions...... 193 Figure 24. Mean favorability toward Congress’ handling of immigration reform between control condition and conflict frame conditions...... 196 Figure 25. Hypothesized indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on favorability toward Congress’s handling of immigration reform...... 198 Figure 26. Indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on favorability toward Congress’ handling of immigration reform...... 199

Figure 27. Mean Feelings of anxiety between control and conflict frame conditions ...... 202

Figure 28. Indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on feelings of enthusiasm...... 203

Figure 29. Indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on feelings of aversion...... 204

Figure 30. Indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on feelings of anxiety...... 205 Figure 31.Mean perceptions of counter-attitudinal argument legitimacy between control condition and conflict frame conditions ...... 208

Figure 32. Indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on likeminded legitimacy...... 210 Figure 33. Mean Perceptions of Counter-Attitudinal Argument Legitimacy between Small Cue Conditions...... 217

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Introduction

“An unruly mob using Occupy Wall Street tactics has tried all day to derail legislation … intended to protect the lives and the safety of women and babies.” --Texas Lieutenant Governor Davis Dewhurst, 2013

“…the partisan leaders in power don’t seem to like it when people participate in our democracy. For me, it’s an inspiration to see real, everyday Texans courageously standing up and giving voice to our values.” --Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, 2013 It was nearly midnight on June 25, 2013 in the Texas Senate. Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, a Democrat from Fort Worth, had been on her feet for 11 hours straight filibustering proposed anti-abortion legislation. Senate Republicans had a deadline of midnight to stop Senator Davis’ filibuster, vote on the bill, and send it to Republican Governor Rick Perry before the end of the legislative session. They tried to end her filibuster multiple times, saying she got forbidden help from her colleagues and spoke about topics not germane to the legislation. Two hours before the deadline, Republicans gave Senator Davis her third of three strikes. She had moved off topic of the anti-abortion bill at hand, they argued, and had to yield the floor so that there could be a vote. Democrats responded by using “parliamentary maneuvers” to appeal the third strike, stalling the debate for hours (Muto, 2013). When Republicans tried to force a vote through just minutes before midnight, a crowd of hundreds of citizens gathered to watch the Senate session reacted. Rather than yield to the Republicans, the anti-legislation citizens sitting in the balcony of the Senate chamber began chanting and yelling – so much so that the lawmakers could not vote on the legislation. The chaotic situation ultimately led to the defeat of the bill.1

1For the night, at least. The bill eventually passed a few weeks later during a second special session of the Texas State legislature. 1

The next day, prominent politicians tried to make sense of what happened the night before. Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst called the protesters an “unruly mob” (Jones, 2013). Senator Davis countered that they were “everyday Texans … giving voice to our values” (Senator Wendy Davis, 2013). Lt. Gov. Dewhurst and Senator Davis reacted to exactly the same events but described them in diametrically opposed ways. Who was right? Were the protesters being uncivil for shouting in the Texas Senate chamber? Was Senator Davis uncivil for using a filibuster to stop a vote on the anti-abortion bill? Was Lt. Gov. Dewhurst uncivil for calling the protesters a mob? All of the above? Throughout my dissertation, I will make the case that the question “Who is acting uncivilly?” is too simple, at least for anyone interested in understanding the effects of political incivility on citizens. Even if I could provide an easy answer to the question of who, if anyone, was acting uncivilly in the Texas State Senate, this answer would not be able to capture how journalists covered the event, how politicians discussed the event, and how citizens reacted to the event. Others have attempted to define politically uncivil behaviors (Arnett, 2001; Carter, 1998; Darr, 2007, 2011; Papacharissi, 2004; Rawls, 1993; Sinopoli, 1995) and test their effects (Ben-Porath, 2008, 2010; Borah, forthcoming; Brooks, 2010; Brooks & Geer, 2007; Forgette & Morris, 2006; Fridkin & Kenney, 2008; Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005, etc.). I, however, take a different approach. Rather than assuming that political incivility is a stable concept, or at least something that everyone recognizes on sight,

I argue that incivility is a concept developed as media elites2 frame political conflict and as citizens perceive incivility when they are exposed to political conflict in the

2 Throughout this project, I use the term “media elites” to refer to both media elites (e.g., journalists, partisan media pundits, news correspondents, news analysts) and political elites (e.g., politicians, candidates, political campaign staff) when they are quoted in the media. 2

media. The messiness in the concept of incivility, and the role of media elites in shaping its meaning, demands attention. Citizens should be wary that their perceptions of incivility can be shaped by both media frames and their own partisan inclinations, journalists should be aware of the influence their words have on citizens, and scholars interested in advancing the cause of democracy should be attuned to the pervasiveness of media frames that turn citizens away from politics. As an introduction to political incivility, I discuss four issues: the slippery definition of incivility, the pervasiveness of incivility in U.S. political history, the lack of understanding regarding citizens’ perspectives on incivility, and the role of media elites in portraying political events as uncivil.

WHAT IS POLITICAL INCIVILITY?

Incivility, at its most basic, is any violation of social norms (Jamieson & Hardy, 2012). This definition is deceptively simple. As Strachan and Wolf (2012) argued, The specific behaviors defined as appropriate in one culture or even in different settings within the same culture, can be inappropriate in others. Because civility is based on cultural norms of appropriate behavior, the definition of civil and uncivil behavior shifts over time and place. (p. 402)

Thus, uncivil behaviors are those actions that violate some social norm defined by a given culture. This very vague definition only prompts more questions. Does everyone in politics agree on which social norms to follow? Who gets to define these social norms? How do people judge whether behaviors break social norms? The slipperiness of incivility has prompted the development of two sets of definitions, one based on interpersonal-level conflict and one based on public-level conflict. On one hand, some researchers equate incivility with interpersonal-level conflict and impoliteness (Brown & Levinson, 1987), arguing that disrespect, name-

calling, and acting rudely constitute incivility (Brooks & Geer, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005). On the other hand, some scholars define incivility more broadly as public- level conflict or anything that harms the political process, such as refusing to compromise and spreading misinformation (Darr, 2011; Entman, 2011; Uslaner, 1996). Thus, when researchers study “incivility,” they often focus on very different phenomena. Without a precise understanding of incivility, its effects are hard to determine. Throughout this project, I keep these two types of incivility in mind – one founded on interpersonal-level conflict and a second founded on public-level conflict – to investigate whether (a) these types of conflict appear as frames in media coverage of politics, (b) citizens perceive these two types of behavior differently, and (c) media portrayals of the two types of behavior affect citizens differently.

POLITICAL INCIVILITY AND U.S. HISTORY

Despite recent calls to “return to civility” (Remarks by the President, 2010), nasty, negative, and uncivil behaviors are nothing new to United States politics. Political opponents labeled Thomas Jefferson “the son of a half-breed Indian squall,” and John Adams a “hideous hermaphroditical character” (ReasonTV, 2010). Abraham Lincoln was called a “Filthy Story-Teller, Despot, Liar, Thief, Braggart, Buffoon, Usurper, Monster, Ignoramus Abe,” among other slurs (Jamieson, 1992, p. 43). If people used insults like these to describe some of the most revered politicians in U.S. history, it shouldn’t be too surprising that uncivil politics are with us still. Rather than political incivility increasing steadily over time, it is more likely that incivility is cyclical but has been rising over the past thirty years. Scholars have reached this conclusion in a few separate studies. Shea and Sproveri (2012), for 4

instance, looked for the use of words related to incivility, such as bitter, hateful, filthy, and nasty politics, in the 5.2 million books archived by Google Books. They found that appearance of the terms rose and fell in twenty-to thirty-year cycles. Uslaner (1996, 2000) came to a similar conclusion after studying the practices of politicians in Congress. Legislators, he found, went through cycles in which compromise, comity, and respect decreased, especially in times like the lead up to the Civil War where there was significant societal conflict. A study of the words “taken down” from the U.S. House of Representative record validated Uslaner’s findings (Annenberg Public Policy Institute, 2011). The House of Representatives has a series of strict rules about how lawmakers must behave. When representatives break these rules, for instance by calling another legislator a liar, other representatives can request that the comments be removed from the record. There were moments, especially when the party that held the majority in the House changed hands, in which take downs were much more frequent than others. Each of these studies showed that there has not been a linear increase in the amount of incivility present in U.S. politics. Instead, incivility tends to ebb and flow in a cyclical pattern. Scholars who conducted two of these studies (Uslaner, 1996; Shea & Sproveri, 2012) further concluded that the U.S. is currently in the middle of an upswing in the cycle of incivility, and the cycle has lasted longer than most. These previous studies looked at messages in books and behaviors in Congress. But is this same pattern apparent in media coverage of politics? How often have terms related to incivility been used in news coverage of politics over the past 100 years? Using the New York Times historical article archive, I searched for the number of articles that used a series of incivility terms (civility, contentious, decorum, dysfunctional, incivility, nasty) in articles that also mentioned “politics”

(see Figure 1).3 Some of these words, for instance “incivility,” were used with relative consistency over time. Others have increased substantially over the years, particularly “nasty,” “contentious,” and “civility.” Although there was not a clear cyclical pattern in the number of articles that discussed politics and used incivility terms, two patterns related to the more formal research explained in the previous paragraph. First, there has been an increase in the use of these terms since the 1950s and 1960s. Second, there were peaks and valleys in how each individual term was used in the Times. For example, use of the terms “decorum” and “civility” peaked in the 1990s, whereas “dysfunctional” appeared beginning in the 1980s and has been increasing ever since. What this quick look at 100 years of news articles indicated is that media coverage of uncivil politics has been going on for decades, even if the terms favored in coverage change over time.

3The New York Times historical archive was more useful than larger databases like Factiva and LexisNexis for two reasons. First, the Factiva and LexisNexis article databases only go back to the 1980s, whereas the New York Times historical archive goes back to the 1800s. Second, since the New York Times historical archive is focused entirely on one print newspaper, it is likely that the total number of articles remained relatively consistent overtime. In Factiva and LexisNexis, the number of articles included in the databases for each year is variable, making comparisons across years difficult. The limitation of using the New York Times archive, however, is that articles published after 2009 are not included in the database. 6

600

500

Articles 400 civility contentious 300 decorum 200 dysfunctional New York Times 100 incivility # of nasty 0

Figure 1. Number of articles in the New York Times that contained incivility terms and “politics” from 1911 to 2009. Incivility is not new, nor is its coverage in the media. Why then should I study political incivility now? Despite its prevalence in politics throughout U.S. history, researchers have done little to explore what people believe to be uncivil and how media cover political conflict in ways that encourage people to believe conflicts are uncivil. In my dissertation, I seek to do precisely this.

POLITICAL INCIVILITY AND CITIZENS

One way to sort out the definition of incivility is simply to ask citizens what they think it is. Ninety-five percent of U.S. residents believe that civility is necessary for a healthy democracy (Shea & Steadman, 2010), and another 83 percent of people believe that incivility is harming the future of the U.S. (Lukenmeyer, 2013), suggesting that citizens perceive civility as a positive goal that political actors should work to achieve. Yet little research has been done to investigate what behaviors citizens believe to be uncivil. A survey conducted by researchers at Allegheny College found that some citizens perceived as uncivil everything from

using insulting language to calling a member of Congress to express an opinion. Although the former behavior mirrors academic conceptualizations of incivility, scholars usually uphold the latter activity as a desirable type of political engagement (e.g., Holyoke, forthcoming). This indicates that, when shown a political behavior, not everyone agrees on whether it is civil, uncivil, or somewhere in between. Apart from the Allegheny College survey, however, research probing citizens’ beliefs about incivility is limited. When shown political behaviors that academic research and news coverage has considered uncivil, do citizens agree? And do individual differences like partisanship matter when people are judging the civility of political behaviors? Thinking of the example that started this chapter, when residents of Texas watched the Senator Davis filibuster for hours, did they celebrate her passion or deride her as unnecessarily obstructionist? Although pundits may opine on these questions, current research does little to answer them definitively.

POLITICAL INCIVILITY AND ELITE DISCOURSE

Beyond knowing what citizens judge to be uncivil, where they get their ideas about incivility is important as well. Citizens who pay close attention to the news are “four times more likely” to think the tone of politics has gotten worse recently than people who pay little attention to the news (Shea & Steadman, 2010). Thus, I contend that researchers should look to political media to see if there are components of media coverage that may encourage citizens to think that U.S. politics is rotten with incivility. Since most citizens experience politics through the media, elite voices influence citizens’ perceptions of politics (Edelman, 1988; Jarvis, 2005; Ladd, 2012;

Lippmann, 1922/2010; Zaller 1992). Take perceptions of bias in the news media. Many citizens began to think there was liberal bias in news coverage not because 8

there was a change in news content but because political elites argued publicly that the news leaned left (Ladd, 2010, 2012; Watts, Domke, Shah & Fan, 1999). Similarly, citizens may perceive political behaviors as being uncivil or civil based not only on the behaviors themselves but also on how political conflicts are framed, or portrayed, in media coverage and how political figures label the behaviors. Are protesters uncivil or champions of free speech? Are politicians who refuse to compromise adding to the dysfunction of Washington or bravely standing their ground? Research has not taken such an approach toward understanding incivility. Doing so will help academics and journalists learn how portrayals of conflict in the news prompt perceptions of incivility and influence citizens’ thoughts about politics. Additionally, partisan elites may be using their media influence to portray their opponents as uncivil and their friends as civil. Politicians use uncivil behaviors strategically (Herbst, 2010). Political candidates may encourage audiences at their rallies to chant, name-call, and denigrate the opposition, while, at the same time, demand that their political opposition act civilly. Perhaps a similar pattern appears in media coverage of political conflict. Liberal Democrats quoted in the news may describe likeminded partisans as civil and conservative Republicans as uncivil, and vice versa. Throughout this dissertation, I treat incivility as something that can be molded, used, and changed in mediated discussions of political conflict. The same behavior – no matter whether it is a political protest, disagreement about legislation, or an exchange of campaign advertisements – can be described in many different ways. I examine how media elites frame political conflicts, as well as the effects of their frames. How do media elites cover political conflict and confrontation? And how does this coverage influence the way citizens perceive and

react to politics? I address these questions in my dissertation by exploring what media elites describe as uncivil, what citizens perceive as uncivil, and whether the former influences the latter.

OVERVIEW OF DISSERTATION

My dissertation consists of six chapters. In Chapter 1, I expand on the ideas presented in this introduction by reviewing previous incivility research, particularly the distinction between interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict as they relate to political incivility. Then I present the theories that form the foundation for my investigations of political incivility, namely news framing theory and social judgment theory. I describe my methodology in Chapter 2. I conducted four studies to test my argument that incivility is a perception (a) that differs among partisans and (b) that often is shaped through media coverage of political conflict. These studies included a content analysis, to ensure that descriptions of both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict actually occur in news coverage, and three experiments that explored how mediated interpersonal- and public-level conflict influence citizens’ perceptions of incivility and reactions to politics. I present the results of these studies beginning in Chapter 3. The third chapter focuses on the results of the content analysis, focusing on the question: How do media elites frame political conflict? Specifically, I analyzed media texts and photos of four political conflicts: the 2009 health care town hall protests, the 2010 midterm election, and the debt-ceiling debate and Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011. The coverage included both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames, and differed in interesting ways across types of media, kinds of political conflict, and the partisanship of the media elites who framed the coverage. 10

In Chapter 4, I shift my focus to citizens, asking the question: How do citizens make sense of politically uncivil behaviors? I answer this question using two experiments. In the first, I asked citizens to judge whether behaviors identified in the content analysis were civil, uncivil, or somewhere in between. I tested whether the partisanship of the media elites enacting the behaviors influenced how citizens judged the behaviors. The results indicated that individuals did not see all types of conflict as equally uncivil and that people that were more accepting of conflict when it was enacted by someone from their own party rather than the opposing party. In the second experiment, I tested whether the behaviors influenced citizens once they were placed into the context of partisan op-eds. Once again, both the type of incivility and the partisan lean of the op-ed mattered in important ways. Chapter 5 presents the results of the final experiment, investigating the question: How do conflict frames influence citizens’ perceptions of and reactions to politics? In this chapter, I discuss the results of an experiment in which I presented citizens with news articles that framed the immigration reform debate as consisting of interpersonal-level conflict, public-level conflict, or both, and included explicit interpretations of the conflicts as civil, uncivil, or neither. The way the article framed immigration reform altered citizens’ perceptions of incivility and led citizens to think more negatively about Congress, feel negative emotions toward the news, and think about arguments in partisan ways. Finally, in Chapter 6, I draw together the findings presented in Chapters 3 through 5, making the argument that, even though incivility is not an objective and stable concept, perceptions of incivility have powerful effects. Understanding citizens’ perceptions of incivility, and what behaviors, news frames, and individual

differences prompt these perceptions, can help to alleviate some of the detrimental effects of mediated political incivility. Throughout this project, I make the case that media elites frame conflicts as both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict, citizens perceive different types of incivility based on these types of conflict, and media coverage that privileges these conflict frames pushes citizens away from political institutions and opposing arguments. Based on these results, I encourage researchers to approach incivility as a perception influenced by mediated discourse, journalists and other political elites to think about the power they hold in framing political conflict as uncivil, and citizens to carefully consider whether media elites and their own partisans leanings are negatively influencing their perceptions of politics.

Chapter 1: The Many Definitions of Incivility, A Literature Review

Recent elections have become more uncivil than ever, at least according to Fox News (“Is the 2012 race,” 2012). There is a “War of Words” raging in political news media (“War of Words,” 2012). Citizens think that political culture in the United States is becoming more uncivil over time (Hong & Riffe, 2008; Shea & Steadman, 2010). But what makes politics “uncivil”? Defining incivility is difficult. Maisel (2012) offers the duck test for determining incivility: if it looks, acts, and “quacks like a duck, it is probably a duck” (p. 406). Similarly, if it looks, acts, and sounds like incivility, then it is incivility. She seems uncomfortable with this definition, but states, “Perhaps today we must be satisfied with that kind of definition of incivility” (p. 406). I also am uncomfortable with the “duck” definition of incivility, but I come to a different conclusion. Even if norms differ among social groups and broader cultures to the extent that there is no one easy definition of incivility, there should be ways to study what influences citizens to interpret political behaviors as uncivil. The current project seeks do this. I am not interested in creating the definitive list of behaviors that comprise “incivility,” nor do I wish to discuss whether incivility is bad for the outcomes of a legislative process. Instead, I investigate whether media elites portray intense political conflict in ways that prompt citizens to perceive incivility and react negatively to politics. I start my exploration of incivility by overviewing two conceptualizations of incivility, arguing that incivility effects research needs a stronger grounding in theory, and offering a series of hypotheses and research questions that will help researchers, practitioners, and citizens better understand how thoughts of political incivility are shaped by the news.

INCIVILITY: A SHIFTING CONCEPT

Incivility research is in no way new. Rhetorical traditions long have argued that communicators must think not only about the effectiveness of their messages but about the appropriateness of their messages as well. Rhetorical theory has called for communicators to practice appropriateness, decorum, and rhetorical sensitivity, three ideas that closely align with incivility (Aristotle, 2006; Bitzer, 1992; Hariman, 1995; Hart & Burks, 1972). Appropriateness in speaking involves calling communicators to respond in fitting ways to a given situation, subject, or form of speaking (see, for instance, Aristotle, 2006; Bitzer, 1992). The context of any communication brings with it certain expectations and constraints. Rather than fighting them, an individual can work with these expectations and constraints in order to communicate effectively. Vilifying someone in a eulogy or speaking in a manner unbecoming of a person in a certain social situation, for instance, could lead to charges of inappropriateness. Similarly, the concept of decorum involves the social rules that govern how people interact. Decorum, in Hariman’s (1992) words, includes “the rules of conduct guiding the alignment of signs and situations, or tests and acts, or behavior and place” (p. 156). Republican style, including the type of communication used in the U.S. legislature, necessarily involves formal rules of decorum so that the interactions among legislators appear friendly, even if the decorous style actually covers up severe disagreements (Hariman, 1995). Rhetorical sensitivity, much like appropriateness and decorum, pushes individuals to take into account the expectations of another person involved in an interaction (Hart & Burks, 1972; Hart, Carlson, & Eadie, 1980). Furthermore, it encourages individuals to remain uncertain about their opinions. Rhetorically

sensitive individuals are those who remember that their own positions on an issue may not be correct. They must listen respectfully to other people involved in a conversation and give those individuals’ perspectives serious consideration. Underlying these three concepts is the idea that there are norms people should take into account before speaking or acting in social situations. These rhetorical approaches encourage self-control and restraint in one's behavior, language, and emotion. Incivility research takes up some of these themes, but flips them, asking about the effects of breaking norms of appropriateness, rather than adhering to them. In other words, a basic definition of incivility is violating social norms and acting inappropriately (Jamieson & Hardy, 2012). What broken norms count as “uncivil” differs across research projects. Some of these norms are more formal than others, such as when House of Representatives members agree upon rules of order at the beginning of each session and strike language from the official record that breaks these rules (Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2011; Jamieson, 1997). Other norms are less formal and more varied. Uncivil argument, for instance, involves using logical fallacies and failing to provide “relevant evidence that constitutes proof” supportive of a position (Jamieson & Hardy, 2012, p. 412). Still other norms are more fluid and interpersonal in nature, such as the assumption that one discussion partner should try to protect the self- concept of the other person in the conversation (Brown & Levinson, 1987). In general, the conceptualizations of incivility center either on conflict at the interpersonal level, what I call interpersonal-level conflict, or on conflict at the level of democratic norms and citizenship, what I call public-level conflict (see also Meyer,

2000; Papacharissi, 2004; Sinopoli, 1995). Although these types of incivility overlap

some, for instance by focusing on broken norms and disrespecting other people, the two perspectives differ substantially in how they approach incivility.

Incivility and Interpersonal-Level Conflict

Much of the recent research concerning political incivility has examined the outcomes of interpersonal-level conflict. This perspective on incivility involves harsh, ad hominem attacks during political campaigns (Brooks & Geer, 2007), candidates who interrupt each other during televised political programs (Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005), journalists who inappropriately challenge their interviewees (Ben-Porath, 2008; 2010), and legislators who call each other names during policy debate (Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2011; Jamieson, 1997). As these examples show, incivility centering on interpersonal-level conflict involves interpersonal communication in which one person threatens another person’s “face,” or self-esteem (Brown & Levinson, 1987). Much of the mediated incivility research coming from the interpersonal-level conflict perspective relates closely to studies of negative campaigning. As such, violations of interpersonal interaction norms often are conceptualized as extreme types of negativity. Negativity in political campaigns, at its most basic, is any time one candidate critiques another candidate (Geer, 2006). More specifically, campaigns are negative when one candidate attacks an opponent without providing any comparative information (Jamieson, Waldman, & Sherr, 2000). In the political campaigns literature, incivility is described as egregiously negative attacks on an opponent, such as those that are harsh, unfair, and add no additional informational content to a message (Brooks, 2010; Brooks & Geer, 2007; Fridkin & Kenney, 2008;

Kahn & Kenney, 1999). Incivility, from this perspective, includes campaign attacks that “go beyond facts and differences, and move instead towards name-calling, 16

contempt, and derision of the opposition” (Brooks & Geer, 2007, p. 1). Thus negativity can be viewed as a continuum from positive, respectful messages through respectful, but confrontational, clash between ideas to uncivil negative messages (Ben-Porath, 2008; 2010). There is evidence that people distinguish between traditionally negative campaigns and campaigns ripe with interpersonal-level conflict. Fridkin and Kenney (2011), for instance, conducted a study comparing survey data collected during the 2006 mid-term election to content analysis data of news coverage and campaign ads. Study participants perceived campaigns as more positive when the candidates’ advertisements were civil, even when the ads also were negative and attacked the opposing candidate. In the Allegheny College report on incivility – one of the few surveys that asked citizens about their perceptions of political incivility – over 70 percent of the participants said that belittling or insulting, personally attacking, and interrupting someone with whom one disagrees would be against their civility rules (Shea & Steadman, 2010). This perspective of incivility echoes Kesler’s (1992) argument that incivility “in ordinary usage means to be polite, respectful, decent” (p. 57). Incivility that centers on interpersonal-level conflict, then, involves rudeness, harsh attacks, and lack of interpersonal respect.

Incivility and Public-Level Conflict

A second line of research claims that incivility is not about acting impolitely; rather, it is about breaking the norms related to citizenship, deliberation, and legislation. The word “civility” arises from the Latin words for city and citizen, denoting that civility is connected to being a good citizen, not about being polite

(Davetian, 2009). As Orwin (1992) contended, “Civility is not just good manners, estimable as those are. Nor is it even law abidingness, essential as that is. In fact, 17

the devising of civility was identical with that of liberal democracy itself” (p. 75). Thus, instead of conflict between individuals at an interpersonal-level, studies that conceptualize incivility as public-level conflict emphasize disordered political processes. Speaking falsehoods and exaggerating facts to spread misinformation (Entman, 2011; Jamieson, 1992; Sobieraj & Berry, 2011), making threats to democracy and stereotyping citizens (Papacharissi, 2004), failing to offer supportive evidence in political arguments (Jamieson & Hardy, 2012), focusing so much on politeness rules that substantive political debate is lost (Darr, 2007), and threatening individuals’ political rights (Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009; Papacharissi, 2004; Young, Battaglia, & Cloud, 2010) all have been labeled as uncivil political behaviors. The public-level conception of incivility has less to do with a polite style of discourse and more to do with the concept of comity, or the idea that individuals should value reciprocity, compromise, and bridging differences in political dealings (Bennett, 2011; Uslaner, 1996; 2000). There has not been much research investigating whether citizens perceive incivility when they are exposed to behaviors related to public-level conflict. The Allegheny College report on incivility found that citizens listed some public-level, in addition to interpersonal-level, behaviors as uncivil (Shea & Steadman, 2010). A majority of the national sample of American adults said that, if they were creating an incivility rulebook, they would include manipulating facts and questioning a person’s patriotism as uncivil activities (Shea & Steadman, 2010). These activities extend beyond interpersonal-level conflict and impoliteness. Instead, they are related closely to spreading misinformation and threatening democracy.

Research examining incivility as public-level conflict tends to focus on political theory, processes in the U.S. Congress, or the content of political discourse,

rather than the effect this type of incivility has on citizens. Uslaner (1996; 2000), for instance, examined the effects of both courtesy – a concept closely related to politeness – and comity among legislators in Congress over time. Papacharissi (2004) and Sobieraj and Berry (2011) conducted content analyses of online discussion boards and various news media, respectively, measuring occurrences of both impolite exchanges and behaviors that align more closely with public-level conflict. Each of these projects helps researchers and citizens understand the extent to which incivility arises as public-level conflict. Yet only one study has asked citizens what they think comprises political incivility (Shea & Steadman, 2010) and none have tested the effects of exposure to public-level conflict on citizens. The public-level perspective of incivility spans quite a spectrum of behaviors. Whereas interpersonal-level conflict involves fairly concrete behaviors, such as superfluous, harsh attacks, and vitriolic exchanges between individuals, public-level conflict is more fragmented. Scholars, including some who have operationalized incivility as centering on interpersonal-level conflict, often claim that incivility is “more than” rudeness (see, for example, Ben-Porath, 2010; Orwin, 1992; Papacharissi, 2004), but connecting incivility to norms of citizenship broadens the concept almost indefinitely. Once again, this draws attention to the difficulty in defining incivility. Throughout my dissertation I use this ambiguity as an advantage by investigating incivility as a malleable concept shaped by elites and perceived by citizens. That is, I approach incivility as something that is not inherent to a behavior but as something attributed to political behaviors through discourse. Specifically, I examine what media coverage defines as uncivil, what citizens perceive as uncivil, and whether media coverage influences citizens’ perceptions of political behaviors.

A brief example demonstrates how the same set of behaviors can be described using either an interpersonal-level conflict perspective toward incivility or a public-level conflict perspective. During Senator Joseph McCarthy's hearings in 1954, McCarthy repeatedly argued against citizens who, he believed, had connections to Communism. Joseph Welch, a prominent Boston attorney, stood up to McCarthy during one hearing when few had stood up to McCarthy in the past, asking, “At long last, Senator McCarthy, have you no decency?” (Maisel, 2012, p. 409). Examining this exchange through a lens of strict interpersonal impoliteness, Welch insulted McCarthy and, thus, acted uncivilly. Welch directly challenged McCarthy's self-esteem, in what Brown and Levinson (1987) call a threat to his face or self-concept, rather than finding a way to challenge McCarthy's actions without denigrating McCarthy himself. Shifting the lens to that of a public-level conflict perspective of incivility, however, Welch's statement was a profoundly civil one. Even though the statement was impolite, it was made in an effort to stop McCarthy's attempts to ruin the lives of countless Americans and to take away the freedom of speech guaranteed to citizens. By standing up to McCarthy and calling him “indecent,” Welch was trying to end these attacks and allow citizens to participate in politics and political discussion more freely. This simple example illustrates how the same situation can be explained differently using different types of incivility as a lens. In the next section, I examine theoretical approaches to incivility that allow me to examine what citizens think is uncivil and what influences these thoughts.

THEORETICAL BACKING FOR INCIVILITY RESEARCH

As I have shown, researchers have conceptualized incivility as arising both from interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict, but there is a dearth of 20

studies that examine both perspectives within the same study. Examining both types of incivility is an important part of my research, meaning that a theoretical foundation that applies to both types of political incivility is required. Since much of the research either focuses exclusively on one type of incivility, or does not distinguish between the two, the theories that scholars have used to approach incivility have diverged. Studies approaching incivility from an interpersonal-level conflict perspective often build on politeness theory. Brown and Levinson (1987) argue that people have a desire to protect their public self-concept, both in “freedom from imposition” from others, what they call negative face, and in “the desire that this self image be appreciated” by others, what they call positive face (p. 61). Protecting both positive and negative face is generally in the self-interest of both discussion partners. People, thus, tend to avoid face-threatening acts like orders, threats, strong negative emotions, promises, offers, and expressions of disapproval or disagreement. Further, scholars have argued that political media, and particularly television, have become more intimate (Hart, 1999), and that people interact with technology in ways mimicking interpersonal interactions (Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005; Reeves & Nass, 1996). Mediated interpersonal-level conflict should, then, make viewers feel that the rules of politeness have been broken inappropriately. Incivility arising from public-level conflict, however, is outside the scope of politeness theory for two main reasons. Public-level conflict, first, may not always threaten a person’s self-concept; instead, it frequently involves some type of obstruction to the political process. Citizens watching a news story about lack of compromise in Congress may not feel as though interpersonal improprieties have

occurred. Rather, the citizens may feel that democracy or their political parties are threatened. Since the broken norms are not related to impoliteness in all instances, politeness theory may not predict the outcomes of exposure to media coverage that includes public-level conflict. Second, politeness theory generally takes into account only those people taking part in an interpersonal interaction. Mediated political incivility, however, includes an outside audience: that is, citizens watching, reading, or listening to an interaction rather than participating in it directly. Although one study did find that individuals reacted with anger and fear when they saw someone acting uncivilly toward another person in everyday life (Phillips & Smith, 2004), few politeness studies focus on an audience. In politics, however, partisan citizens may not want their preferred politicians to act politely. Partisans often call for their politicians to go on the attack or to stand up to their opponents, rather than act politely. Take President Obama who told his supporters that he was “just too polite” in the first presidential debate in 2012 but that they would “see a little more activity” in the next debate (Stein, 2012). Rather than only taking into account the self-concept of an opposing political actor, politicians also must identify with their supporters following the political exchange through the media. Politeness theory does not offer suggestions that could help predict when an audience may expect impoliteness or how audience members will react to an impolite interaction. Whereas studies approaching incivility from an interpersonal-level conflict perspective draw upon politeness theory, studies approaching incivility from a public-level conflict perspective cite political theory. Researchers have tied Rawls and Rousseau, in particular, to political incivility (Maisel, 2012; Meyer, 2000; Orwin, 1992; Papacharissi, 2004). Rawls (1993) argued that citizens have a duty of civility,

which is unrelated to politeness. To Rawls, citizens’ duty of civility is the ability to explain their political stances in terms of the common good or generally accepted political values rather than nonpolitical values (e.g., religious values). From this perspective, a civil citizen will explain support for a presidential candidate based on the rights of citizens and the good of the country. An uncivil citizen, on the other hand, will explain support based on a candidate’s religion or personality. Other researchers tie civility to Rousseau’s social contract, suggesting that civil citizens must realize that other people hold equal rights with which citizens should not interfere (Maisel, 2012; Orwin, 1992). Rather than uncivil citizens who take away or threaten the rights of others, a civil citizen will protect those rights even for people with whom they disagree. Whereas politeness theory is too limited in scope to address incivility from a public-level conflict perspective, political theory is too broad to explain the individual effects of exposure to interpersonal-level conflict. The end goal of political theory is to create processes that lead to a strong political community, not an understanding of how messages and processes affect individuals. Whereas politeness theory includes details about the exact behaviors that make people feel that their self-concepts are threatened (Brown & Levinson, 1987), political theory broadly suggests that individuals should respect others’ political rights and leave others to their own devices for the good of society (Maisel, 2012; Orwin, 1992). As Shils (1992) argued, political theory focuses on communities that are so large that many individuals will never meet or speak with each other, so they will never have the opportunity to be polite to the majority of citizens. Thus, people should support constitutional freedoms provided to all citizens but do not need to worry about being impolite to someone they may never meet. It is not that politeness is not

important to political theorists. Politeness simply is not discussed in enough detail in public-level conflict research and political theory to offer predictions about how impolite messages affect citizens. As the above discussion shows, impoliteness theory and political theories have one thing in common: neither predicts the individual effects of encounters with both types of mediated political incivility. To best understand the effects of mediated incivility, researchers need to draw from theories that can (a) apply to both types of incivility, (b) predict audience effects, as opposed to effects on people engaged an uncivil exchange, and (c) use the ambiguity around incivility as an advantage rather than a detriment. Two theoretical approaches are of particular help – one focused on citizens’ judgments of political conflict and a second focused on how media elites frame incivility for citizens. These approaches have the added advantage of investigating incivility both from the bottom up by asking citizens their thoughts about the concept and the top down by looking at elite-level political discourse. The basic tenants of both theories are described below, as well as how they can help in understanding perceptions of incivility and predicting the effects of mediated political conflict.

Citizens and Incivility: Social Judgment Theory

I have spent many pages examining what academics count as incivility, but fewer words discussing whether citizens think about incivility in similar ways. To investigate citizens’ acceptance and rejection of behaviors that have been described as uncivil in research and media coverage, I turn to social judgment theory (SJT). At its foundation, SJT is a parsimonious theory that helps researchers and practitioners understand individuals’ attitudes and how these attitudes affect responses to message exposure. Rather than assuming that people simply approve 24

or disapprove of a given attitude object, SJT suggests that individuals have attitude ranges that fall into two categories. First, people have a preferred position, or anchor point, on an issue. This anchor point is surrounded by other positions that, while not preferred, are also acceptable. These positions make up a person’s latitude of acceptance (LOA). Second, individuals have a position that is most objectionable to them, a second anchor point, which is surrounded by positions that, while not the most objectionable, are also disagreeable. These positions make up a person’s latitude of rejection (LOR) (Nebergall, 1966; Sherif & Hovland, 1961). A study of college students’ attitudes toward the 1960 presidential election shows how researchers have approached LOAs and LORs (Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965). Researchers gave participants a list of nine statements about the election ranging from “The election of the Republican presidential and vice- presidential candidates in November is absolutely essential from all angles in the country’s interests” to “The election of the Democratic presidential and vice- presidential candidates in November is absolutely essential from all angles in the country’s interests.” Participants selected the one position most acceptable to them, as well as any other positions they found acceptable. These responses made up their LOAs. Next, the participants selected the one most objectionable position to them of the nine positions, as well as the other positions objectionable to them. These responses made up their LORs. The results of the analysis suggested that people varied not only on their most acceptable and objectionable positions, which are traditionally the only measures of interest in attitude research, but also in the widths of their latitudes of acceptance and rejection. People who selected the most extreme statements as the most acceptable also found more position stances on the

election objectionable than people who selected more moderate statements as most acceptable. Previously, SJT has been applied to the study of political issues and candidate evaluations rather than to the study of political behaviors like incivility. Tests of SJT have measured participants’ attitudes toward prohibition (Sherif & Hovland, 1961), political campaigns (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif et al., 1965), political candidates (Scheufele, Kim, & Brossard, 2007), and various minority groups (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif et al., 1965). Studies also have tested the effectiveness of SJT in explaining the hostile media phenomenon (Choi, Yang, & Chang, 2009; Reid, 2012) and responses to messages persuading people to drink less in college (Smith, Atkin, Martell, Allen & Hembroff, 2006). In each case, participants’ attitudes toward specific issues or politicians were measured, not their attitudes about political behaviors. What can SJT say about incivility? I argue that SJT is flexible enough to incorporate thoughts about ambiguous political behaviors in much the same way that it incorporates attitudes toward ambiguous social issues. Early SJT researchers contended that individuals were most likely to hold varied attitudes when the issue in question was ambiguous and socially defined (Sherif & Hovland, 1961). A study conducted by Sherif (1963) shows the importance of adding social ambiguity to otherwise straightforward information. Two groups of participants, one group of white middle-class students and another group of Native American students, were asked to sort two sets of numbers. When participants were asked to sort a range of numerals alone, that is numbers that were not connected to any social context, participants in both groups felt similarly favorable toward the numbers. When the participants were told to think about the numbers as prices they would be willing to

pay for a winter coat, however, favorability toward the numbers varied between groups, which the author argued was due to their different socio-economic standings (Sherif, 1963). Once a social element, like the acceptable price of a coat, is added to an evaluation task, SJT becomes an appropriate perspective to use in understanding individuals’ attitudes. The ambiguous social norms surrounding political incivility fit particularly well with the ambiguous social element necessary for SJT to apply. As described in detail above, the behaviors that count as “uncivil” are hazy. Researchers have counted everything from eye-rolling and name-calling (Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005) to spreading misinformation (Entman, 2011) to stereotyping groups of people (Papacharissi, 2004) as uncivil. Individuals may form attitudes about these ambiguous behaviors in a manner similar to the way in which they form judgments about ambiguous issues. Some people, for instance, may judge a filibuster in Congress as uncivil and unacceptable. Others may see the same filibuster as a politician standing up for her beliefs, and thus judge it to be acceptable and civil. These attitudes toward the behavior would fall into an individual’s latitude of rejection and acceptance, respectively. Citizens may judge political conflict in various ways, but what forces help shape these attitudes? The next section addresses one of these forces: media coverage of political conflict.

Media Elites and Incivility: News Framing Theory

Thus far, I have described incivility in terms of political behaviors and citizens’ judgment of political conflict. Much incivility research approaches the study of incivility in this way. Scholars have studied incivility among political elites in legislatures (Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2011; Baker, 2000; Jamieson, 1997; 27

Thurber, 2000; Uslaner, 1996; 2000), as well as among citizens in face-to-face discussion, online discourse, and within social movements (Benson, 1996; Bone, Griffin, & Scholz, 2008; Hurrell, 2005; Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009; Papacharissi, 2004; Young et al., 2010). In each context, the focus is on the individuals directly involved in a potentially uncivil exchange. I argue that mediating political conflict complicates incivility further by shaping how people think about political incivility. Rather than examining the effects of incivility on legislative practices or interpersonal relationships, mediated incivility studies have an interest in citizens who are exposed to incivility but not engaged in incivility themselves. Further, in this project, I am interested in where people get their thoughts about incivility. In other words, do media portrayals of conflict lead citizens to think that a political conflict is uncivil? Do media elites encourage people to think protests are good for the community or bad for democracy? Looking to the media to learn more about incivility is important given the power of elites in shaping public opinion. Most citizens do not get to meet the president of the United States or have in-depth policy conversations with their senators. Instead, they experience politics indirectly through media coverage, thus providing media elites the opportunity to guide citizens’ views of politics (Edelman, 1988; Jarvis, 2005; Lippmann, 1922/2010). Elite voices have considerable control over media content, particularly with the journalistic tradition of speaking to official sources to get the news (Bennett, 1990; Entman, 2004; Tuchman, 1978). Research has shown repeatedly that this elite discourse in the media has effects on citizens.

Citizens’ perceptions that the media are biased are more closely related to political elites saying the media are biased than measurable partisan lean in media content

(Ladd, 2010, 2012; Smith, 2010; Watts et al., 1999). Intensity of mediated arguments matter as well, as even partisan citizens are likely to adopt elite opinions when elite arguments in the media are strong and frequently repeated (Zaller, 1992). Perhaps, given elites’ influence in other areas of public opinion, the way media elites talk about incivility can shape citizens’ thoughts about incivility as well. Research that has investigated mediated incivility to this point fits into two types: content-focused and effects-focused. Content studies have examined the extent to which media coverage includes intense types of uncivil language and behaviors (Sobieraj & Berry, 2011) and depicts protesters in an uncivil and disorderly manner (Gitlin, 1977/2003). Effects studies, which are much more prevalent, test the extent to which uncivil messages in political campaigns (Brooks, 2010; Brooks & Geer, 2007, Fridkin & Kenney, 2008; 2011; Jackson, Mondak, & Huckfeldt, 2009; Kahn & Kenney, 1999; Wolf, Strachan, & Shea, 2012), news interviews (Ben-Porath, 2008; 2010), blog commentary (Borah, forthcoming; Thorson, Vraga, & Ekdale, 2010), and televised political talk shows (Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005) affect citizens’ levels of political trust, levels of political interest, levels of physiological arousal, and perceptions of the media’s credibility, among other variables. Although research has made important strides in understanding incivility, it leaves other questions unanswered. How often do media elites portray political events as uncivil? Is there agreement in the news about what is uncivil? And does the way political conflict is portrayed in the news influence citizens’ thoughts about incivility? Of the many media effects theories, news framing theory, in particular, provides a helpful lens to use in answering these questions.

News Framing Theory

News framing research can help scholars understand how journalists, political pundits, politicians, and other political actors discuss uncivil politics in the media, as well as how that coverage affects citizens. News frames outline the boundaries of news, structure political reality, “set up categories,” and “define some ideas as out and others in” (Reese, 2007, p. 150). Framing involves a journalist or political actor selecting some part of reality and making that aspect of a political issue salient for people who encounter the message (Entman, 1993). Thus framing involves the construction of social reality in political messages, which can then influence how citizens think about the political world on an individual level (Scheufele, 1999). Most broadly, frames exist in culture, that is in the narratives and norms a culture or subculture uses to make sense of political reality (D’Angelo, 2002; Goffman, 1974; Gamson, 1992; Van Gorp, 2007). Journalists, political actors, and citizens can draw on these cultural frames when writing a news story or engaging in a political discussion (Scheufele, 1999). In the case of incivility, media elites have the power to cover political conflicts in ways that emphasize interpersonal-level conflict, public-level conflict, or both. And these frames could prompt citizens to think that the events are uncivil. In other words, it is important to study the frames used in media messages (Entman, 1993; Scheufele, 1999) and the frames citizens use at an individual level to make sense of political conflict (Nelson, Oxley, & Clawson, 1997; Scheufele, 1999; Scheufele & Scheufele, 2010). Media frames. To understand how the concept of political incivility is constructed in the media, the first step is to look at the frames appearing in coverage of politic conflict. News framing studies focus on the frames journalists, pundits, and others in the media use in their descriptions of political issues, actors, and

events (Entman, 1993; Scheufele, 1999). Studying two ways in which media elites can structure political information – frames and small cues – will strengthen researchers’ grasp on the concept of incivility. The first way in which political information can be structured is through use of broad news frames. Journalists may use framing devices, such as metaphors, exemplars, catchphrases, visuals, and style, that together construct a frame that suggest that news users should think about a topic or person in a specific way (Gamson & Lasch, 1983; Reese, 2010; Van Gorp, 2010). In news coverage of nuclear activity in the 1950s, for instance, journalists framed the pursuit of nuclear technology as “progress” by claiming that “Underdeveloped nations can especially benefit from peaceful uses of nuclear technology” and that “Nuclear power opponents are afraid of change,” rather than directly stating that nuclear technology is necessary for progress (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989, p. 11). The frame, in this case “progress,” emerges from the media coverage and eventually suggest ways for citizens to organize their understanding of an issue or event. Particularly useful to this project is the conflict frame. Journalists are drawn to covering conflict (Gans, 1979/2004; Patterson, 1994). A news story can become an interesting story with competing interests. When journalists use conflict frames, they emphasize disagreement and tension among groups (Neuman, Just, & Crigler, 1992; Price, Tewksbury, & Powers, 1997). Conflict frames are among the most prevalent frames in news coverage (Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000). I take the conflict frames a step further in my analysis by looking at two types of conflict: interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict. Looking for both types of conflict in news messages can test whether there is more than one approach to covering political conflict in the news and whether news coverage of political

conflict matches academic distinctions between interpersonal-level and public-level types of incivility. By providing examples of incivility that involve rudeness and name-calling among politicians, a journalist may suggest that politics should be viewed through an interpersonal-level conflict frame. Alternatively, a media elite could use examples of incivility that include citizens taking over private parks in New York City or members of Congress using stalling tactics to slow the passage of a budget bill, signaling that citizens should see politics through a public-level conflict frame. Media small cues. A second way to structure political information involves a message in which only a word or a phrase is changed to encourage readers to think differently about a topic. Shah, Boyle, Schmierbach, Keum, and Armstrong (2010) call these slight word choices “small cues” and argue that framing researchers need to take them into account to match the complexity of news in the real world. Small cues still are media frames, in that they encourage citizens to organize topics in a particular way, but they only involve changes in specific phrases and words. Enemies in the Middle East, for instance, can be labeled either insurgents or terrorists (Aday, 2012). A new building project may be a “suburban development” or “urban sprawl” (Shah et al., 2010). In abortion rights debates, either “babies” or “fetuses” may be aborted (Andsager, 2000; Simon & Jerit, 2007). When making a decision between two medical programs that will fight a disease, either 22 percent of people will live or 78 percent of people will die (Kahneman & Tversky, 1984). In each case, the wording changes in the article are small but can affect the way citizens think about politics.

Just because a political event is framed as a conflict does not mean it is framed as an unacceptable political conflict. Whereas the conflict frames align with

the behaviors that have been discussed as uncivil in past academic research, incivility small cues can provide explicit interpretations of the behavior if media elites label it civil or uncivil. Much incivility research discusses the negative outcomes of incivility (Mutz, 2007; Rawls, 1993; Uslaner, 1996, 2000). Some scholars, however, argue that incivility is warranted, at least at times. Critical studies experts researching social movements, for instance, have argued that citizens must sometimes act impolitely to gain a voice in the political process (Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009; Young et al., 2011). And, as Darr (2005) has argued, questioning public figures’ characters is appropriate when their characters are important for their jobs. Perhaps political conflict is not unanimously described as uncivil. Incivility research to date has not investigated the role of media elites labeling behaviors as civil or uncivil. Drawing on small cues studies can help researchers, citizens, and political actors understand the effects of the labeling behaviors of media elites. Ample amounts of anecdotal evidence suggest that media elites label political conflicts as uncivil or unacceptable and civil or acceptable. For instance, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that citizens viewed Romney as more uncivil than Obama (New Poll, 2012). ABC News lamented the decline of incivility after a citizen asked his United States representative, “Who is going to shoot Obama?” (Dwyer, 2011). But political conflict is not always described as unacceptable. Protesting citizens have been called “real Americans” (Hannity, 2009). Politicians are bravely “standing on principle,” rather than stubbornly uncompromising (Bolduan, et al., 2011). Media elites often use small words and phrases to hint that political behaviors are uncivil or civil, but the prevalence of these small cues in media coverage of political conflict, as well as their effects, is unknown.

Incivility small cues and conflict frames also may interact in interesting ways. Media elites can either (a) simply present different political behaviors to citizens or (b) present those behaviors and then clearly interpret the behaviors as civil or uncivil. An example illustrates this further. A journalist may choose to emphasize interpersonal-level conflict by covering protest signs that call politicians nasty names. A second journalist, however, may emphasize public-level conflict in the same protest by covering the public disruption caused by a political march. In this example, the journalists are using conflict frames that include different behaviors enacted during the same event. Small cues would make these conflict frames more complex. Journalists can describe the same behaviors as either civil or uncivil. Take the same protest. Two journalists may use the same conflict frame, in this case showing public disruption caused by the protest. The first journalist may call the disruption unacceptable because it is an instance of social disorder. The second journalist may say the disruption shows citizens behaving acceptably because individuals are taking advantage of their first amendment right to assemble. Notably, both incivility frames and incivility small cues work as generic frames that apply in many instances. Whereas an issue frame is one that only applies to a certain topic, like welfare or geopolitics in the European Union (de Vreese, 2010; de Vreese, Boomgaarden, & Semetko, 2011; Nisbet, 2010; Shen & Edwards, 2005), generic frames are can apply across issues. These include strategy and issue frames (Cappella & Jamieson, 1997; Rhee, 1997; Valentino, Beckmann, & Buhr, 2001), thematic and episodic frames (Iyengar, 1991), collective action frames (Gamson, 1992), and deviance frames (Gitlin, 1977/2003), each of which can be seen in news texts and can apply to various social issues. Media elites may frame politicians and citizens as engaging in interpersonal-or public-level conflict in the

news no matter whether the issue under discussion is welfare reform or the debt ceiling. Political pundits, similarly, may label political actors as civil or uncivil no matter whether the topic is abortion access, taxes, or health care. Individual level frames. The frames that appear in media messages may be adopted by citizens as they try to make sense of politics (Scheufele, 1999; Shah et al., 2010). Just as journalists use frames to organize reality for their audiences, individuals define situations they encounter through their own organizational capacities (Goffman, 1974). Distinguishing between media and individual frames also makes clear that individuals do not always frame events in the same manner as media elites. The cognitive schema that citizens develop for politics may be activated when they view specific message frames (Scheufele & Scheufele, 2010). Perhaps unsurprisingly, people draw on their experiences and values when making sense of political issues (Gamson, 1992). For instance, in news stories about the AIDS epidemic and apartheid in South Africa, journalists emphasized conflict between groups and powerlessness of officials. Citizens, contrastingly, focused on human impact and the moral values related to such topics (Neuman et al., 1992). Since the way individuals frame politics and the way media elites frame politics sometimes clash, it is important to test both the way citizens think about political incivility and the extent to which media frames influence citizens’ perceptions. When media elites use the conflict frames in the news, do citizens adopt the interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames as their own? I am interested in (a) whether individuals think about incivility in line with impoliteness and public-level conflict frames without exposure to media labels, and

(b) whether citizens adopt broad conflict frames (interpersonal-level or public-level conflict) and incivility small cues (civility or incivility labels) once they are exposed

to political media messages. The process of adopting frames at the individual level, also known as frame setting (Scheufele, 1999), is explored further later in this chapter. Approaching incivility using SJT and news framing perspectives recognizes the messiness of the concept of incivility and the role of personal judgments and public discourse in shaping the term’s meaning. It is quite possible that the ambiguity present in incivility research also appears in media coverage and in citizens’ own thoughts about politics.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND HYPOTHESES

In the remainder of this chapter, I outline the specific research questions and hypotheses that, first, investigate how media elites frame political conflict, then, draw from SJT to determine citizens’ attitudes toward incivility, and, finally, bring these two perspectives together to test the effects of mediated conflict frames on citizens. Chapter 3: How Do Media Elites Frame Political Conflict? Incivility is ambiguous, making it ripe for framing in the news. Do media elites draw from conflict frames to describe events as interpersonal-level or public- level conflict? Without knowing the frames that exist in media coverage, any test of framing effects stands on shaky ground (Reese, 2010). Building on news framing approaches (Entman, 1993; Gamson, & Modigliani, 1989; Reese, 2010), this section posits research questions concerning how media elites use interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames, as well as the frame-building processes that get the frames into the news.

Content of Mediated Conflict Frames First, I examine the extent to which media elites discuss both interpersonal- level and public-level conflict frames. There are good reasons to anticipate that media elites will discuss both types of conflict in media coverage. Political protests during the 1960s were framed by the media as disorderly and disruptive, thus as public-level conflict (Gitlin, 1977/2003). Insulting language, name-calling, and belittling, all closely related to interpersonal-level conflict, appear in political coverage on television, radio, and in blogs (Sobieraj & Berry, 2011). I, thus, raise first research question:

RQ3.1: To what extent do media elites frame political events as interpersonal-

level conflict and public-level conflict?4 Even studies that have looked for the appearance of incivility in media messages have not explored whether media elites use small cues to signal whether political conflict is or is not acceptable. As mentioned earlier, there are some people who champion incivility (e.g., Bennett, 2011; Young et al., 2010) and others who renounce it (Rawls, 1993). Is this same pattern apparent in news coverage? Do people draw on conflict frames and then interpret them with small cues such as “civil” and “uncivil”? Or, more formally:

RQ3.2: To what extent do media elites use small cues to suggest that political conflict is civil or uncivil?

RQ3.3: Does one conflict frame (interpersonal-level or public-level conflict) appear with civility or incivility small cues more often than the other conflict frame?

4The research questions and hypotheses are numbered based on the chapter in which they are tested. For instance, since RQ3.1 is the first research question to be explored in Chapter 3, it is numbered as “3.1.” 37

Framing Building and Political Conflict In addition to the content of news frames, patterns of conflict frame use matter as well. Examining frame building – or the processes through which frames get into the news – can show whether news frames are likely to appear in certain types of news coverage and to emerge from certain types of individuals (Scheufele, 1999; Scheufele & Scheufele, 2010). For instance, journalists may choose to quote a politician calling an opponent uncivil, which allows that politician to use small cues to interpret the opponent’s behavior. Alternatively, a Republican media pundit on Fox News may broadcast images of Vice President Joe Biden smirking during the vice-presidential debate while a Democratic media pundit on MSNBC may talk about Representative Paul Ryan’s misrepresentation of the facts during the same debate. In these cases the pundits are using the conflict frames. Although framing research is wide-spread, a meta-analysis of framing research found that frame-building needed more study (Borah, 2011). My research addresses this neglected area of framing research by studying the role of media elites in the struggle to define political conflicts. Specifically, I examine three areas of frame-building research that can shed light on the use of conflict frames: issue coverage, type of media, and partisanship. Frame building and issue coverage. First, I look at whether some issues are more likely than others to prompt use of conflict frames and small cues. Of particular interest to incivility research is the difference in coverage of events that revolve around politicians engaged in conflict with other elites (politician-focused events) and those that include citizen-led protests (citizen-focused events). Thus far, I have paid little attention the role of power in political incivility, but the two concepts are closely linked. Given the ambiguity of the term incivility, those who get

to frame conflicts as “uncivil” have the power to connect a citizen, social group, political party, or public official with a small cue highlighting broken social norms. Scholars critical of calls for civility claim that social norms are created by people in power and act as tools for keeping marginalized citizens from participating in public life (Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009; Young et al., 2010). Thus women who spoke in public in the early 1900s (Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009) or radical, but largely nonviolent, student groups protesting in the 1970s (Gitlin, 1977/2003) would be labeled uncivil even if, as the women and protesters argued, they were only taking advantage of their rights to free speech, assembly, and political participation. Politeness, too, has a power dynamic. Etiquette, emotional restraint, and decorum may, at times, serve to keep control over marginalized citizens (Hariman, 1992). Frame building also highlights the role of power in news construction by examining who is able to define an issue, politician, or other political topic (Entman, 2010; Lawrence, 2010). Both conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh (2011) and news researcher Lance Bennett (2011) describe an underlying fear of some incivility researchers, claiming that “incivility is the new censorship.” It may be that media elites are likely to frame citizens and people with little political power as disorderly and uncivil (Gitlin, 1977/2003), in which case it may be that the “incivility as censorship” claim has a foundation in media coverage. To examine whether events focused on citizens are portrayed as containing more conflict than politician-focused events, I ask:

RQ3.4: Do media elites use different conflict frames and small cues to describe citizen-focused compared to politician-focused events?

Frame building and type of media. In addition to differences across political events, the appearance of conflict frames and small cues may vary based on

the type of media portraying the conflict. For instance, numerous scholars have argued that television and visual media are more intimate and personal than print media (Hart, 1999; Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005). When studying extreme types of political incivility, Sobieraj and Berry (2011) found that incivility appeared most often on television. Mutz (2007) also has found that close-up, televised political conflict has the strongest effects on citizens. Perhaps, then, conflict frames, particularly interpersonal-level conflict frames, are more prevalent in visual than print media. There is little research to use as a guide for how often a public-level conflict frame may appear in the media, however, or how small cues may be used. Thus, I stick with a research question:

RQ3.5: Do conflict frames and small cues appear to different extents in visual compared to print media? Media formats vary on at least one more factor: opinion in the news. Some news outlets actively promote political partisanship (see, for example, Rachel Maddow, 2008; About Sean Hannity, 2013) whereas others follow the news norm of objectivity more closely. Aday (2010) found evidence that a more neutral, or at least a traditional, nightly news broadcast (NBC) covered Middle Eastern fighters differently than more opinionated Fox News. Maybe there are differences in use of conflict frames and small cues as well:

RQ3.6: Do conflict frames and small cues appear to different extents in opinionated compared to non-opinionated news coverage? Frame building and partisanship. Finally, it may be that, in addition to uncivil behaviors being used strategically (Herbst, 2010), the conflict frames and labels of incivility are used strategically to denigrate another group or person. Partisan pundits may claim, for instance, that politicians and political groups of the

other political leaning are behaving badly. Strategic framing may drive Shea and Steadman’s (2010) finding that partisan citizens believe the other party is responsible for incivility in the U.S. Although Sobieraj and Berry (2011) meticulously examined news coverage for extremely uncivil language, they did not investigate who was the partisan target of this type of coverage. Thus, I ask the final research question related to media content:

RQ3.7: Do partisan media elites frame political conflict strategically? Knowing how media elites construct political conflict in the news can help academic research stand on firmer ground when studying and operationalizing political incivility. Additionally, the analysis will make clear who is likely to label political actions as uncivil in media coverage. It will be troubling if partisans label the other party as uncivil, perhaps leading to further polarization between the parties, or if media elites label citizens, who tend to have less of a voice in political media coverage than public officials, as uncivil. The findings of Chapter 3 also will prove beneficial in the later portions of this project, which will examine how citizens react to political conflict framed in the media. Chapter 4: What Do Citizens Judge as Uncivil? Media elites are not the only people important to understanding incivility. I shift my focus to how citizens think about political incivility in Chapter 4. By asking citizens what they think about political conflicts, I build a conceptualization of incivility from the ground up. Specifically, I raise questions about how citizens structure their thoughts about incivility, accept or reject various types of political behaviors, and use partisanship in interpreting political conflict.

Structuring Thoughts about Incivility As I have argued throughout this chapter, researchers’ conceptualizations of incivility center on either interpersonal-level conflict (e.g., Borah, forthcoming; Mutz, 2007) or public-level conflict (e.g., Entman, 2010; Uslaner, 1996, 2000). There is some evidence to suggest that citizens view a variety of behaviors as uncivil, as well (Shea & Steadman, 2010), but the authors of that study did not tease apart the different types of incivility. Thus, I will test whether citizens perceive interpersonal- level conflict behaviors and public-level conflict behaviors differently:

RQ4.1: Do individuals perceive incivility differently across interpersonal-level, public-level, and civil conflicts? A second question about how citizens’ structure their thoughts about incivility relates to whether they think incivility is acceptable or objectionable. Researchers have varying opinions of whether political incivility is unacceptable (e.g., Rawls, 1993) or acceptable (e.g., Young et al, 2010). Perhaps citizens vary in their attitudes toward incivility as well:

RQ4.2: Do individuals think the behaviors they rate as uncivil are also unacceptable? Latitudes of Acceptance and Rejection More specifically, social judgment theory can generate understanding about political incivility. Applying SJT to judgments about political behaviors can show whether citizens approach interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict in similar or different ways. Perhaps people will have a wider latitude of rejection (LOR) for politicians who are impolite than politicians who stall the legislative process to stay true to their stated political goals, or vice versa. Comparing two different sets of attitude latitudes is new territory for SJT. Previous studies have

compared individuals’ LOAs and LORs between issues with and without social significance, finding that exposure to socially significant items leads individuals to vary most in their attitudes (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif et al., 1965). My study builds on this finding by looking at differences in how citizens react to different incivility frames. Simply stated, will individuals have different latitudes of acceptance and rejection for interpersonal-level and public-level conflict? There is reason to believe that there will be more variability in judgments about public-level conflict than interpersonal-level conflict. The behaviors aligned with interpersonal-level conflict are relatively concrete given its focus on personal attacks, rudeness, and vitriolic language, compared to the definition of public-level conflict, which has included everything from spreading misinformation to taking away the rights of citizens to refusing to compromise. If Sherif and Hovland’s (1961) argument that ambiguity influences LOAs and LORs, then perhaps LOAs will be wider and LORs will be narrower for the ambiguous concept of public-level conflict. Given the lack of research comparing the two types of incivility, however, I offer two two-sided hypotheses:

H4.1: Individuals' latitudes of acceptance will differ for public-level conflict and interpersonal-level conflict.

H4.2: Individuals' latitudes of rejection will differ for public-level conflict and interpersonal-level conflict. Political Leanings and Latitudes of Acceptance and Rejection When employing SJT, researchers tend to measure LORs or LOAs toward a social issue and do not measure whether those latitudes change based on characteristics of the message and the message receiver. Previous SJT research has looked at individual differences in the width of LOAs and LORs but based solely on

one variable: ego-involvement (Park, Levine, Westerman, Orfgen, & Foregger, 2007; Reid, 2012; Sherif & Hovland, 1961). When an issue is central to an individual’s values, that individual tends to have a large LOR for that issue (Sherif & Hovland, 1961). Beyond ego-involvement, few influences on the variability in LOAs and LORs have been measured. Reference group membership, however, deserves attention in SJT studies. Partisan reference groups, specifically, may play a role in whether citizens believe that behaviors are uncivil. Citizens and researchers fault strong partisans for encouraging incivility. Wolf et al. (2012) find that survey respondents blame parties for the uncivil tone of politics. Moderates blame both parties, while Democrats blame Republicans and vice versa. Researchers, citizens, and journalists often place blame for incivility on partisan media (Mutz, 2007; Shea & Steadman, 2010; “War of words,” 2012). Thus, it is imperative to understand whether partisan messages and citizens’ political leanings influence citizens’ judgments of political behaviors. When the partisanship of an uncivil political actor is obvious, individuals may alter their thoughts about what is acceptable or objectionable to match whether that partisan is an in-group or out-group member. Researchers connected to SJT have mentioned that reference groups may influence attitudes about an issue but have not tested how reference groups influence LOAs and LORs (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif et al., 1965). Reference group membership was such an important variable for Sherif et al. (1965) that they claimed, “Individual attitudes, we see, are anchored to the meaningful contexts of reference group interactions. When the contexts change, so do they” (p. 218). The authors, however, did not measure this assumption. Sherif et al. (1965) found that participants’ group membership influenced whether they found certain

characteristics of public officials important, but the researchers did not test whether participants were more flexible in their attitudes toward a person who is part of their reference group. Students attending a religious college in the southwestern U.S., for instance, were more likely than students attending a northwestern U.S. secular college to think that a political candidate’s religion was important. But the extent to which religious reference group membership changed individuals’ LOAs and LORs was not measured. Keeping group membership in mind is important but needs to be tested in the context of SJT. Although SJT studies have not tested formally the effects of citizens’ partisanship, group membership is deeply embedded in SJT research. Since previous research has studied attitudes (Scheufele et al., 2007; Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif et al., 1965), group membership often overlaps with issue attitudes. A person who believes that Democratic candidates for president and vice-president must be elected to serve the best interests of the nation likely also identifies with the Democratic Party. Behaviors, such as those to be studied in this project, however, can be undertaken by both parties. It is important, therefore, to determine whether partisans are more accepting of political behaviors that some may label as uncivil when those behaviors originate from their own party rather than from the opposing party. Motivated reasoning research also suggests that a partisan response to incivility may occur. Partisans seek information that confirms their beliefs and counter-argue counter-attitudinal information when they do encounter information that counters their beliefs (Lodge & Taber, 2000; Lodge, Taber, & Weber, 2006;

Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979; Taber & Lodge, 2006). When partisans listened to talk radio shows for a week, for example, motivated information processing clearly

occurred. Conservatives and liberals who listened to Rush Limbaugh’s conservative talk radio programming for a week ended that week with more polarized attitudes toward a number of social issues than partisans who listened to other types of talk radio (Jamieson & Cappella, 2008). That is, at the end of a week, liberals who listened to Limbaugh were more liberal and conservatives more conservative on some social issues than likeminded partisans who listened to other programs. Incivility may follow a similar pattern where partisans think behaviors of their own party are less uncivil and more acceptable than the behaviors of the other party. When citizens read negative information about the candidate they support, they are likely to counter-argue that information (Meffert, Chung, Joiner, Waks, & Garst, 2006). Perhaps a similar process takes place when people see likeminded political actors behaving uncivilly. To test the effects of partisanship on citizens’ judgments toward uncivil behaviors, I propose two hypotheses:

H4.3: Partisans will have wider latitudes of acceptance and narrower latitudes of rejection for uncivil behaviors enacted by likeminded partisans.

H4.4: Partisans will have narrower latitudes of acceptance and wider latitudes of rejection for uncivil behaviors enacted by counter-attitudinal partisans. The type of political behavior may influence partisan reactions to the behaviors, as well. If, for instance, interpersonal-level conflict behaviors are considered more unacceptable than public-level conflict behaviors, perhaps partisanship will not matter as much in citizens’ judgments of the behaviors. No research has investigated this possibility, however, so I raise the following question:

RQ4.3: Does the type of political conflict (interpersonal-level, public-level, or civil conflict) moderate the relationship between partisanship and individuals’ widths of LOA and LOR?

Political Conflict in the News Although the SJT tests will provide extensive information about citizens’ judgments of incivility, SJT requires that citizens view each behavior separately and out of context of a news article. Once the interpersonal-level and public-level conflict behaviors are presented to individuals as part of news frames, do they have effects on citizens? I ask two broad research questions about citizens’ reactions to conflict in the news:

RQ4.4: Do citizens perceive incivility after reading news articles that contain interpersonal-level and public-level conflict?

RQ4.5: Do citizens perceive incivility in counter-attitudinal news articles? Finally, I take a first step in determining whether participants’ perceptions of incivility matter outside of citizens’ cognitions. Specifically, I test whether participants are open to reading more news in the future when they are exposed to different types of conflict behaviors in the news. Negative information about citizens’ preferred political candidates attracts citizens to news messages (Meffert et al., 2006). There is not much evidence to suggest that citizens will be attracted similarly to incivility. On one hand, eighty-six percent of Americans think that incivility is harming the U.S. (Lukensmeyer, 2013). On the other hand, incivility makes politics more interesting and entertaining to citizens (Brooks & Geer, 2007; Mutz, 2007). Thus, I ask the first effects question:

RQ4.6: Do citizens’ perceptions of incivility prompted by news articles affect their intentions to read news in the future? The hypotheses and research questions offered to test citizens’ perceptions of incivility serve a number of functions. They, first, give researchers a baseline for understanding citizens’ thoughts about incivility that has been lacking in most

research. Given the ambiguity of the concept of incivility present in academic research, it is important to ground understanding of the term in citizens’ thoughts as well. Also, these hypotheses will allow me to investigate differences in perceptions of incivility among partisans. The findings will show whether political behaviors are interpreted differently among people with different partisan leanings or whether citizens can agree upon what counts as inappropriate political behavior. Chapter 5: What are the Effects of Exposure to Mediated Incivility Frames? Beyond encouraging citizens to think about politics in different ways, news frames also affect citizens’ attitudes, emotions, and behaviors. Frames and small cues have led to effects as diverse as increasing political cynicism (Cappella & Jamieson, 1997), changing whether people blame for a problem on society or an individual (Iyengar, 1991), influencing individuals’ opinions about whether the U.S. should intervene in a foreign crisis (Gilovich, 1981), prompting individuals to adopt a new antiviral medicine (Perneger & Agoritsas, 2011), and heightening the emotional responses people have to messages (Aarøe, 2011; Price et al., 1997). What then are the effects of the interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames? In the final tests of my dissertation, I examine the effects of exposure to media coverage of incivility. In particular, I investigate (a) the extent to which individuals adopt as their own the mediated conflict frames and small cues that signal uncivil political conflict and (b) the effects of exposure to incivility frames on citizens’ attitudes toward people involved in a conflict, emotional responses to news, and perceptions of argument legitimacy. Frame Setting and Political Conflict

In what Scheufele (1999) calls frame setting, exposure to news frames can influence citizens’ thoughts about politics. Exposure to news frames leads people to

describe political issues and campaigns in ways that match the frame (Price et al., 1997; Rhee, 1997). Thus, exposure to interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames may influence individuals’ perceptions that political events are uncivil:

H5.1: Citizens will adopt the (a) conflict frame (interpersonal-level/public- level conflict frames) and (b) small cues (incivility/civility labels) to which they are exposed. Frame-setting effects are, however, more complex when multiple frames are involved. Although much of the framing literature analyzes the effects of exposure to one message frame, the political information environment often is more nuanced (Chong & Druckman, 2007a;2007b). When exposed to multiple news frames at the same time, people create complex mental models that incorporate both frames (Shah, Kwak, Schmierbach, & Zubric, 2004). Perhaps exposure to both conflict frames and small cues will lead individuals to have complex thoughts about political conflicts, as well My research will advance our understanding of exposure to multiple frames by focusing on the interplay between conflict frames and small cues. The relative strength of frames over small cues is unknown. Only one experiment, to my knowledge, has studied both small cues and broad frames at one time (Shah et al., 2010), but the researchers measured the complexity with which participants thought about an issue, rather than examining whether participants were more likely to adopt the frame or small cue. With little research on the topic, it is hard to determine whether one type of frame is stronger than the other, or whether they interact to produce interesting effects. Thus, I ask:

RQ5.1: Does exposure to conflict frames or small cues have a stronger effect on the way citizens frame political behaviors?

Investigating frames and small cues together advances researchers’ understanding of how media frames influence individuals’ thought processes. Beyond citizens’ thoughts about incivility, I turn now to how media frames affect citizens’ attitudes, emotions, and perceptions of argument legitimacy. Outcome Effects of Mediated Conflict Frames Exposure to mediated incivility has both negative and positive effects on citizens. On one hand, uncivil political messages lead citizens to perceive opposing arguments as illegitimate, decrease the credibility of blog posts, decrease citizens’ openmindedness toward political positions, and potentially decrease political trust (Borah, forthcoming; Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005; Thorson et al., 2010). On the other hand, exposure to uncivil politics increases political interest and the perceived entertainment value of a message, and may not affect political trust (Brooks & Geer, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005). Previous studies, however, only tested the effects of interpersonal-level conflict and impoliteness. As repeated throughout this proposal, the effects of mediated incivility may depend on the conflict frame (interpersonal-level conflict or public-level conflict) and the small cue (civility or incivility labels) to which a citizen is exposed. Investigating the effects of the conflict frames and small cues on three outcome variables – attitudes, emotions, and perceptions of argument legitimacy – will show whether exposure to the conflict frames and small cues should be troubling to researchers, journalists, and citizens. Favorability toward Political Institutions. Incivility research has focused on the attitudes toward a news program (Mutz & Reeves, 2005), journalists (Ben-

Porath, 2010) and news sources (Borah, forthcoming; Thorson et al., 2010), but it has not examined attitudes toward the way people or political institutions are

handling a specific conflict. Measuring attitudes toward the people or groups framed within a message is important, however, because of the potential backfire effects of conflict frames. Political practitioners and journalists need to know whether citizens turn away from certain political institutions if politicians who are part of the institutions are framed using the mediated conflict frames. Herbst (2010) argued that incivility is used a strategic tool by political practitioners to help them reach their electoral or legislative goals. Politicians also may act uncivilly because media elites have a habit of covering social disorder in the news (Gans, 1979/2004). Even if political actors use conflict to gain media attention, the attention may backfire if it turns citizens against the group or political institution involved in the conflict. SJT makes a similar prediction. If an issue position falls into a person’s latitude of rejection, that person’s attitude may boomerang and move further away from the position a persuader is advocating (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif et al. 1965; Scheufele et al., 2007). Perhaps the same is true for incivility. If a behavior is perceived as uncivil, individuals may distance themselves from the people enacting the behaviors and the political institutions of which they are a part. If there is evidence that a group or institution is evaluated unfavorably when it uses intense political conflict, maybe practitioners will avoid such behaviors. Studies have not yet measured the influence of exposure to mediated conflict on attitudes toward the group or institution being framed as uncivil. Shea and Steadman’s (2010) finding that 95 percent of Americans think civility is important in politics hints that people will react unfavorably to incivility, or at least to behaviors labeled as uncivil. There is no direct evidence to support this suggestion, however, nor is there any previous research testing the effects of public-level

conflict, which may or may not affect citizens’ attitudes in the same way as interpersonal-level conflict. Due to the lack of research in this important area, I offer a research question:

RQ5.2: How does exposure to (a) conflict frames and (b) small cues affect attitudes toward a political institution? For each outcome variable, I also am curious about how the outcomes occurred. Is it because of perceptions of political incivility? Or is it because of another aspect of the news frames that I do not measure in the current project? Previous incivility researchers have measured whether people perceived incivility in a news stimulus (e.g., Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005), but they have not tested whether these perceptions of incivility mediated the relationships between exposure to extreme conflict and any number of outcome variables. Recently, scholars have encouraged researchers to test indirect effects in their studies (O’Keefe, 2003; Rucker, Preacher, Tormala, & Petty, 2011; Zhao, Lynch Jr., & Chen, 2010) to provide researchers with a better understanding of the psychological reasons for why various effects occur. For each variable, I follow their advice for political incivility, essentially asking whether political conflict frames lead to perceptions of incivility, which then lead to the various outcomes of interest. Thus, for attitudes toward groups involved in political conflict, I ask:

RQ5.3: Do perceptions of incivility mediate the relationship between (a) conflict frames or (b) small cues and favorability toward the political institution involved in a conflict? Emotions and political conflict. In addition to attitudes toward political actors, the conflict frames may encourage more intense emotional reactions to politics compared to news that is not framed as highly uncivil. Previous research

has found that incivility increases physiological arousal (Mutz & Reeves, 2005), interest in politics (Brooks & Geer, 2007), and the entertainment value of a message (Mutz & Reeves, 2005). Although these studies address outcomes closely related to emotion, they have not directly examined effects of individual-level and public-level conflict on emotion. Physiological arousal, for instance, does not show whether the reaction has a positive or negative valence. As Gruszczynski, Balzer, Jacobs, Smith, and Hibbing (2013) explained, “Both an image of a snake and an image of a loved one typically increase” physiological arousal measured by the amount of sweat present on individuals’ fingertips (p. 141). Arousal is an element of an emotional response but cognitive responses to these physiological arousals are involved in emotional reactions as well (Nabi & Wirth, 2008). Once people feel physiological arousal, they make sense of, or appraise, that arousal by thinking about a cognitive context (Izard, 1993; Scherer, 2001). Did they see a snake and feel fear? Or did they reunite with a loved one and feel happiness? The appraisal process leads people to feel discrete emotions rather than general physiological arousal (Nabi, 2010). Emotions have been re-emphasized in political research in an effort to predict citizens’ political behaviors. Political emotion researchers have connected anxiety to increased information seeking (Marcus, Neuman, & MacKuen, 2000; Redlawsk, Civettini, & Emmerson, 2010; Valentino, Hutchings, Banks, & Davis, 2008) and aversion to increased political participation (Valentino, Brader, Groenendyk, Gregorowicz, & Hutchings, 2011). Understanding the emotions encouraged by exposure to conflict, generally, and different types of conflict frames, specifically, can help to explain and predict the effects of exposure to mediated incivility.

How might conflict frames affect citizens’ emotions? Given the increased physiological arousal caused by exposure to interpersonal-level conflict (Mutz &

Reeves, 2005), it makes sense to predict that exposure to any conflict will lead to stronger emotional reactions than exposure to news messages that portray only civil disagreement. Conflict frames have been shown to prompt emotional effects as well (Price et al., 1997), but there may be a difference in the emotional effects of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames. Previous studies say little about valence of citizens’ reactions to incivility, however. Though Brooks and Geer (2007) claimed that incivility is only a negative messaging tactic, it is possible that some message frames could increase positive emotions like enthusiasm as well. Shea and Steadman (2010), for instance, found that 49 percent of American adults valued politicians who stand firm to their beliefs rather than those who are willing to compromise. Perhaps, then, there are some people who would react with enthusiasm to a public-level conflict frame in which politicians refuse to compromise. Not everyone reacts negatively to political impoliteness either. People who are more accepting of conflict, for instance, react more positively toward incivility than other individuals (Mutz & Reeves, 2005). Finally, a message that labels a behavior as civil or uncivil may influence citizens’ reactions to political behaviors, as well, particularly if citizens attach positive connotations to terms like civility and acceptable and negative connotations terms like incivility and unacceptable. The potential effects of conflict frames and small cues on emotional reactions to media messages lead to the following:

RQ5.4: How does exposure to (a) conflict frames and (b) small cues affect emotional reactions to the news?

RQ5.5: Do perceptions of incivility mediate the relationship between (a) conflict frames or (b) small cues and emotional reactions to the news?

Argument legitimacy and political conflict. Finally, the outcomes outlined so far only tangentially test the effects of mediated incivility on democracy as a whole. Exposure to mediated incivility, however, may affect citizens’ perceptions that political arguments are legitimate. Political legitimacy is the perception that a government or person, even one with which a person disagrees, has the right to rule or participate in politics. A fair decision-making process, not the eventual adoption of the best outcome, can increase the legitimacy of a political system (Machin, 2012). When people are able to take part in a fair process, they can at least feel that their arguments are heard, even if their political favorites lose in an election. Political legitimacy applies to specific arguments as well. Manin, Stein, and Mansbridge (1987) argued that instances in which citizens believe that arguments from both sides of the political aisle are strong – even when they don’t agree with all of the arguments – constitute legitimate political deliberations. Even in moral conflicts, like the legality of abortion, some theorists argue that citizens should reach out to audiences who do not agree with them to come to a solution that is acceptable to as many people as possible (Gutmann & Thompson, 2005). Simply speaking to people who hold different political opinions can help citizens to list strong, legitimate reasons for supporting various political points of view (Mutz, 2002). At the very least, for a deliberative political process to work, citizens need to think political arguments are strong, even when they disagree with those arguments. Testing whether individuals perceive that the arguments of an opposing party are illegitimate will show whether exposure to conflict frames adds to divisiveness among U.S. citizens and political parties.

Incivility, researchers argue, signals disrespect for opposing opinions (Carter, 1998; Uslaner, 1996). There is experimental evidence that impoliteness in televised

campaign talk shows, at least when it was mixed with close-up shots of political candidates, encouraged partisans to perceive arguments made by the opposing candidate as less legitimate than those of their own candidate, though there were no effects on participants’ thoughts about likeminded arguments (Mutz, 2007). In my research, I replicate this test while also exploring whether interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict influence perceptions of argument legitimacy differently and whether media elites’ labels of incivility (that is, their use of small cues) amplify perceptions of argument illegitimacy.

RQ5.6: How does exposure to (a) conflict frames and (b) small cues affect the belief that likeminded and counter-attitudinal arguments are legitimate?

RQ5.7: Do perceptions of incivility mediate the relationship between (a) conflict frames or (b) small cues and argument legitimacy? The three results chapters of this dissertation will investigate various conceptions of incivility, as well as the effects of exposure to mediated conflict frames. I will explore how conflict is framed in the media, whether citizens perceive incivility from that conflict, and how exposure to mediated conflict frames influences citizens’ perceptions, attitudes, and emotions toward politics. In the next chapter, I describe the four studies I conducted to address each of these important aspects of incivility.

Chapter 2: Methodology

To study (a) how media elites frame political conflict, (b) how citizens perceive incivility, and (c) how conflict frames influence citizens’ perceptions of incivility and their attitudes, emotional reactions, and perceptions of argument legitimacy, I conducted a content analysis and three experiments. These studies are outlined below, each with a discussion of how the study will address the research questions and hypotheses discussed in this proposal.

MEDIA COVERAGE OF CONFLICT: A CONTENT ANALYSIS

Conducting two content analyses allowed me to investigate the broad question raised in Chapter 3: how do media elites frame political incivility? It is important to determine which frames occur in the natural news environment prior to testing the effects of those frames on citizens (Van Gorp, 2010). Thus, the first study consisted of a content analysis of news texts and news images focused on four political events (the 2009 health care protests, 2010 mid-term election, 2011 debt ceiling debate, and 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests). The results served as a foundation for the experimental studies that are described later in this chapter. News Texts Covering Four Political Conflicts

Research to date has examined the prevalence of uncivil behaviors in politics but not how media elites manage the concept of incivility for citizens. Studies unrelated to incivility, however, have examined how specific terms, ranging from political party terms (e.g., Democrat and Republican) to government-related terms (e.g., politics, government, media, and president), and from terms related to the American populace (e.g., American people) to racism and sexism (e.g., race card and gender card), are used in political discourse (Hart, Jarvis, Jennings, & Smith-Howell,

2005; Hart, Jennings, & Dixson, 2003; Jarvis, 2005; Ladley, 2012). The “Media Coverage of Conflict” study built on these content analyses to determine how media elites manage the meaning of incivility in public discourse. This section provides details about the data collection process, coding categories, and inter-coder reliability procedure of the textual content analysis. Data Collection I gathered media messages published or broadcast during four political events: the 2009 health care town halls, 2010 mid-term campaign, 2011 debt ceiling debate, and 2011 Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Protests. I selected these events for several reasons. Two of the events, the 2009 health care protests and the 2011 OWS protests, involved citizens criticizing government, and the other two events, the 2010 election and the 2011 debt ceiling debate, involved politicians clashing with each other. These events also involved actors who spanned the spectrum of political leanings, with Republicans sweeping many of the mid-term election races and protesting against the health care bill, and Democrats who increased the debt ceiling in 2011 and protested against the failings of the financial system. This variation in the events also provided the opportunity to find instances of behaviors that could be framed as both interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict in media coverage. Both protests, for instance, could be framed as interpersonal-level conflict, given the prevalence of vitriolic protest signs, or as public-level conflict, due to the disruption the protests caused and misinformation related to the protests. Similarly, the election and legislative stand-off could have been framed as interpersonal-level conflict because of ad hominem attacks thrown at political opponents or as public-level conflict because of the legislative tactics used to stall progress and compromise among politicians. Media elites could use small cues

to describe the events as uncivil, since the conflicts could be described as nasty, negative, dysfunctional, or the like, or as civil because citizens may be passionate Americans or because politicians were patriotically standing their ground. These political issues provided an opening for media elites to discuss political incivility and frame these political events in various ways, making the coverage a good starting point for determining how media elites make sense of political incivility. The events were, however, characterized by intense political conflict. Thus, the generalizability of the results is limited to other events with high levels of political conflict rather than coverage of any type of political event. Using the Factiva news database, I collected news messages surrounding each of the political events. Two elements of the searches are of note. First, I limited the search to news published in the United States to ensure that any cultural differences in the meaning of incivility across countries do not influence the results. Second, I searched for news across a variety of media formats, including newspapers (New York Times, Wall Street Journal), broadcast news (ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News), and cable news (MSNBC, Fox News, CNN), because this enabled me to capture a wide range of discussions about political conflict. For the cable stations, I analyzed coverage from the two most- watched primetime programs on each station for the year of the event of interest, based on the reports published by The Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (see Table 1). I did not, however, include online news in the analysis. Factiva only recently began collecting new media content for its database and, thus, does not include online content surrounding the older events studied in this project.

Using a broad range of sources was helpful. Collecting news from these outlets allowed me to look at visual versus print news, opinionated versus non-

opinionated news, and left-leaning versus right-leaning news. I provide more detail about the breakdown of news outlets in Chapter 3. Capturing texts from many media formats also followed Sobieraj and Berry (2011), who examined uncivil behaviors in the media, but who did not focus on how media elites frame political conflict or use small cues to describe the political conflict as civil or uncivil.

Table 1. News Sources Analyzed for Each Political Event. List of News Sources Collected for: Health Care Mid-Term Debt OWS Town Halls Campaign Ceiling Newspapers New York Times X X X X Wall Street Journal X X X X Broadcast News Programs CBS Evening News X X X X NBC Nightly News X X X X ABC World News Tonight X X X X MSNBC Programs The Rachel Maddow Show (MSNBC) X X X X Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC) X X The Ed Show (MSNBC) X X CNN Programs Anderson Cooper 360 X X X X Larry King Live X X Piers Morgan Tonight X X Fox News Programs The O’Reilly Factor X X X X Hannity X X X X

To collect the media messages, I searched the Factiva database for key terms related to each political event in a one-week time frame during the event (see Table 2). This collection method led to a total of 437 news texts. I coded all of the health care town hall texts, since only 61 were found by Factiva during the week of interest, and randomly selected 70 texts from the other events to analyze.

Table 2. Search Information for Each Political Event Search: Search: Total # Political Event Search Dates At least 1 of these All of these words Texts words Health Care Aug. 3 – Aug. 11, “health care,” town hall 61 Town Halls 2009 healthcare Congress, “House of Midterm Oct. 4– Oct. 12 Representatives,” campaign ad 75 Election 2010 Senate, politics, political, election Congress, “House of July 21 – July 29 Debt Ceiling debt ceiling Representatives,” 138 2011 Senate, House Occupy Wall Oct. 11 – 19 Occupy Wall Street 163 Street 2011

Coding Scheme: Finding Conflict Frames and Small Cues Coders read each news text in the dataset and coded the sections of the texts in which the political conflict was discussed. The unit of analyses was the news text, rather than a sentence or paragraph, to allow the coders to take into account the context surrounding discussion of the political event. This was especially important when the coders were looking for small cues because small cues were not always used directly before or after discussion of a specific behavior. For instance, a Good Morning America episode in which the news correspondent discussed the 2009 health care town hall protests ended with the statement, “Stakeholders on the left and the right are now calling for civility” (“Health care chaos,” 2009). Without coding the rest of the article, it would be unclear who exactly is acting uncivilly and what behaviors they were performing. Each code, additionally, is unique, meaning that an article was coded as 1 if a code appeared and a 0 if the code did not. Coding the articles in this manner allowed the articles to include multiple framing devices, rather than coding each article as presenting only one conflict frame or small cue.

For each news text, coders looked for three sets of codes: conflict frames, small cues, and frame-building information.

Coding conflict frames. The articles collected were coded, first, according to the conflict frame(s) (interpersonal-level conflict or public-level conflict) present in the article. Since frames typically are suggested in media texts rather than stated in direct terms (Gamson & Lasch, 1983; Reese, 2010; Van Gorp, 2010), coders were asked to look for narrow categories of linguistic and political behavior that related to the two overarching conflict frames I outlined in detail in Chapter 1. The codes in the proposed analysis were selected to reflect interpersonal- level and public-level conflict frames. Articles were coded for the interpersonal- level conflict frame when the coverage mentioned behaviors and language related to interpersonal rudeness. The narrow codes that implied the interpersonal-level conflict frame included: rudeness, name-calling, stereotyping, obscene language, and emotional language and behavioral displays. Articles were coded for the public- level conflict frame when the coverage included behaviors and language related to exaggeration/misinformation, compromise or lack thereof, ideological extremity, and powerful interest groups threatening democracy (see Appendix A for full codebook). Many of the coding categories were inspired by past content analyses (Papacharissi, 2004; Sobieraj & Berry, 2011); I simply grouped the codes to best fit the theoretical interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict frames discussed in this project. Coding small cues. In addition to the conflict frames present in the news articles, coders also looked for small cues signaling that the event was civil or uncivil. There was less guidance in the literature for what should count as small cues in relation to political conflict. Simply coding for the presence or absence of the terms “uncivil” or “civil” would have been too narrow a charge for this project. In Shea and Sproveri’s (2012) historical look at incivility, for instance, they searched

for terms tangentially related to incivility, including hateful, bitter, and nasty politics. Thus, I created the two small cue codes (incivility small cues and civility small cues) based on a preliminary qualitative analysis of the news texts, as suggested by Van Gorp (2010). Coders looked for any specific terms that either portrayed the political events of interest as unacceptable (incivility small cues), such as uncivil, disrespectful, dysfunctional, or threatening, or terms that portrayed the political events as acceptable, such as respectful, civil, passionate, or patriotic (civility small cues). Frame building. In addition to the presence of conflict frames and small cues in news coverage of political conflict, I examined the political actors involved in the framing process. These codes focused on two questions: who is the framing a person or group as uncivil or civil? And who is the target of these incivility small cues? Two sets of codes are important in answering this question. First, it is important to know whose frames are entering the media spotlight, that is, who is the source of an incivility small cue? Since partisanship is of particular importance to this project (see RQ3.7), I focused on the partisanship the people using small cues to describe events as civil or uncivil. I created two codes for this purpose: a right-leaning source code in which a conservative Republican was promoting a conflict frame or small cue, and a left-leaning source code in which a liberal Democrat was using the conflict frame or small cue. For instance, if Sean Hannity, a conservative news host, called the OWS protests dangerous, the news text would be coded as a conservative/Republican framing the conflict (code = 1). Once again, these codes were not mutually exclusive. If a Republican politician and

Democratic media pundit both used conflict frames or small cues in the same article, that article would be coded as right-leaning source = 1 and left-leaning source = 1.

Second, I created two codes that took into account the partisanship of both the source of the small cues and the partisanship of the target of the incivility small cues – creating a confirming and disconfirming code. This code is similar to what Groeling (2010) used in his book to determine whether partisans were attacking likeminded or opposing partisans. Instead of attacks, however, I looked to see whether partisans were using small cues to signal that their opponents or their allies were behaving acceptably or unacceptably. Were Democrats framing Republicans as uncivil and other Democrats as civil, and vice versa; thus, confirming their partisan beliefs? Or did even partisans agree when their own side was behaving badly and the opposition was civil; thus disconfirming their partisan beliefs? Inter-coder reliability. To ensure that the coding practices outlined above were replicable, two coders coded 25 percent of the sample of news texts to test inter-coder reliability. For each code discussed above, Krippendorff’s (2004) α (Range = .70 to .90) reached an acceptable to strong level of inter-coder reliability (see Table 3). The remaining texts were coded by the author.

Table 3. Codes for News Texts and Inter-coder Reliability. Code Krippendorff’s (2004) α

Conflict Frame Codes

Interpersonal-Level Conflict Insulting language/Name-calling, Stereotyping, Obscene Language, .77 Emotional language/displays

Public-Level Conflict Compromise, Misinformation, Ideological Extremity, Influence of Political .78 Interest Groups

Small Cue Codes

Incivility Small Cues Words related to incivility, disrespect, dysfunctional debate, threats to .90 government, or any other negative terms connected to citizens or politicians’ political behaviors

Civility Small Cues Words related to respect, passionate debate, patriotism/good citizen, or any .70 other positive terms connected to citizens or politicians’ political behaviors

Frame-Building Codes

Left-Leaning Source Democrats or liberals framing citizens or politicians of either political lean, .77 no matter the small cue used

Right-Leaning Source Republicans or conservatives framing citizens or politicians of either political .80 lean, no matter the small cue used

Confirming Use of Small Cues Instances in which liberal Democrats (conservative Republicans) used incivility small cues to discuss conservative Republicans (liberal Democrats) .79 or used civility small cues to discuss liberal Democrats (conservative Republicans)

Disconfirming Use of Small Cues Instances in which liberal Democrats (conservative Republicans) used civility small cues to discuss conservative Republicans (liberal Democrats) .74 and or used incivility small cues to discuss liberal Democrats (conservative Republicans)

News Images Covering Four Political Conflicts To investigate whether the conflict frames and small cues were used differently (or not at all) in images, rather than news texts, I conducted a second content analysis of online news photo galleries. Data Collection Collections of images from events that took place years in the past are not always easy to come by. Fortunately, Time Magazine keeps an archive of their photo galleries reaching back to 2007. These photo collections were helpful to this study for three reasons. First, although the images are not from the same news sources as the textual content analysis detailed above, they still came from a mainstream news organization. This makes the images more comparable to the findings from the textual content analysis since the news organizations used were mainstream news (e.g., ABC, Wall Street Journal, CNN) rather than blogs or talk radio. Second, Time Magazine photo collections offered a glimpse at image-focused online editorial decisions that are not meant to accompany long textual or verbal news. Unlike print newspaper articles and televised news programs, online sources have more space to gather collections of photos and present them separately from long-form stories. The Time photo collection archive, for instance, includes hundreds of photo galleries on topics ranging from British royal weddings to protests in Egypt to U.S. domestic news. Although these photos include short captions, they are not connected with long articles. Time even labels the photo galleries “photo essays,” suggesting that the photos and short captions are meant to tell stories on their own.

Finally, the images appeared online. The news texts described above came from the print newspaper or televised broadcasts, not online news. The Time.com

photo galleries were helpful in ensuring that the conflict frames and small cues appeared in online news as well. The images studied in the second content analysis included all of the photo galleries posted on Time.com that were related to the health care town halls (and Tea Party protests that arose in the months after the summer town halls) (“Signs of the Tea-Party,” 2009; “The Health-Care Debate,” 2009), Occupy Wall Street protests (“Protests and Camp,” 2011), debt ceiling debate (“Gabrielle Giffords,” 2011), and the 2010 midterm elections (“Battleground Ohio,” 2010; “Scenes from the Pennsylvania,” 2010). Only one photo collection related to the debt ceiling debate was posted to the Time photo archive, and the focus was on Gabrielle Giffords, a Democratic Representative from Tucson, Arizona. She had been shot months earlier and returned to the House of Representatives to vote on raising the federal debt ceiling. For each of the other events, there were either two photo collections (campaign 2010, health care/Tea Party protests) or one photo album with an extensive number of images included (OWS). I coded all of the images posted in the health care/Tea Party (n = 20), 2010 campaign (n = 22), and debt ceiling (n = 5) photo collections. The OWS photo album, however, included more than 200 images. To ensure that the OWS photos did not overwhelm the results and drown out any interesting findings from the other topics, I randomly sampled 22 images from the OWS collection – a number similar to the number of images present in the 2010 campaign and health care/Tea Party photo collections. In total, I coded 69 images for this analysis. Coding Scheme: Finding Conflict Frames and Small Cues

I followed the same coding approach as the one I used for the larger text- based content analysis. Specifically, I looked for interpersonal-level and public-level

conflict frames, as well as uncivil and civil small cues. As in the news text analysis above, each code was unique and coded for whether it was present (code = 1) or not (code = 0) in an image (see Appendix B for full codebook). Coding conflict frames. Only minor changes to the conflict frame codes were required for the visual images. For interpersonal-level conflict, I looked for images that showed emotional displays (particularly people who looked like they were angry or yelling), people insulting or stereotyping each other (particularly in protest signs, the short photo captions, or in images that portrayed individuals as dirty or unclean), and use of obscene language or hand gestures. For public-level conflict, I inspected the images for depictions of compromise (or lack thereof), claims of misinformation or exaggeration (often present in the captions or protest signs), ideologically extreme language, and claims that the U.S. democracy, Constitution, or individual rights were being trampled (often on protest signs or in the captions). Coding small cues. For the small cues, I again looked for words and brief phrases in the image or caption that interpreted the behaviors in the image as civil (e.g., informed citizens, speaking out, etc.) or uncivil (e.g., disruptive, threatening, etc.). However, given the emphasis on image, rather than text, I also looked for visual elements of the photos that signaled a civil or supportive interpretation of the events and an uncivil or opposing interpretation of the events. For visual cues that suggested support of the behaviors in the event, I looked for patriotic symbols, such as American flags, red, white, and blue colors, and other national symbols like the Capitol Building, as well as positive emotional displays, such as clapping and smiling. For visual cues that suggested opposition, I looked for elements of the image that signaled a threatening entity, such as dark shadows, masked individuals,

mentions of revolution, and negative emotional displays, such as grimacing and screaming individuals. Inter-coder reliability. To ensure that the codes were replicable, two coders coded 33 percent of the sample and reached adequate to excellent reliability for each code (Krippendorff’s α = .73 to 1.00, see Table 4).

Table 4. Codes for News Image and Inter-coder Reliability. Code Description Krippendorff’s (2008) α Interpersonal- Image or caption included emotional displays, .83 level Conflict name-calling, or obscenity Image or caption included partisan extremity, Public-level partisan gridlock, lack of compromise, or 1.00 Conflict misinformation Image or caption included small cues that showed the actors threatening the Incivility Cues government, wearing masks or being 1.00 menacing, displaying negative emotions or otherwise describing them using incivility cues Image or caption included small cues that showed the actors being patriotic, supporting Civility Cues .73 each other, displaying positive emotions, or otherwise describing them using civility cues

The results from the proposed content analyses of news texts and online photo galleries will show how media elites frame incivility, whether there are patterns of coverage across issues and media outlets, and whether the conflict frames of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict in academic research mirror the conflict frames present in media coverage.

JUDGING POLITICAL BEHAVIORS: EXPERIMENT 1

The media content analyzed in the first study will inform three experiments. The first experiment, “Judging Political Behaviors,” investigated how citizens, rather than media elites, made sense of incivility in politics. The experiment was a 3 (interpersonal-level conflict / public-level conflict / civil conflict) x 3 (nonpartisan /

likeminded / counter-attitudinal) mixed factorial experiment where the type of political conflict behaviors formed the within-group condition and the partisanship of the political actors formed the between-group conditions. In this experiment, participants read short descriptions of political behaviors and reported whether they found the behaviors to be civil or uncivil and acceptable or unacceptable. Participants All of the experiments in this dissertation used Amazon.com’s crowd sourcing website Mechanical Turk (MTurk.com). Although participants sampled through MTurk.com are not nationally representative, they are more diverse than a student sample (Berinsky, Huber, & Lenz, 2012; Buhrmester, Kwang & Gosling, 2011; Paolacci, Chandler & Ipeirotis, 2010). Further, in the context of political research, the samples compare favorability to nationally representative samples. Finally, research findings produced by MTurk samples are similar to results of the same political experiments produced using different samples (Berinsky et al., 2012). Since the studies I conducted were experiments, rather than surveys that require a generalizable sample, an MTurk.com sample was appropriate. Individuals who completed the experiment on MTurk.com received $0.50. Between April 25 and May 9, 2013, I recruited 279 people for the first experiment. The sample, on average, was 38-years-old (SD = 13.60; Range = 18- to 72-years-old), had 15 years of education or the equivalent of most of a four-year college degree (SD = 1.79), and an income of $47,000 (SD = 18.09). Participants were 47 percent female, 83 percent white/Caucasian, and 8 percent Hispanic/Latino. They were, on average, slightly liberal [M = 3.34, SD = 1.11, Range

= 1 (extremely conservative) to 5 (extremely liberal)] and Democrat [M = 3.57, SD = 1.22, Range = 1 (strong Republican) to 5 (strong Democrat)].

Procedure Participants completed all of the experiments in this project online. They clicked on a link posted on MTurk.com, read a consent form to participate in the experiment, and answered a few pre-test questions about their political leanings. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three partisan conditions. In each condition, participants read brief statements describing a politician or media figure’s actions. They read each statement and rated whether it was civil, uncivil or somewhere in between. Once they rated all 24 statements as civil, uncivil, or somewhere in between, they read the same statements again, but this time rated them as acceptable or unacceptable, or somewhere in between. The order of the statements was randomized across participants. After reading and rating the statements, participants answered demographic questions to complete the study. They were then debriefed, thanked for their time, and paid for their participation. Reactions to Varying Behaviors Much of the recent SJT research has moved away from directly measuring individuals’ latitudes of acceptance and rejection toward attitude objects (for examples, see Scheufele et al., 2007; Reid, 2012). Drawing upon SJT sorting tasks, however, can help researchers investigate citizens’ attitudes toward civil and uncivil behaviors. One way of determining how citizens categorize political behaviors and, more specifically, the behaviors that fall into their LOAs and LORs, is through a two- step sorting activity. In SJT research, this task involves, first, asking each participant to sort a series of statements into categories ranging from favorable to unfavorable.

After constructing the categories, each participant is asked to label the categories according to whether the statements in the category are (a) the most acceptable

position to the participant, (b) other acceptable positions to the participant, (c) the most objectionable position to the participant, or (d) other objectionable positions to the participant (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif, 1963). The “Judging Political Behaviors” study included a similar task, but the task was altered slightly to accommodate the online survey technology software Qualtrics. First, participants were asked to read 24 short descriptions of behaviors relating to interpersonal-level conflict, public-level conflict, or civility. The behaviors were randomly presented to them so that the first few behaviors did not act as anchor points and influence how participants perceived the other behaviors. Participants reported whether they thought the behaviors were 1 = extremely civil to 5 = extremely uncivil. Unlike in the SJT sorting activity described above, the participants in the “Judging Political Behaviors” study did not create their own categories. However, even though they were given a range from 1 to 5 on which they could rate a behavior as uncivil, participants could differ on the number of categories they actually used. One person may, for instance, see political behaviors in a clear, black and white fashion in which activities are civil or uncivil, but nowhere in between. Another person, however, may see political behaviors in shades of grey, in which there are four categories ranging from civil to somewhat civil to somewhat uncivil to very uncivil. I also diverged slightly for the second step of the SJT procedure. Rather than asking participants about where groups of behaviors fall on their latitudes of acceptance and rejection, I asked a second question about each behavior: are the political figures in the statement acting acceptably? That is, participants provided their assessment about whether each behavior, rather than a group, fell into their latitude of acceptance or rejection. Participants were asked if the political figures

mentioned in the stimuli were acting (a) in the most acceptable way possible, (b) in a generally acceptable manner, (c) in a neither acceptable nor objectionable manner, (d) in a generally objectionable manner, or (e) in the most objectionable way possible. Asking people to rate each behavior according to whether it fell into their latitude of acceptance or rejection had two benefits. First, in accordance with SJT, I still computed the width of individuals’ attitude latitudes by adding together the number of behaviors that participants rated as acceptable or generally acceptable (LOA), objectionably or generally objectionably (LOR) or neither (see Chapter 4 for more detail on calculation of latitudes). Second, I explored how citizens structure their thoughts about incivility by examining whether they treated incivility and acceptability as similar or different concepts. Without giving participants the ability to label the categories as acceptable or objectionable, I would be assuming that participants felt unfavorably toward what they categorized as uncivil behaviors. This may not always be the case. For instance, a person may think that using personal attacks is uncivil but also an acceptable behavior for politicians given their line of work. Thus behaviors may have been sorted into an “uncivil” category but also fall into a participant’s LOA. Allowing participants to label categories as both civil or uncivil and acceptable or objectionable tested the assumption that incivility falls into citizens’ LORs no matter the situation. Experimental Stimuli Across partisan conditions, the behaviors depicted in the brief statements were identical. Only the reference group of the political actors – that is, political partisanship – changed. The behaviors were short, written descriptions that included only one political behavior in each description. Keeping the descriptions

short made sorting the descriptions manageable for participants. Since the examples of political conflict included stimuli were found in the news texts examined in the “Media Coverage of Political Conflict” content analysis, I discuss the stimuli more in Chapter 4, after the results of the content analysis have been presented. The number of statements to sort has varied in previous SJT research, and there is no one correct number of statements to use (Sherif et al., 1965). Some studies, such as Sherif (1963), have included as many as 100 examples in sorting activities such as the one proposed in this study. She, however, asked participants to sort numbers, rather than behavioral descriptions, making 100 items more manageable. Another project, as described in Sherif et al. (1965), used 25 statements in determining individuals’ attitudes toward desegregation. As in my study, these statements were long enough to describe a position on the political issue, rather than sorting numbers with no description. Participants in the current study read 24 statements, including 8 statements related to interpersonal-level conflict, 8 related to public-level conflict, 2 statements that overlapped interpersonal-level and public-level conflict, and the remainder being contrasting “civil” behaviors (see Chapter 4 for more details). This number strikes a balance between having enough statements for participants to sort and creating an activity manageable for participants. Although the behaviors in the stimuli were similar across conditions, the reference group changed. Randomly assigning participants to experimental conditions, rather than asking every participant to sort nonpartisan, likeminded, and counter-attitudinal political figures behaviors, minimized participant fatigue and allowed me to use the exact same behaviors without participants recognizing

the repetition. Descriptions of the differences between the partisan conditions follow. Nonpartisan Condition In the nonpartisan condition, the behaviors that participants judged did not include a specific partisan context. That is, the descriptions of the behaviors did not include information about the political lean of the political actors. The activity, thus, provided information about what citizens view to be uncivil absent partisanship. Likeminded Condition Unlike the nonpartisan condition, the behaviors participants sorted in the likeminded partisan condition included partisan information. In this case, the partisans who enacted the behaviors had the same partisanship as the participants. A Republican participant in this condition saw short statements about Republicans who were engaged in interpersonal-level conflict or public-level conflict. Democratic participants sorted into this position viewed the same behaviors, but they were attributed to Democrats. Counter-attitudinal Partisan Condition Like the likeminded partisan condition, the counter-attitudinal partisan condition made the partisanship of the people enacting political behaviors clear. In this condition, the partisanship of the actors was opposed to the participants’ partisanship. Republican participants in this condition saw behaviors attributed to Democrats, and Democratic participants saw behaviors attributed to Republicans. Randomly assigning participants to one of these three conditions allowed me to test the latitudes of acceptance and rejection for political behaviors across these groups. Participants who judge behaviors attributed to partisans they support may place more behaviors in their latitudes of acceptance than participants who sort

behaviors attributed to politicians in general or to politicians they oppose. Contrastingly, participants who sort behaviors attributed to partisans they oppose may place more behaviors into their latitudes of rejection than participants who sort behaviors attributed to politicians in general or politicians they support. Individual Difference Variables Since the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment was an exploration of the various variables that influence citizens’ thoughts about incivility, I also included individual difference variables in the analyses to see whether such differences were related to what people thought about political conflict. In particular, I included participants’ age, sex, and partisan strength [M = 1.14, SD = 0.71, Range = 1 (nonpartisan) to 3 (strong partisan)]. I also included two variables that measured participants’ predispositions toward conflict and incivility. Drawing from Mutz (2007) and Ben-Porath (2008), I included a measure of conflict avoidance, which asked participants to respond to a series of five five-point Likert-type items [I hate arguments; I find conflicts exciting (reverse coded); I enjoy challenging the opinions of others (reverse coded); arguments don’t upset me (reverse coded); I feel upset after an argument] ranging from strongly disagree = 1 to strongly agree = 5 (M = 3.19, SD = .97, Cronbach’s α = .86). Following Shea and Steadman (2010), I also measured whether participants thought civility was necessary to a healthy democracy (No: 7%, coded 1; Yes: 93% coded 0). I explain more about these variables, and why they were included the analyses, in Chapter 4. Randomization Test

A series of ANOVA and chi-square tests showed that the randomized groups did not differ according to race, ethnicity, age, years of education, sex, income,

political interest, partisan strength, conflict avoidance, and belief that civility is important to a healthy democracy.

INCIVILITY IN PARTISAN NEWS: EXPERIMENT 2

To begin testing whether political behaviors have effects when they are in a news article, as opposed to presented individually as they were in the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment, I conducted an experiment in which individuals read about partisans behaving badly in the news. Participants I used Mturk.com again in collecting data for the “Incivility in Partisan News” experiment, using the same procedure described above. The only difference from the previous experiment is that I paid participants $0.20 rather than $0.50 for participation in this experiment. Between August 15 and August 30, 2012 I collected data from 293 participants who were, on average, 34-years-old (SD = 13.23, Range = 18-to 77-years-old) and had an average of 15 years of education (SD = 1.91). Fifty-four percent of the sample was female, 76 percent was White/Caucasian, and 8 percent was Hispanic/Latino. The participants leaned liberal [M = 3.36, SD = 1.09, Range = 1 (extremely conservative) to 5 (extremely liberal)] and Democrat [M = 3.59, SD = 1.28, Range = 1 (strong Republican) to 5 strong Democrat)]. Procedure Participants completed the 4 (civil conflict / interpersonal-level conflict / public-level conflict/ both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frame) x 2 ( likeminded /counter-attitudinal news) factorial experiment online. They clicked on a link to the experiment on MTurk.com, consented to participate in the study, reported their political partisanship, and answered some unrelated distractor 77

questions before reading the experimental stimuli. Participants were then randomly assigned to an experimental news article, which is discussed in more detail in Chapter 4. After reading the news article, the participants answered post- test questions, were debriefed, and were paid after completion of the study. Experimental Stimuli Participants read a news article about the 2012 Supreme Court ruling concerning the 2010 Affordable Care Act. This topic worked for this study for two reasons. First, the decision occurred just before data collection, meaning that participants who took part in the study likely were familiar with the topic. Second, as I will demonstrate in Chapter 3, the health care bill was a site of significant political conflict. This ensured that the conflict in the experimental stimuli would ring true to participants. The stimuli varied according to two factors: conflict frame and partisan lean of the article. I discuss these factors in detail in Chapter 4, since the content of the news articles builds on the findings from the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment. It is important to note here, however, that the articles were created to be as similar as possible in word count (Range = 328 to 329), number of paragraphs (all had 8 paragraphs), number of sentences (Range = 21 to 22), sentences per paragraph (Range 2.6 to 2.7), reading ease (Range 43.2 to 46.8), and grade level readability (Range = 10.5 to 10.9). Thus, the content and frames of the news articles are the cause of the differences in participants’ reactions, not the reading difficulty of the different experimental stimuli. Outcome Variables

In the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment, I was interested in two outcome variables: perceptions of incivility and intentions to read more news. The

perceptions of incivility variable was drawn from Mutz (2007) and Mutz and Reeve’s (2005) research. Using five five-point semantic differential items, participants reported whether they felt the article they read was quarrelsome- cooperative, friendly-hostile, emotional-unemotional, calm-agitated, and rude- polite. The items were averaged to create a perceptions of incivility variable (M = 3.19, SD = 0.86, Cronbach’s α = .83). I also was interested in whether the conflict frames encouraged people to read more news or turned them away from the news. Thus, I asked participants whether they would like to read more news from the same source as the experimental stimuli in the future. The variable was dichotomous, with 54 percent of the sample saying they would read more from the news source in the future (coded 1) and 46 percent saying they would not like to read more (coded 0). Individual Difference Variables In keeping with the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment, I again measured age, sex, and partisan strength [M = 1.22, SD = 0.71, Range = 1 (nonpartisan) to 3 (strong partisan)]. Randomization Check

I ran a series of ANOVA and χ2 tests to ensure that the randomization to experimental groups worked. Most variables, including years of education, partisanship, political interest, race, and ethnicity, did not differ across groups. Age

[F(3,278) = 3.04, p < 0.05] and sex [χ2(1, n = 281) = 4.24, p < 0.05] were significantly different across experimental groups, however, so they were included as control variables in the “Incivility and Partisan News” analyses.

INCIVILITY AND IMMIGRATION REFORM: EXPERIMENT 3

The final experiment addressed the hypotheses and research questions raised in Chapter 5, that is, does exposure to mediated conflict frames (a) influence the way citizens think about politics and incivility and (b) affect citizens’ attitudes toward groups involved in a conflict, emotional reactions to a media message, and perceptions of argument legitimacy. Participants I recruited 566 people to participate in my study between June 3 and June 12, 2013, once again using MTurk.com and paying participants $0.50 for completing the study. Participants were, on average, 34.43-years-old (SD = 13.25, Range = 18-to 76-years-old), had 15 years of education (SD = 1.85), and had a household income of $46,980. Fifty-two percent of the participants were female, 82 percent were white/Caucasian, and six percent were Hispanic/Latino. Once again, the participants leaned liberal [M = 3.43, SD = 1.04, Range = 1 (extremely conservative) to 5 (extremely liberal)] and Democrat [M = 3.59, SD = 1.16, Range = 1 (strong Republican) to 5 strong Democrat)]. Procedure Participants accessed the experiment on a computer of their choosing by clicking on a link posted to MTurk.com. After clicking the link, and consenting to participate in the study, they answered questions related to their political leanings, as well as some unrelated distractor question. They then were randomly assigned to read an experimental article or a civil news article that served as a control group. After reading a news story manipulated to simulate the conflict frames found in the content analysis and tested in the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment, participants answered a series of questions related to the outcome variables of

interest. They then were debriefed, thanked for their time, and paid for their participation. Experimental Stimuli Participants were randomly assigned to read either a control article, in which political figures were disagreeing respectfully, or an experimental news article that varied according to both the conflict frame in the story and the small cues present in the story. The choice of stimuli was based on the findings presented in Chapters 3 and 4, so the content of the stimuli will be discussed in detail in Chapter 5. The stimuli were held constant on a number of contextual factors. First, every participant read a news story about immigration reform and the United States’ Congress. This topic was ideal because immigration reform was under consideration by lawmakers during the time of the study, but it was not an issue that saturated the news, particularly given the prominence of scandals like Benghazi and the Internal Revenue Service that grabbed headlines in the spring of 2013.5 Since the immigration debate was just getting started at the time the experimental data were collected, the stimuli had a greater chance of affecting participants’ perceptions of the issue rather than challenging perceptions they already had because of previous media coverage. I additionally created the news articles to be as similar as possible apart from the changes in conflict frame and small cues. This included using comparable word counts (Range = 384 to 385), number of paragraphs (all had 13 paragraphs), number of sentences (Range = 21 to 22), sentences per paragraph (Range 1.9 to 2.0),

5In the month prior to data collection for the “Incivility and Immigration Reform” – that is, May 2013 – immigration reform was not covered as much as the other issues listed here. In a Factiva search of a number of mainstream news sources (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News), immigration reform was mentioned in 384 stories compared to 1,272 stories mentioning Benghazi and 1,348 stories mentioning the IRS. 81

reading eases (Range = 40.50 to 43.80), and grade level readability (Range = 11.6 to 11.8) across the conditions. Outcome Measures The final experiment included a number of outcome variables related to the adoption of conflict frames and small cues, attitudes toward groups involved in a conflict, emotional responses to a message, and argument legitimacy. Perceptions of Incivility To measure whether citizens adopted the conflict frames and small cues presented in the experimental stimuli, I asked them the amount of incivility they perceived in the article. Participants responded to a perceptions of incivility measure adopted from Mutz and Reeves (2005), which included a series of five semantic differential items with seven response options (cooperative-quarrelsome; friendly-hostile; unemotional-emotional; calm-agitated; polite-rude). Since these items leaned toward the interpersonal-level conflict frame, I also added four items related to public conflict: disruptive-undisruptive, compromising-uncompromising, acceptable-unacceptable, and good for democracy-bad for democracy. This index has not been used in the past, so, in Chapter 5, I test whether these terms can be used to measure both perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict and perceptions of public-level conflict. Favorability toward Congress’ Handling of an Issue Participants reported how favorably or unfavorably they felt toward Congress’ handling of the immigration reform debate presented to them in the stimuli. They completed three five-point semantic differential items including the following: disagree with how Congress is addressing immigration reform – agree with how Congress is addressing immigration reform, favor how Congress is

addressing immigration reform – do not favor how Congress is addressing immigration reform, and oppose how Congress is addressing immigration reform – support how Congress is addressing immigration reform. These items were averaged to form a favorability toward Congress measure (M = 2.24, SD = 1.01, Cronbach’s α = .92). Emotional Reactions The emotion measures built on those used by MacKuen, Wolak, Keele, and Marcus (2010) and the American National Election Studies. Participants were asked how often, if at all, the media message they just read made them feel hopeful, disgusted, angry, worried, proud, uneasy, anxious, amused, enthusiastic, and contemptuous. The response options ranged from 1= not at all to 5 = very often. Marcus et al. (2000) found that emotion sometimes is a two-dimensional variable – including a positive “enthusiasm” factor and a negative “anxiety” factor – and sometimes a three-dimensional variable – including “enthusiasm,” “anxiety,” and a third “aversion” factor. To best understand whether to use two or three emotion variables in my analyses, I conducted an exploratory maximum-likelihood factor analysis using a promax rotation, following the same guidelines outlined earlier. The inflection point of the scree plot appeared clearly after three factors.6 Further, the factor loadings of the items were strong – above .60 – in the three- factor model, leading me to use three variables throughout this analysis: aversion, anxiety, and enthusiasm (see Tables 5 & 6).

6A parallel analysis using O’Conner’s (2000) program validated the use of a three-factor model. 83

Table 5. Emotion Factors. Anxiety Aversion Enthusiasm

Anxious .85

Worried .79

Uneasy .72

Disgusted .95

Contemptuous .68

Angry .64

Enthusiastic .79

Hopeful .79

Proud .78

Note. Factor loadings < .35 are suppressed.

Table 6. Descriptive Statistics for Emotion Factors. # Items M (SD) Cronbach’s α

Anxiety 3 2.40 (1.04) .84

Aversion 3 2.60 (1.09) .82

Enthusiasm 3 1.78 (0.82) .82

Legitimacy of Arguments To determine how legitimate participants perceived the arguments in the stimuli to be, I included the argument legitimacy measure used by Mutz (2007). Participants read two arguments for and against the issue that were presented in the stimuli. These arguments were pulled from the experimental articles and were attributed to liberal Democrats when the argument was for looser immigration restrictions or conservative Republicans when the argument was for stricter immigration laws. After each argument, participants were asked, “Regardless of your own view on this issue, please tell us how strong or weak an argument you

think that this reason is for [supporting/opposing] this issue.” They then rated the strength of the argument from 1 = very weak argument to 7 = very strong argument. From participants’ responses, I created two legitimacy variables: counter- attitudinal legitimacy and likeminded legitimacy. For the counter-attitudinal legitimacy variable, I averaged participants’ rating on the two arguments that were attributed to Democrats, if the participant was a Republican, or Republicans, if the participant was a Democrat. For the likeminded legitimacy variable, I averaged participants’ rating on the two arguments that were attributed to Democrats, if the participant was a Democrat, or Republicans, if the participant was a Republican. Randomization Check To confirm that the randomization procedure worked, I ran a series of

ANOVA and χ2 tests. The groups did not differ across years of education, partisanship, political interest, race, and ethnicity.

OVERVIEW OF STUDIES The content analyses and experiments outlined in this chapter helped me explore news coverage of conflict, citizens’ perceptions of political behaviors, and how news coverage affects those perceptions and other normative outcomes. The strength of these studies rests on the step-by-step process followed in this dissertation. Before the effects of conflict frames can be tested, it is imperative to learn whether the conflict frames and small cues appear in the news. And before determining whether news messages affect citizens, it is important to learn what citizens think without prompting from media elites. Looking at incivility from a top- down (media frames) and a bottom-up (citizen perceptions) perspective, will give researchers, journalists, and citizens a better understanding of incivility and its effects on news users.

Chapter 3: Shaping Incivility in the News

Are protesters angry mobs or American patriots? Do members of Congress heroically stand their ground or hold the government hostage when they will not compromise? The first step in showing that elite discourse about political conflict can influence citizens’ thoughts about incivility is to investigate whether political and media elites use conflict frames and small cues, and, if so, how they use them. If conflict frames and small cues are used rarely in news coverage of political conflict, there is little reason to believe that citizens take their cues about political incivility from the news. But if conflict frames and small cues are prevalent in news coverage, perhaps the framing of political events may shape citizens’ thoughts about incivility. In this chapter, I present the results of a content analysis that charts how media elites make sense of political conflict in public discourse. The analysis shows that media elites choose varying conflict frames and small cues to shape and reshape discussion about political conflicts. Incivility is not a concept set in stone. Instead, its definition is up for debate in political news as different conflicts are framed in different ways on different media by different partisans.

FRAMES OF POLITICAL CONFLICT

News coverage of political events that include large amounts of political conflict may vary along two factors: conflict frames (interpersonal-level or public- level conflicts) and small cues (incivility or civility cues). RQ3.1 asked whether media coverage of political conflict included interpersonal-level conflict and public- level conflict frames. The results from the content analysis indicated both of these frames were present. A sizeable majority of the texts framed the four issues investigated as either interpersonal-level (82%) and/or public-level conflicts (72%).

Emphasis on emotional displays, name-calling, and obscenity in news texts signaled an interpersonal-level conflict frame. This frame appeared in coverage of all of the political events and across all of the media outlets analyzed. Liberal news host Keith Olbermann emphasized emotional displays like “interruptions, booing, [and] cat calls” enacted by participants in the health care town hall protests of 2009. In the same program, he also quoted President Obama calling out the “chatter and the yelling and the shouting” in the town hall events (Olbermann & O’Donnell, 2009). Similarly, conservative radio host Bill Cunningham characterized Occupy Wall Street protesters as “filthy dirty, smelly people that can't find work” (Hannity, 2011). But it was not only protesters whose actions elicited name-calling and emotional responses. During the 2010 midterm election, campaign ads called Karl Rove and other conservatives “cronies” and “shills for big business” (Baker, 2010). Even during the legislative debate surrounding the debt ceiling, instances of interpersonal-level conflict arose, like when Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) criticized members of the House of Representatives and their “inability to even tie their own shoes” (Hannity, Baier, & Rove, 2011). In each of these instances, the conflicts were characterized by personal attacks on individuals and by a loss of emotional control – behaviors that are more closely related to interpersonal-level conflict than public-level conflict. Although the interpersonal-level conflict frame appeared most frequently, a public-level conflict frame was prevalent in the news texts as well. Rather than focusing on interpersonal-level insults, the public-level conflict frame emphasized government processes and social discourse, such as claims of misinformation, behind-closed-door deals, emphasis on compromise (or the lack thereof), and prominence of extreme partisanship. Protesters in the health care town halls were

“armed with misinformation” (Blow, 2009) and news programs took to “fact checking” (O’Reilly, 2010) political ads in an attempt to dispel political inaccuracies. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce was charged with secretly “funneling … foreign money into campaign ads” during the 2010 midterm election (Olbermann, 2010). Partisans argued that their opponents “[blocked] their ability to compromise” and “[refused] to negotiate” (Hannity et al., 2011). Occupy Wall Street protesters were characterized as “full-time radicals” (Freeman, 2011). Even this last example, where name-calling was involved, epitomized a public-level conflict frame since partisan extremity, rather than the characteristics of an individual’s personality or personal hygiene, was emphasized. News texts used both conflict frames extensively. Only 10 percent of the sampled texts did not include an interpersonal-level or public-level conflict frame. Texts with no conflict frame tended to mention the political events only in passing. For example, articles from the New York Times mentioned that “developments in the debt ceiling negotiations” could affect businesses (Reuters, 2011) and that Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren “talks about the nation's growing income inequality in a way that channels the force of the Occupy Wall Street movement” (“Elizabeth Warren’s Appeal,” 2011). In both cases, journalists mentioned political conflicts – the debt ceiling debate and OWS protests, respectively – but did not clearly frame them as interpersonal-level or public-level conflicts. In addition to the conflict frames, media elites often provided explicit interpretations of the political events using small cues. Whereas the interpersonal- level and public-level conflict frames highlighted specific behaviors, the incivility and civility small cues made the elite judgments of the conflicts clear. Were the

behaviors acceptable or unacceptable? Disruptive or energizing? Civil or uncivil?

RQ3.2 asked whether media coverage of political conflict included civility or incivility small cues. Once again, the answer was a clear yes. Eighty-six percent of the texts included small cues that suggested the behaviors of political elites and citizens were either uncivil or civil. Rather than merely presenting the political events, political and media elites were judging those events. In most of the texts (81%), these interpretations were negative, suggesting that the behaviors of political actors were unacceptable and uncivil. Whether calling individuals “rude” (Maddow & Jones, 2009) or “offensive” (Bloom et al., 2009), claiming that the events were “a threat to democracy” (Olbermann, 2010) or full of “danger” (Williams, 2011), dismissing conflicts as “sideshow” spectacles (Schwartz & Dash, 2011), or using negative descriptors like “mobs” (Maddow & Jones, 2009), these texts indicated that the behaviors involved in various conflicts were unacceptable. The conflicts were not, however, always described in negative terms. A slight majority of the texts (56%) included characterizations of the events as acceptable and civil. In these instances, citizens were described as “informed American[s]” (O’Reilly, Carlson, & Hoover, 2009) exercising their right to “free speech” (Powell, 2011), members of Congress were seen as trying to “stand on [their] principles” (Hannity et al., 2011), and, generally, the event was portrayed as a “good thing” (Blitzer, 2009). Given the prevalence of both civility and incivility small cues, the results indicate that elites did not come together to form a monolithic interpretation of the political conflicts as civil or uncivil. Instead, news users may have come into contact with some news messages that characterized political events as uncivil and others that characterized political events as civil.

Media elites did not present one of these conflict frames or small cues at the expense of the others. Rather, the conflict frames and small cues often appeared together. Sixty-five percent of the sample included a mix of both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames, compared to 18 percent with only an interpersonal- level conflict frame and a mere 7 percent with only a public-level conflict frame. Sometimes texts using both frames suggested that interpersonal-level conflicts would influence public-level conflicts. For instance, a New York Times journalist described the health care town hall protests in the following manner: “the shouting, shoving and other shenanigans at lawmakers' town-hall-style meetings point to one probable outcome: the demise of bipartisan health care negotiations” (Harwood, 2009). In this example, the journalist argued that emotional displays (interpersonal-level conflict) at the town halls would make it harder for politicians to compromise (public-level conflict). At other times, the mix of conflict frames simply involved a media elite listing multiple portrayals of the conflict without saying that one type of conflict would lead to the other. Karl Rove, for example, wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial, “Occupy Wall Street isn't a movement. It's a series of events populated by a weird cast of disaffected characters, ranging from anarchists and anti-Semites to socialists and LaRouchies” (Rove, 2011). By calling the protesters “weird,” Rove invoked an interpersonal-level conflict frame, but by calling them “socialists” and “LaRouchies,” he characterized them as extreme partisans in a public-level conflict frame. No matter how the frames were mixed, however, there was evidence that they often occurred together.

Similarly, many texts included both civility and incivility small cues. Fifty- one percent of the texts contained a mix of both of these small cues, compared to 30

percent of the sample including only an incivility small cue and only 5 percent - that is, 14 of the total sample of 271 texts – including only civility small cues. In cases with both cues, a positive small cue often was used in response to a negative one. During the health care town halls, for instance, conservative columnist Peggy Noonan contrasted her own supportive take on the protesters with a quotation from then-House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): “Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the United States House of Representatives, accused the people at the meetings of ‘carrying swastikas and symbols like that.’ … But they are not Nazis, they're Americans” (Noonan, 2009). Noonan used Representative Pelosi’s words to contrast the incivility cues (e.g., “accused”) with her interpretation of the protesters as civil “Americans.” News viewers saw similarly conflicting messages about political ads. In response to an ad portraying West Virginian citizens as “hicky,” the Democratic Senate candidate Joe Manchin described the campaign as “nasty” whereas his Republican challenger implied that the behavior was acceptable and “just politics” (Sawyer, 2010a). As these examples show, both conflict frames and both small cues often co- existed in news coverage, creating a complicated information environment where various interpretations of political conflicts collided. The conflict frames used in the news mirrored theory that has characterized incivility as interpersonal-level (e.g., Mutz, 2007) or public-level conflict (e.g., Darr, 2007). But the use of these frames in the news was much more complicated than the typical one-dimensional approach to incivility. In the news, unlike in most incivility research, the interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames often appeared together, and there was not a clear agreement as to whether political events should be characterized as uncivil, civil, or both.

The mix of conflict frames and small cues present in the sample raised another question (RQ3.3): did one of the conflict frames appear with incivility (or civility) cues more often than the other? Although much of past research has characterized incivility as negative and nasty behavior (e.g., Mutz & Reeves, 2005; Hart, 2011), others have argued for its necessity (e.g., Darr, 2011; Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009). By examining the intersection between conflict frames and small cues within the same news texts, I could determine whether patterns of conflict frames and small cues emerged in media coverage. To investigate significant differences in the appearance of small cues among the conflict frames, I created two categorical variables: Conflict frame (no conflict frame used in a text, only an interpersonal-level conflict frame used, only a public-level conflict frame used, or a mixed conflict frame in which both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames were used), and small cue (no small cue used in a text, only an incivility small cue used, or a mixed cue where both civility and incivility small cues were used in a media text).7 A Pearson χ2 test indicated that there were significant differences in the presence of small cues across conflict frames [χ2(6, n = 257) = 104.82, p < .001].8 Which conflict frames, then, were most likely to appear in news stories with the civility and incivility small cues? The χ2 statistic alone can’t answer this question because it can’t locate the exact location of differences among groups. Comparing the z-scores across percentages in cross-tabulation tables can do so, however. Thus,

7 Only 5 percent of the texts included civility small cues, but no incivility small cues, to describe the events of interest. Pearson χ2 tests require no more than 20 percent of the cells in an analysis to have an expected value of less than 5 (Field, 2005). When the only civility small cues category was included, up to 30 percent of the cells had an expected value of less than 5, violating the assumption of the statistical test. Thus, these 14 articles are not included in the remaining analyses in this chapter. 8See Appendix C for the cross-tabulation tables used in the χ2 test throughout this chapter. 92

the notation of significant differences in Figure 2 – and throughout this chapter – are based on z-score comparisons. Figure 2 shows how small cues were used to describe the news texts that included (or did not include) conflict frames. For instance, of the news texts that did not include either of the conflict frames, 70 percent also did not include a small cue. In other words, when media elites used no conflict frame, they were much less likely to describe the events as civil or uncivil compared to instances in which they did use interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames.

100% 4%a 90% 26%a 33%b 80% 44%b 70% 66%c 60% 50% a a 44% 40% 28% 70%a 30%

20% 32%a 28%b 10% 22%b 2%c 0% % of Texts that Include Conlict Frames No Conlict Frame Interpersonal-Level Public-Level Conlict Both Conlict Conlict Frame Frame Frames

No Small Cue Incivility Small Cues Both Incivility and Civility Small Cues

Figure 2. Percentage of texts with (or without) conflict frames that include (or do not include) small cues. Lowercase letters that match horizontally across the conflict frame groups indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ horizontally across the conflict frame groups indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(6, n = 257) = 104.82, p < .001.9

9The expected values of two cells (17%) are lower than five. However, Field (2005) has argued that as many as 20 percent of the cells can have expected values lower than five. I use this guideline throughout my dissertation and only note expected values of less than five if more than 20 percent of cells fail to meet this requirement.

The small cues were spread evenly across texts that included either the interpersonal-level or public-level conflict frame. Journalists who described the debt ceiling negotiation as a “political stalemate” in which the parties could not compromise (public-level conflict frame) also called it a “stormy” (incivility small cue) debate (David & Tania, 2011). Another text explained how “offensive” (incivility small cue) it was that someone from gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown’s campaign insulted his opponent by calling her a “whore” (interpersonal- level conflict) (Sawyer, October 8, 2010b).10 Overall, it was equally likely for incivility small cues and mixed small cues to appear in texts that included only interpersonal-level conflict or only public-level conflict. Alternatively, once a news text included both frames, there was very little chance that the text did not include small cues interpreting the event (see Figure 2). Sixty-six percent of the texts that included both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames also included both incivility and civility small cues, a significantly higher percentage than texts that included only one of the conflict frames or articles that included neither of the conflict frames. And only two percent of news texts that included both conflict frames included no small cues at all, compared to 70 percent of articles that included no conflict frames, 28 percent of articles that included only an interpersonal-level conflict frame, and 22 percent of articles that included only a public-level conflict frame. In general, as more conflict frames were included in the texts, journalists, politicians, and others cited in the media were more likely to include small cues describing the political conflicts.

10 Even though “whore” has a negative connotation, its use in this instance was more representative of the interpersonal-level conflict frame than the incivility small cue. The journalists in the news broadcast discussed the name-calling behavior at length, and, thus, framed the campaign as full of interpersonal-level conflict between the candidates, and then called the use of this name-calling behavior offensive, a small cue that clearly labeled the interpersonal conflict unacceptable. 94

An extended example illustrates how many different conflict frames and small cues appeared in a single media text. On October 11, 2010, Rachel Maddow dedicated her program to “crazy” and “brazenly nuts” Republican political candidates (Maddow, 2010). Not only did she use name-calling such as this throughout the program, she quoted politicians using name-calling as well. She aired a video clip of Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino saying the following about the gay community, “We must stop pandering to the pornographers and the perverts who seek to target our children and destroy their lives.” The personally attacking language characterized the election as an interpersonal-level conflict between candidates, their constituents, and Rachel Maddow herself. But she did not stop at using the interpersonal-level conflict frame. She also implied that Congressional candidate Rich Iott was an extreme partisan, as signaled by his “hobby” of dressing up as a Nazi. She included clear incivility and civility cues in this segment when she stated: There`s no such thing as "like a Nazi." There`s only Nazi and everything else. So what does Republican nominee for Congress Rich Iott`s explanation for this un-analogize-able thing? Well, Mr. Iott went on TV today to defend dressing up like a Nazi for its educational value (Maddow, 2010). Here, she paired her incivility cue (“un-analogize-able”) with his civil characterization of the costume as “educational.” After more examples such as these, Maddow concluded her program with an overarching negative interpretation of the Republicans running for office, saying, “I don`t want this to become the new normal” (Maddow, 2010). In a single episode of her program, a viewer would have seen interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames, as well as civility and incivility cues.

Although not every news text with mixed conflict frames and mixed small cues was quite as complex as this example, many conflict frames and small cues appeared in descriptions of the four political conflicts analyzed here. Given incivility researchers’ previous focus on interpersonal-level impoliteness, the findings suggest that scholars also need to recognize that journalists and political actors (a) draw from public-level conflict frames as well and (b) do not always agree on whether political events should be defined as exclusively uncivil.

FRAME BUILDING AND POLITICAL CONFLICT

Thus far, I have shown that conflict frames and small cues are used extensively in media coverage of intense political conflict. Moreover, I have provided examples of the language of conflict frames and small cues to give qualitative detail about what makes up these news portrayals of conflict. Beginning here, however, I look less at the content of the news frames and more at where the conflict frames and small cues occur and who is promoting them. In this section, I investigate conflict frames and small cues through a frame-building perspective (e.g., Scheufele, 1999). There are a variety of media variables to keep in mind when investigating news framing. First, I considered differences among the four different political events that I studied: health care town halls, OWS protests, 2010 midterm elections, and debt ceiling debate (RQ3.4). Second, I analyzed differences across types of media: Is conflict framed differently depending on whether it appears in print or on television (RQ3.5)? Are conflicts framed differently in opinionated versus non-opinionated news (RQ3.6)? Finally, I investigated the role of partisanship in conflict frames: do Democrats frame Democrats in a positive light, while framing

Republicans in a negative light, and vice versa (RQ3.7)? Each investigation of who and what is involved in framing political conflict is detailed below. 96

Framing Differences across Political Conflicts

Media elites may have framed and interpreted the four events analyzed in this study differently. Of particular interest to incivility research is whether an event is, in general, focused on citizens or focused on politicians (RQ3.4). Both incivility research (e.g., Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009; Young et al., 2010) and research focused on media coverage of citizen protests (e.g., Boyle, McCluskey, Devanathan, Stein, & McLeod, 2004; Gitlin, 1977/2003) suggests that citizen- focused events will use more conflict frames and more incivility small cues than politician-focused events. Thus, analyzing whether there were differences in how media elites framed relatively less powerful citizens compared to relatively more powerful politicians can test this assumption. In the media texts analyzed here, the citizen-centered events include the 2009 health care town hall protests and the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests since they involved citizens actively protesting in public. The 2010 political campaign and the 2011 debt ceiling debate comprise the politician-centered events since they involved politicians running for election or working on legislation, activities in which citizens cannot take part in as easily as protests. The four events examined in this content analysis differed according to other characteristics, as well. OWS and the debt ceiling debate focused on economic issues, but the health care town halls and 2010 campaign did not. The health care town halls and the debt ceiling debate focused on one specific policy each, but the other two issues did not. Because of these differences across the issues, I kept the events separate in the analysis but will discuss instances in which the two citizen-

focused events (i.e., health care town halls and OWS) were portrayed differently than the two politician-focused events (i.e., debt ceiling and 2010 campaign).11 Chi-square tests signaled significant differences among the frames and small cues present in coverage of the four events [Conflict Frames: χ2(9, n = 271) = 78.66, p < .001; Small Cues: χ2(6, n = 257) = 65.46, p < .001].12 Follow-up comparisons of the z-scores indicated that the differences occurred across all of the political events, not just between the citizen-focused and politician-focused events. The conflict frames differed idiosyncratically across the events (see Figure 3). In only one instance were the citizen-focused events (health care town halls and OWS) framed similarly: coverage of both the citizen-focused events included fewer texts with only a public-level conflict frame than coverage of the debt ceiling debate. In every other comparison, there were significant differences between the coverage of the health care town halls and the OWS protests. The coverage of OWS included the highest percentage of texts with only interpersonal-level conflict frames, but the coverage of the health care town halls included the lowest percentage of texts with only interpersonal-level conflict frames. Coverage of the health care town halls included the highest percentage of texts with both interpersonal-level and public-

11I also ran the χ2 analyses combining the two citizen-focused events and two politician-focused events. When the events were combined, significant differences in the way citizen-and politician- focused events were framed emerged. Specifically, the citizen-focused events were portrayed using significantly more interpersonal conflict frames alone whereas politician-focused events were portrayed using significantly more public conflict frames alone. However, since there were also significant differences between the two citizen-focused events (that is, between the way the health care town halls and the OWS protests were covered), I keep coverage of all of the events separate in the following analyses. 12 As mentioned in Footnote 7, χ2 analyses require an expected value of at least 5 for 80 percent of the cells in the crosstabulation table. For the remaining tests in this chapter, there were too few instances of certain frames (e.g., only a public conflict frame present) and small cues (e.g., only an uncivil cue present) to conduct three-way χ2 tests and still meet this requirement. Thus, separate χ2 tests were run for conflict frames and for small cues. 98

level conflict frames, but the coverage of OWS included the lowest percentage of texts with both conflict frames. The two politician-focused events (debt ceiling debate and 2010 campaign) were covered more similarly than the citizen-focused events, but the politician- focused events did not differ from the citizen-focused events in the predicted manner (see Table 3). For instance, the debt ceiling debate coverage and the 2010 campaign coverage were similar in the percentage of texts that included only an interpersonal-level conflict frame. The coverage, however, included the interpersonal-level conflict frame significantly more than the coverage of the health care town halls, a citizen-focused event.

100% 90% b 80% 36% 70% 60%d a c 60% 4% 76% 90%a 50% 40% 43%b b 30% 16% a,b c 20% 3%a 6% 6% 3%a c 10% 17%b 16% 19%b 3%a 3%a 0% % of Texts that Include Conlict Frames Town Halls OWS 2010 Campaign Debt Ceiling (Citizen-Focused) (Citizen-Focused) (Politician-Focused) (Politician-Focused) No Conlict Frame Interpersonal-Level Conlict Frame Public-Level Conlict Frame Both Conlict Frames

Figure 3. Percentage of texts for each political event with (or without) conflict frames. Lowercase letters that match horizontally across the type of political event indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ horizontally across the type of political event indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level.13 Pearson χ2(9, n = 271) = 78.66, p < .001.

13In some of the figures in this dissertation, there are multiple letters listed for a given percentage. This means that the percentage does not differ from more than one group. For instance, in Figure 3, 99

Overall, different events prompted different uses of the conflict frames. The comparison of conflict frames does lead to two conclusions, however. First, citizen protests are not unanimously framed as impolite mobs. Even though the citizens have less power to influence media coverage than media elites, there is some variance in the conflict frames used to describe them. Second, the results show that the conflict frames are used across many different types of events, suggesting that they are flexible, generic (e.g., de Vreese, 2005) frames that can apply in a variety of situations. Turning to small cues, there were more differences between citizen-and politician-focused events (see Figure 4). The health care town hall coverage and the OWS coverage (citizen-focused events) still wasn’t identical. Specifically, the town hall coverage was more likely to include both small cues, and the OWS coverage was more likely to include neither small cue. But both of these events were much less likely to be described using only incivility small cues than politician-focused events (debt ceiling debate and 2010 campaign). Although not all coverage of citizen- focused events was supportive, it was much less likely than the coverage of the debt ceiling debate and the 2010 campaign to include mentions of how “disastrous” things were in Washington (Orden, 2011) and how power political figures were “stealing” U.S. democracy from the people (Holt, 2010). Comparing coverage across four events showed that, while there were not strong differences between citizen-focused and politician-focused in appearance of conflict frames, citizen-focused events were less likely to be described using only

both the “a” and “b” superscripts are listed for the 6 percent of the campaign 2010 news texts that included only a public-level conflict frame. Thus, the percentage of texts that included a public-level conflict frame for the campaign 2010 event is statistically equivalent to the percentage of texts that included a public-level conflict frame for the town halls and OWS events (both of which include the “a” superscript) and the debt ceiling event (which includes the “b” superscript). 100

incivility cues compared to politician focused events (RQ3.4). This finding may alleviate some of the fears of incivility researchers that citizens would be the target of charges of incivility (e.g., Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009) and counter the results of protest paradigm research that suggest protests often are portrayed as threatening (e.g., Boyle et al., 2004). Although citizen-focused events were not portrayed as uniformly positive, they were at least portrayed less negatively than politician- focused events.

100% 90% c 80% 37% 43%b,c 70% 57%b 60% 82%a 50%

a 40% 10% b 54% 46%b 30% 20% 33%b 13%a 10% a % of Texts that for each Event 5% 9%a 12%a 0% Town Halls OWS 2010 Campaign Debt Ceiling (Citizen-Focused) (Citizen-Focused) (Politician-Focused) (Politician-Focused) No Small Cues Incivility Small Cues Incivility and Civility Small Cues

Figure 4.Percentage of texts for each political event with (or without) small cues. Lowercase letters that match horizontally across the type of political event indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ horizontally across the type of political conflict indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(6, n = 257) = 65.46, p < .001. Framing Conflict across Visual and Print Media

It also is possible that different media formats influence the presence of conflict frames and small cues. I conducted a series of χ2 analyses to determine whether print or visual14 news differed in how they used the conflict frames and

14There were significant differences [χ2(4, n = 257) = 50.465, p < .001; χ2(4, n = 257) = 50.465, p < .001] in use of the conflict frames across format when media format was constructed as a three-level variable (newspaper, broadcast, cable). However, in the opinionated news variable tested below, all 101

small cues. The visual format of television may encourage people to think that politics are personal (Hart, 1999). The use of close-up images on political talk shows, for instance, can foster intense reactions to political conflict (Mutz, 2007). Perhaps, then, visuals may prompt differences in how conflict frames and small cues are used in media coverage compared to print news. I investigate this assertion in two ways, first, by looking at the texts of print new articles and television news transcripts to see how media elites verbally describe political conflict, and, second, by examining news photos to see how visuals portray political conflict. Texts of Print and Television News

As predicted, χ2 tests found significant differences in how print news articles and television news transcripts used the conflict frames and small cues. [Conflict

Frames: χ2(3, n = 271) = 40.29, p < .001; Small Cues: χ2(2, n = 257) = 35.07, p < .001]. Again, z-tests located the significant differences cross the media formats. Nearly all television news transcripts (85%) included both conflict frames, compared to only 49 percent of print news articles that included both conflict frames (see Figure 5). Print news, alternatively, was more likely to include the conflict frames on their own, rather than both in a single article, and was more likely to include no conflict frames in discussions of the political conflicts.

cable news programs were coded as “opinionated” and all broadcast news programs were coded as “non-opinionated.” Thus, there is substantial overlap between the three-level media format variable and the opinionated news variable. The print/television variable allows me to investigate unique differences in media format. 102

100% 90% 80% 49%a 70%

60% 85%b 50% 10%a 40% 30% 23%a 20% b a 3% 10% 17% b 10% 2%b

% Texts that include Conlict Frames 0% Print Television No Conlict Frame Interpersonal-Level Conlict Frame Public-Level Conlict Frame Both Conlict Frames

Figure 5. Percentage of texts for media format with (or without) conflict frames. Lowercase letters that match horizontally across the type of media format indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ horizontally across the type of media format indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(3, n = 271) = 40.29, p < .001.

A similar pattern occurred for small cues across television transcripts and print news articles (see Figure 6). Television transcripts again were most likely to include both small cues (74%) compared to print news articles (37%). Print news was more likely to include incivility small cues alone, rather than both in a single article, or no small cues in the articles.

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100% 90% 80% 37%a 70% b 60% 74% 50% 40% 42%a 30% 20% 20%b a % of Texts with Small Cues 10% 21% b 0% 6% Print Television

No Small Cues Incivility Small cues Incivility and Civility Small Cues

Figure 6. Percentage of texts for each media format with (or without) small cues. Lowercase letters that match horizontally across type of media format indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ horizontally across the type of media format indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(2, n = 257) = 35.073, p < .001.

Televised coverage of political conflict was more complex than print news coverage. News transcripts included multiple conflict frames and multiple small cues in two-thirds of the texts or more, whereas print news was more likely to include only one frame, negatively characterize the events, or mention the event with no small cue or conflict frame attached. Before claiming that all visual media portray conflict in more complex ways than print media, however, I look to online news photos to see whether images can capture the conflict frames and small cues as well as the news texts. Online News Photos

Conflict frames are not limited to the text of a media message. The images journalists choose to depict a political event also can signal whether they think of a conflict as interpersonal-level or public-level, and as civil or uncivil. I examined online photo galleries of the same four political events analyzed in the rest of this

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chapter to explore whether the conflict frames and small cues were present in images as well as news texts. As explained in more detail in Chapter 2, I analyzed 69 images from photo galleries posted on Time.com that were related to the health care town halls (and Tea Party protests that arose in the months after the summer town halls), Occupy Wall Street protests, the debt ceiling debate, and the 2010 midterm elections. I looked for the same conflict frames (interpersonal-level and public-level conflict) and small cues (civility and incivility cues) in the photos as I did in the news texts (see Chapter 2 for more details on the photo coding procedure). Like in the analysis of the news transcripts and articles presented above, the conflict frames and small cues were present in the photo collections. Interpersonal- level conflict frames, which were present in 45 percent of the images, were much more prevalent than public-level conflict frames, which were present in only 19 percent of the images. In the analysis of the news texts above, there also was a gap between the percentage of texts that included an interpersonal-level conflict frame (82%) and a public-level conflict frame (72%), but the gap in news texts was only 10 percent rather than the 26 percent gap between the two conflict frames in the online photos. Other than the occasional reference to a Communist or a mention in a sign that a person has lied, public-level conflict seems more difficult to capture in an image. Backdoor legislative deals and lack of compromise are not particularly photogenic. Interpersonal-level conflict, with its screaming faces, finger pointing, and rage, is much easier to capture in images. Interestingly, and unlike the content analysis of the texts, there were more civility than incivility small cues. More than half of the images (63%) included a civility small cue, whereas only 40 percent of the images included an incivility small cue. And in only 19 percent of the images did an incivility small cue appear without

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a civility small cue. This is the reverse of the finding from the textual content analysis, where incivility cues (81%) were much more prevalent than civility cues (56%). Perhaps this is because the people involved in the conflicts had control over their surroundings. In the health care and OWS protests, for instance, citizens could hold American flags, even as they marched, chanted, and displayed extreme protest signs. During the campaign and debt ceiling debate, politicians could stage events in locations covered in red, white, and blue. No matter what else was happening in a photo, the subjects of the images surrounded themselves with positive visuals that the photos could capture. Like the content analysis of the news texts, there were differences based on the topic. Given the small sample size for the image portion of this analysis,15 the importance of powerlessness to incivility research, and that the results from the text-based analysis discussed earlier found a few similarities between the coverage of citizen-focused and politician-focused events, I grouped the topics based on whether they centered on citizens (OWS, health care) or politicians (debt ceiling, 2010 campaign). Mirroring my analysis of the news texts, I created a conflict frame variable (no conflict frame, only an interpersonal-level conflict frame, both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames)16 and a small cues variable (no small cue, civility small cue, incivility small cue, both incivility and civility small cue). A χ2 analysis found significant differences across conflict frames [χ2(2, n = 66) = 16.44, p < .001] and a marginally significant difference across small cues [χ2(3, n = 69) = 7.74, p <

15Keeping the topics all separate led to more than 20 percent of the cells having expected values of less than five, which broke an assumption of a χ2 test (see Footnote 7). 16There were only three images that displayed only a public-level conflict frame, so I left the public- level conflict only frame out of the analysis. 106

.10] used to depict the conflicts. Images of politician-focused events were more likely to lack a conflict frame (see Figure 7) and to include a civility small cue (see Figure 8) than citizen-focused events. Citizen-focused events, contrastingly, were more likely to be portrayed as part of public-level and interpersonal-level conflicts than politician-focused events (Figure 7) and were connected with both incivility and civility cues (Figure 8).

a 100% 0% a 90% 19% 26%b 80% 70% 60% 41%a 50% 40% 82%a 30% 20% 33%b 10% % of Images with Conlict Frame 0% Politician-Focused Conlict Citizen-Focused Conlict No Conlict Frame Interpersonal-Level Conlict Frame Both Conlict Frames Figure 7. Percentage of images for different political events with (or without) conflict frames. Lowercase letters that match horizontally across the type of political event indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ horizontally across the type of political event indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(2, n = 66) = 16.44, p < .001.

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100% 7%a 90% 15%a 31%b 80% 70% 60% 21%a 50% 59%a 40% b 30% 31% 20% 10% 19%a a

% of Images with Small Cues 17% 0% Politician-Focused Conlict Citizen-Focused Conlict No Small Cue Civility Small Cues Incivility Small Cues Incivility and Civility Small Cues

Figure 8. Percentage of images for different political events with (or without) small cues. Lowercase letters that match horizontally across the type of political event indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ horizontally across the type of political event indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(3, n = 69) = 7.74, p < .10.

These patterns of coverage were different in the photos compared to the news texts. Photos of politician-focused events, in particular, did not include much conflict (82% had no conflict frame), whereas the news texts focused on the same issues included substantially fewer texts that had no conflict frame (3% for the 2010 campaign and 19% for the debt ceiling debate). As mentioned in Chapter 2, the debt ceiling debate photo album was focused more on the joyous reunion with Gabrielle Giffords than on the conflict occurring in Congress (see Figure 9). The election photo albums similarly were absent of conflict. They contained pictures of politicians visiting voters’ homes and giving speeches in front of American flags more than showing any type of visual conflict. Perhaps politicians have more control over their visual images, like those in the photographs in this sample, than they do the text of a news story.

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Figure 9. U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) greeted in the House of Representatives (“On the floor”, 2010).

Citizens were portrayed as much more conflict-ridden than politicians, since only 33 percent of the images did not include one of the conflict frames. However, this percentage still is more than the amount of news texts that did not include any conflict frames (3% health care town halls and 17% for OWS, see Figure 3). Further, the images of the citizen-focused events included civility small cues showing people clapping, smiling, and holding signs promoting democracy. For instance, in the Tea Party protest depicted in Figure 10, citizens held signs calling Democrats communists; however, they also wore red, white, and blue and displayed American flags, which signaled patriotism rather than a threat to democracy. Even though citizen-focused events included more conflict than politician-focused events in the online photos, the citizen photos often included civility small cues as well.

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Figure 10.Tea Party Protest. (“Strength in numbers”, 2009).

After looking at the differences between television and print news texts and at the appearance of conflict frames and small cues in news images, the results provide substantial evidence that the appearance of conflict frames and small cues differed across media formats (RQ3.5). Television news transcripts included mixed conflict frames and mixed small cues, whereas newspaper articles included more interpersonal-level conflict frames and incivility small cues. Online news photos included much less conflict than the news texts, especially for politicians, and also gave the photo subjects the opportunity to surround themselves with patriotic civility cues. Overall, the patterns of conflict frames and small cues differed between visual and written news formats. Researchers should keep these differences in mind to test whether the portrayals of political conflict favored by journalists working in various media formats influence citizens in different ways.

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Framing Conflict across Opinionated and Non-Opinionated Media

In addition to the media format influencing how the conflicts were covered, opinionated news also may influence conflict coverage (RQ3.6). Researchers have found significant differences between the content of network and cable news coverage (see, for example, Aday, 2010; Zeldes, Fico, & Diddi, 2012). A similar difference may appear in how opinionated cable news and print news editorials cover political conflict compared to less opinionated broadcast news and non- editorial news articles. Although news in general emphasizes political conflict and disorder (Gans, 1979/2004), perhaps an emphasis on opinion in news heightens and complicates coverage of conflict. Most of the cable programming in this study is clearly opinionated news, whereas the broadcast news programs in this sample do not claim a partisan identity. Furthermore, although newspaper editorials often have a clear partisan lean, the majority of the newspaper articles in the sample (79%) were not editorials or opinion pieces. To determine whether opinionated and non-opinionated news texts use conflict frames and small cues differently, I compared non-opinionated news, which included all of the texts from the broadcast news stations (ABC, NBC, CBS), as well as all articles from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal that were not labeled as editorials or Op-Eds, to opinionated news, which included all texts from Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, and all Op-Eds and editorials published in the newspapers.17

17 I ran a series of robustness checks to ensure that this categorization of Opinionated/Non- opinionated news was the best to use. In one set of analyses, I looked at left-leaning and right- leaning news separately. In each test, the liberal-leaning and conservative-leaning sources were similar and were only significantly different from non-opinionated messages. A second set of analyses varied the sources coded as “Opinionated,” with CNN and non-editorial newspaper articles sometimes coded as non-opinionated and sometimes coded as opinionated. Much academic research characterizes CNN as a more liberal news source, particularly compared to Fox News (e.g., Stroud, 2011), which is why CNN was categorized as opinionated in the analyses presented in the main text. 111

Examining opinionated versus non-opinionated news revealed significant differences in coverage of the conflicts [Conflict Frames: χ2(3, n = 271) = 51.37, p <

.001; Small Cues: χ2(2, n = 257) = 41.73, p < .001]. Comparing z-scores once again uncovered specific differences among the groups (see Figures 11 & 12). Opinionated news varied very little in terms of which conflict frames and small cues were used: nearly all opinionated coverage included of both types of conflict frames (91%) and more than two-thirds of opinionated coverage included both types of small cues (78%). This was significantly more than the percentage of non- opinionated news that included both conflict frames and small cues (Both Conflict Frames: 48%; Both Small Cues: 38%). Non-opinionated news, alternatively, was more likely to contain no conflict frame (16%), only an interpersonal-level conflict frame (27%), no small cue (20%), and only incivility small cues (43%) than opinionated news. Once again, the comparison between opinionated and non- opinionated news (RQ3.6) showed that where people get their news can influence how political conflict is framed for them.

However, the CNN programs analyzed in this study – Anderson Cooper 360, Larry King Live, and Piers Morgan Tonight – do not market themselves as having a clear opinionated position toward politics. Anderson Cooper 360, for instance, is described as a show that “[tells] stories from many points of view, so you can make up your own mind” (Anderson Cooper 360, 2013). This is compared to the Fox News and MSNBC programs that are unapologetically conservative or liberal, respectively (see, for example, Rachel Maddow, 2008; About Sean Hannity, 2013). Coding CNN as non- opinionated changed only one result: non-opinionated news was significantly more likely to cover political conflict using only a public-level conflict frame. This change resulted from moving two texts to the public-level conflict frame, so the change was significant but not very substantial. I also tested my decision to code non-editorial newspaper articles as non-opinionated. Coding the non-editorial and non-Op-Ed newspaper articles as opinionated did lead to a change: the differences between opinionated and non-opinionated news sources disappeared. If anything, this lack of a significant difference between groups suggested that including non-editorial newspaper articles in the opinionated category obscured interesting and significant results. 112

100% 90% 80% 48%a 70% 60% 91%b 50% 10%a 40% 30% 27%a 20% 4%a b 10% a 3% 16% b % of Texts with Conlict Frame 3% 0% Non-Opinionated News Opinionated News No Conlict Frame Interpersonal-Level Conlict Frame Public-Level Conlict Frame Both Conlict Frames

Figure 11. Percentage of texts for opinionated or non-opinionated news with (or without) conflict frames. Lowercase letters that match horizontally across the opinionated/non-opinionated news groups indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ horizontally across the opinionated/non-opinionated news groups indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(3, n = 271) = 51.37, p < .001.

100%

80% 37%a

60% 78%b

40% 43%a

20% b 20%a 16%

% of Texts with Small Cues b 0% 6% Non-Opinionated News Opinionated News

No Small Cue Incivility Small Cue Incivility and Civility Small Cues

Figure 12. Percentage of texts for opinionated or non-opinionated news with (or without) small cues. Lowercase letters that match horizontally across the opinionated/non-opinionated news groups indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ horizontally across the opinionated/non-opinionated news groups indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(2, n = 257) = 41.73, p < .001.

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Framing Conflict across Partisanship of Framers

To this point, I have ignored partisanship’s role in the use of mediated conflict frames and small cues. Partisan elites are involved in framing intense political conflict, however. Behaving uncivilly often is a strategic act (Herbst, 2010). Politicians and political figures use uncivil behaviors in ways that help them reach their legislative goals or win election. They also may use conflict frames and small cues strategically. That is, they may discuss opponents’ behaviors as being exemplars of interpersonal-level or public-level conflict to make them look bad. Thus, I examined how partisan elites – be they talk show pundits like Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity or political figures like President Obama and House

Majority Leader John Boehner – strategically frame of political conflict (RQ3.7). Two tests showed whether partisans were involved in strategic conflict framing. First, I looked at which partisans use conflict frames across different partisan media outlets. That is, do left-leaning (right-leaning) sources like MSNBC (Fox News) allow liberal (conservative) politicians to frame political conflicts more than other partisans? Second, I investigated whether partisans use confirming or disconfirming messages when talking about political conflict. In other words, to what extent do right-leaning (left-leaning) partisans promote other conservatives (liberals) as civil and their political opponents as uncivil? Partisan Framers in Partisan News

A first test of strategic uses of conflict frames examined whether partisan media outlets were likely to include likeminded partisans framing the conflicts. To analyze patterns of partisan framing across partisan news, I drew from two content analysis codes: one that captured whether a liberal Democrat described a political conflict using any of the conflict frames or small cues (coded present = 1 and not

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present = 0) and a second that captured whether a conservative Republican offered any of the conflict frames or small cues to explain a conflict (coded present = 1 and not present = 0). I combined these two codes for each news text into one “news framing” variable with four levels: no partisans framed the conflicts in a news text (37% of the sample), only left-leaning partisans framed the conflicts (16%), only right-leaning partisans framed the conflicts (9%), or both left-and right-leaning partisans framed the conflicts within the same news text (39%). These percentages show that partisans played an extensive role in discussing the political conflicts, but do not indicate whether that role is a strategic one. I tested whether partisan framing of conflict in a news text varied based on the lean of a news outlet. Rather than testing the differences across opinionated and non-opinionated news, as I did in the section above, here I kept left-leaning political media (MSNBC, CNN, New York Times editorials, Op-Eds with a liberal author) separate from right-leaning political media (Fox News, Wall Street Journal editorials, Op-Eds with a conservative author). The partisan lean of the news outlets and the newspaper editorial articles was based on previous research (Feldman, Maibach, Roser-Renouf, & Leiserowitz, 2012; Stroud, 2008). Articles in the newspapers that were labeled “opinion” or “op-ed,” but were not written by the editorial board, were categorized based on the political lean of the person who wrote the article (e.g., Karl Rove’s opinion pieces were considered right-leaning media, and Paul Krugman’s opinion pieces were considered left-leaning media). If the political lean of the writer was unclear, the article was placed in the non-opinionated news category. I tested whether who was framing the conflict differed among non- opinionated, or centrist, news, left-leaning news, and right-leaning news. Across these sources, significant differences emerged in terms of who was framing the

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conflicts [χ2(6, n = 261) = 51.63, p < .001]. Z-scores indicated where the significant differences among the groups occurred. Non-opinionated news sources were least likely to provide partisans the space to frame political conflict (see Figure 13). Fifty-one percent of the non- opinionated texts included no partisan framing of the conflicts, significantly more than both the left-and right-leaning news texts. Non-opinionated texts also included significantly fewer instances in which people from both the left and the right framed a political event (25%). Journalists in non-opinionated news programs and nonpartisans quoted in the programs were likely to provide a conflict frame or small cue without it being challenged by a partisan who disagreed with the characterization of the event. For instance, Nancy Cordes, a CBS news correspondent, constructed a public-level conflict frame by claiming that special interest groups during the 2010 election “are often even less constrained by facts than the politicians they support” (Couric et al., 2010). In this news text, like many others in the sample, no partisans offered their take on the situation.

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100%

25%a 80% b 8%a 54% 67%b 60% 15%a,b

4%a 40% 23%b 51%a 14%a 20% 8%a 20%b % of Texts with Partisan Framing 10%b 0% Non-Opinionated News Left-Leaning News Right-Leaning News

Both Left-and Right-Leaning Partisans Framing Only Right-Leaning Partisans Framing Only Left-Leaning Partisans Framing No Partisan Framing

Figure 13. Percentage of partisan news texts with (or without) partisans framing the conflicts. Lowercase letters that match horizontally across the partisan news texts indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ horizontally across the partisan news texts indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(6, n = 271) = 51.63, p < .001.

Some partisan news sources tended to favor likeminded framers in their news coverage. Left-leaning news sources were more likely to allow liberals and Democrats to frame political conflicts than right-leaning news sources. For example, left-leaning political pundit Rachel Maddow framed the health care town hall protests as fueled by “the well-paid people who are spreading lies [public-level conflict frame] to turn everyday Americans into hostile mobs [interpersonal-level conflict frame]” without allowing a conservative or Republican to respond with a different frame (Maddow & Jones, 2009). There was a higher percentage of right- leaning news texts that included only Republican or conservative framing compared to the other news leans, as well. The difference was not significant, however, likely

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due to the small number of texts that included only conservatives and Republicans framing events.18 Examining the patterns of partisan news framing on partisan news stations gives some support for the claim that partisans strategically frame conflict. Liberal Democrats were more likely to frame political conflict on left-leaning news stations, for instance, and non-opinionated news is least likely to give partisans the news space to frame the conflicts. Yet there was no evidence that right-leaning news outlets did the same for conservative Republicans. This provides partial support for

RQ3.7. However, the test only took conflict frames into account, not whether partisans were strategically describing the conflict as civil or uncivil. There could have been instances in which a Republican talked about a Democrat engaging in name-calling behaviors during a campaign but didn’t explicitly say that this behavior was uncivil. For a better understanding of how partisans talked about other partisans, I turn to a final analysis that takes small cues into account. Confirming and Disconfirming Partisan Messages

Simply looking at whether left-or right-leaning partisans framed political conflicts does not provide information about how they framed other partisans. Are Democrats (Republicans) using civility cues to describe the behaviors of other Democrats (Republicans) while using incivility cues to describe the behaviors of Republicans (Democrats)? Or do partisans recognize and call out incivility in their own ranks by using incivility cues to describe members of their own party?

18 When CNN broadcasts were coded as a non-opinionated, rather than left-leaning programs, there was a significant difference between left-and right-leaning news sources in the presence of Republican framing the conflicts. Although the difference is significant when the media lean is coded this way, it is not substantially different than the results presented here. Only one article shifted positions, moving from a left-leaning instance of Republicans framing the conflicts to a non- opinionated instance. 118

To investigate this, I created a confirming/disconfirming variable that took into account how partisans were labeling other partisans involved in political conflicts. This variable only included news texts in which partisans framed the political conflicts. The confirming/disconfirming variable included levels: a confirming only category in which partisans only used civility cues to describe likeminded partisans and/or incivility cues to describe opposing partisans, a disconfirming only category in which partisans only used civility cues to describe opposing partisans and/or incivility cues to describe likeminded partisans, and a confirming and disconfirming category in which individuals described opposing and likeminded partisans in both confirming and disconfirming ways. News texts rarely included only disconfirming messages. Of the texts that included partisan framing, confirming (52%) and both confirming and disconfirming (41%) messages were most prevalent, as tested by a one-way χ2 analysis [χ2(2, n = 145) = 48.493, p < .001]. Instances in which partisans only used incivility cues to describe their own side and/or civility cues to describe the other side made up only 7 percent of the texts that included partisan framing. Rarely did texts include only partisans who used small cues to describe conflicts in ways that countered their partisan leans. Confirming cues were most widespread, with partisans extensively supporting their own side or denigrating the other. One broadcast of the liberal MSNBC program The Ed Show exemplified this pattern. During the broadcast, Schultz played a video clip of conservative Fox News contributor Dick Morris disparaging the Occupy Wall Street Movement and negatively characterizing

President Obama’s current situation: When you get a leftist movement like this going on, that goes way over, it puts the president in a very, very difficult situation. Just think of the flip side. 119

Think if you had a large Klan movement in the United States with a Republican president. (Schultz, Moore, & Bashir, 2011) Schultz responded by saying Morris was being “insulting” and, elsewhere in the broadcast, claimed, “any Republican who attacks [OWS] is writing a ticket to defeat in 2012” (Schultz et al., 2011). Both men included incivility cues in their critiques, with conservative Morris asserting that OWS puts the Democratic president in a “difficult” place and liberal Schultz arguing that Morris was being “insulting.” Most importantly, though, both men critiqued their opponents, not members of their own party. So even though they used small cues to describe events, they targeted their labels at their opponents, not their own parties. Mixed confirming and disconfirming messages appeared in media coverage as well, though to a more limited extent than confirming messages. The debt ceiling debate offered an exemplar of these mixed messages. In an Op-Ed for the Wall Street Journal, conservative Peggy Noonan (2011) praised “three serious liberals and three serious conservatives” for trying to find a compromise over raising the debt ceiling. She used a civility small cue (“serious”) to describe both likeminded conservative politicians (confirming message) and opposing liberal politicians (disconfirming message). She did not extensively praise liberals, but she did provide some small cues to suggest that at least a few opposing party members were not uncivil enemies.

Importantly, a χ2 test indicated that left- and right-leaning news did not differ in the use of confirming and disconfirming messages [χ2(2, n = 100) = .75, p = .69].19

19 Since I was interested in whether the left-or right-leaning news outlets were more likely to use confirming or disconfirming messages, rather than whether the opinionated news outlets differed from the non-opinionated news outlets, I only include the left-and right-leaning news outlets in this test. However, even when the non-opinionated news outlets are included, there were no significant differences between the ways in which left-and right-leaning news used confirming/disconfirming messages. 120

Even though the partisanship of people framing the conflicts tended to match the lean of the news outlet, these partisans discussed likeminded and opposing partisans in similar ways. Thus the example of Ed Schultz described earlier looked very similar to patterns present on Fox News broadcasts. The partisanship of the political actors changed, but the pattern of coverage was the same. Patterns in the data showed that conflict frames and small cues were used strategically, which answers RQ3.7 in the affirmative. Left-leaning news outlets were more likely than right-leaning outlets to include liberal Democrats framing political conflicts. Right-leaning news outlets were more likely than left-leaning sources to include conservative sources, though not significantly so. More evidence for strategic framing came from the confirming/disconfirming analysis. In very few cases did news texts include only disconfirming messages from partisans. Instead, partisans framed each other in relation to political conflicts, often using small cues to suggest that likeminded politicians were behaving well and opposing politicians were behaving badly.

DISCUSSION

Protesters are angry mobs and patriots. Members of Congress proudly hold their ground and hold the legislative process hostage. The portrayal of political conflict depends on who is talking and where a person is getting the news. That is, incivility isn’t inherent to a specific behavior; it is constructed in media portrayals of the behaviors. The definition of incivility, and whether any given political conflict is “uncivil,” is struggled over in the news. It is not a stable concept with a definition on which every journalist and political figure agrees. Instead, media elites extensively draw on multiple conflict frames when describing events and use small cues to make explicit judgments about whether those events are civil or uncivil, acceptable 121

or unacceptable. Even if news users are gaining information from these news frames, it is likely that they are learning that anger and refusal to work together – two behaviors that are not particularly helpful to a democracy – are commonplace. The results here do not show the effects of the conflict frames but do reinforce the fluidity of incivility, remind researchers that it is important to take power into account when framing conflict, and suggest that politicians and citizens use conflict frames strategically in the news.

Fluidity of Incivility

Since the definition of civility is based on cultural norms (Strachan & Wolf, 2012), it is a fluid concept. As my data show, media elites actively discuss and frame political incivility in the U.S., at least in the context of political events that consist of intense political conflict. The news texts and images analyzed here demonstrated that coverage portrayed the same four conflicts – health care town halls, Occupy Wall Street protests, campaign 2010, and the debt ceiling debate – in very different ways. Even if aspects of political events may be unmistakably uncivil according to academic theory, media coverage did not portray conflict as simply. Instead, media elites discussed these events using conflict frames and small cues and, at least in the time frame analyzed here and in the context of highly charged conflicts, never reached a consensus on whether any of the events of interest were civil or uncivil. Varied media coverage of the political conflicts both validates academic incivility theory and challenges it. On one hand, both interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict were mentioned in the news, which supports the theoretical conceptualizations of incivility outlined in Chapter 2. Coverage of the conflicts, in both news texts and images, included examples of shouting, name- calling, and personal attacks (e.g., Ben-Porath, 2010; Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 122

2005), as well as evidence of political misinformation, lack of compromise, and extreme partisanship (e.g., Entman, 2011; Papacharissi, 2004; Uslaner, 1996, 2000; Sobieraj & Berry, 2011). These behaviors all have been characterized as uncivil by academics in the past. Further, some media elites portrayed these events as uncivil and unacceptable and, thus, mirrored political theorists’ arguments that incivility is damaging to democracy (Uslaner, 1996, 2000). Other media elites used civility small cues to suggest that the behaviors were acceptable, much as other scholars have argued that uncivil behaviors may not be all that bad in certain contexts (e.g., Bennett, 2011; Darr, 2007; Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009). On the other hand, the conflict frames emerged in complicated ways that require incivility researchers to rethink their approach to studying the concept. Interpersonal-level conflict frames and public-level conflict frames as well as incivility cues and civility cues were present in news coverage, sometimes all in the same article. This mix of conflict frames and small cues signaled that media elites did not agree on whether any given political event was uncivil. Much of the research into the effects of political incivility has examined the important influence of interpersonal-level conflict on news audiences (e.g., Borah, forthcoming; Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005), but there are few studies that explored the effects intense, mediated public-level conflict. What effects research also has not investigated, and what my research makes clear is necessary, is how elite conflict frames and small cues jointly influence citizens’ perceptions of politics and incivility. That is, in a message environment that presents political behaviors as complicated and up for interpretation, do citizens create similarly complex ideas about what is civil and uncivil in U.S. politics? Effects research needs to expand its definition of incivility, treat incivility as something that is constructed actively in media coverage,

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and empirically test how elite conflict frames and small cues influence citizens’ thoughts about political behaviors. The fluid nature of the news coverage about incivility highlights the importance of taking complex message environments into account when investigating news framing theory. Using experimental research, scholars have shown that framing effects differ when individuals view a single frame versus a combination of frames (Chong & Druckman, 2007a, 2007b; Druckman, Fein, & Leeper, 2012). The results of my content analysis strongly support this move in experimental research. News texts that included both conflict frames or both small cues were so prevalent that it was impossible to test statistically whether conflict frames and small cues appeared together in similar patterns across types of events, types of media, and types of partisan messages – there simply were not enough texts characterized by only one conflict frame or only one small cue to test how they interacted. Conflict frames and small cues often occurred together (see Figure 2), providing readers a complex environment where elites both used conflict frames and small cues to emphasize conflict and (in)civility in the political events. Ignoring this complexity in experimental research would be a mistake. Instead, my results strongly suggest that including mixed frames and small cues in experimental research will make such research more externally valid. Incivility is a complex concept closely tied to cultural norms, making it rather ambiguous. Whose norms define what is “civil” versus what is “uncivil”? Political and media elites capitalized on incivility’s ambiguity by advancing their own norms about political conflicts. They highlighted different types of conflict in the news and interpreted events as civil or uncivil depending on the type of conflict, type of media, and partisanship of those involved in the conflict. This complexity sends the signal

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that researchers should study how such varied discussions of incivility in the news influence citizens’ thoughts about and reactions to political conflict.

Incivility and the Power to Frame

Framing incivility also involves power, particularly the power to get conflict frames and small cues into the news. Looking at how frames are built acknowledges the reality that journalists and political figures have the influence to frame events (e.g., Carragee & Roefs, 2004; Entman, 2004, 2010). News frames do not arise on their own – someone makes a choice to include them in the news. So what do the results say about how those who have the power to frame political conflict are using their influence? At least in the events analyzed in this project, media elites made the decision to support relatively powerless citizens and oppose more powerful elected officials – but only in the language rather than the images of the news. Written and verbal coverage of citizen-focused events (i.e., health care town halls, OWS) included significantly fewer instances in which the events were described only using incivility small cues compared to politician-focused events (i.e., debt ceiling, 2010 campaign). Rather than powerful media elites dismissing citizen-focused events, there were instances in which elites admitted that the citizens were acting inappropriately, but then defended them. For instance, conservative strategist Frank Luntz argued that the health care town hall protests were “organic and real” (civility small cue) (Hannity, 2009). In textual coverage of these recent protests, citizens were chastised for the worst of their behaviors but also supported in media coverage. The coverage of politician-focused events was more lopsided. Journalists and political figures emphasized the unacceptable nature of politician-focused political

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conflict by using incivility small cues more for politicians than for citizens. At least in the news texts, citizens had elites on their side defending some of their actions. This finding may, however, depend on whether a news program was opinionated or not. It may be that opinioned news sources are more likely to support citizens who advance partisan goals than non-opinionated news sources. The example from the previous paragraph, for instance, included a conservative pundit (Frank Luntz) supporting citizens who agreed with a conservative cause (limiting health care reform). Perhaps more traditional broadcast news sources without a clear partisan lean were harder on citizens than the opinionated sources. The number of news texts in the sample did not allow for significant tests of the difference in how opinionated and non-opinionated news covered different political events, but future research can determine whether the pattern of media elites supporting citizens appears no matter the partisanship of the news. Overall, in the news texts, citizens came off better than politicians, but politicians largely avoided conflict frames and small cues in pictures. On one hand, the presence of some support for citizens, as shown by the use of civility cues in the news, is encouraging. This is particularly true for researchers interested in studying social movements and citizen protests (e.g., Boyle et al. , 2004; Gitlin, 1977/2003; Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009; Young et al., 2010), for whom any support for citizens involved in political conflict is an improvement. On the other hand, however, in the news images citizens were portrayed in connection with more conflict and more incivility small cues than politicians. The difference between textual versus visual conflict frames raises the question: what happens when the conflicts frames and small cues in a news article or spoken by a broadcast news anchor contradict the conflict frames and small cues present in a news image? If images are more

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powerful than the verbal or written frames, as Grabe and Bucy (2009) suggest, then citizens may be judged harshly based on the images of the conflicts, even if they are sometimes supported in the verbal news messages.

Strategically Framing (In)Civility

Finally, conflict frames were used strategically in the news, both by partisans in news texts and anyone captured in news photos. Partisans drew from conflict frames and small cues to support their opinionated agendas by using confirming messages in their discussions of political conflict. When partisans consistently disagree about how to make sense of the same political conflict, the definition of incivility may split along partisan lines. Herbst (2010) offered rhetorical evidence that politicians talk about civility when it suits their needs. Additionally, public opinion toward individual political parties improves when members of the party present cohesive messages to the public (Groeling, 2010). The textual content analysis provides further support for Herbst’s and Groeling’s findings by showing that partisans in the media also use small cues strategically when discussing political conflict. There were only a few instances in which partisans framed the behaviors of likeminded individuals as uncivil or the behaviors of their opposition as civil. Instead, they portrayed likeminded partisans as behaving well and opposing partisans as behaving badly. Examples of partisans actively framing and reframing political events were scattered throughout the sample. Take, for instance, an episode of Anderson Cooper 360 that focused on the debt ceiling debate. Democratic pollster and liberal commentator Cornell Belcher characterized the debate as a “debacle” (incivility small cue) in which House Majority Leader Rep. Boehner was “held hostage by a group of radical tea partiers” (confirming message because it criticizes an opposing 127

partisan). Carly Fiorina from the National Republican Senatorial Committee countered by supporting Rep. Boehner’s “good faith” (civility small cue; confirming message) effort to solve the problem. Thus, citizens were presented with two interpretations of potentially uncivil behaviors. If they knew the partisanship of the speakers, they may have simply followed the cue of the likeminded partisan, rather than weighing both arguments equally (see, for instance, Zaller, 1992). Although the bulk of the evidence shows partisans using the conflict frames and small cues strategically, they were not alone. The image analysis suggests that citizens and politicians of any political lean can adapt their surroundings strategically to avoid conflict, or at least get some civility small cues into a journalist’s photo. Politicians, in particular, benefited from images. They very rarely were portrayed in connection with conflict frames. Instead, they stood in front of American flags surrounded by adoring citizens. Images included more conflict frames when the event was focused on citizen protest, but even then citizens had ways of making sure there were some civility cues in an image. Citizens also carried American flags during protests, and they clapped and smiled when other protesters were speaking passionately. For both citizen-focused and politician- focused images, there were substantially more civility small cues than there were in the news texts. Perhaps the prevalence of civility small cues occurs, at least in part, because the subjects of photos have the strategic ability to surround themselves with patriotism, which later is captured in news images. The analyses presented in this chapter provide substantial evidence that political elites help guide discussion about political incivility. They draw upon conflict frames and small cues to make sense of political conflict. And much of this framing is partisan in nature as likeminded partisans support each other’s behaviors

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and dismiss the political opposition as uncivil. Moving forward, researchers need to test how news users react as partisans struggle to influence perceptions of incivility, a topic to which this dissertation turns shortly.

Limitations

The sample and coding procedure had few limitations. First, the unit of analysis throughout the research was a full media text or entire image rather than each specific mention of political conflict. For instance, a journalist could have discussed how Congress failed to compromise on the debt ceiling deal but not include a small cue in relation to the public-level conflict described. Later in the article, the journalist could have noted the name-calling going on in Congress and then labeled this interpersonal-level conflict as uncivil. My coding procedure would have captured both conflict frames in the data, as well as an incivility small cue, but it would not have found that the public-level conflict was not described as uncivil while the interpersonal-level conflict frame was labeled as such. This coding procedure means that I cannot say whether a specific mention of a political behavior matched with a specific instance of a small cue. For the current study, however, this procedure was helpful. At times, the small cues appeared in the headline of a news text or at the end of an article, rather than right next to the frames they described. Had the unit of analysis been smaller, I may have missed small cues that were being used to describe a number of behaviors present the article. Second, the coding procedure is based on incivility theory but not on what citizens perceive to be uncivil. Thus, citizens may react to the conflict frames in ways that complicate the coding procedures used. This complication is most apparent in the codes used to analyze news images. Images that included references to patriotism (e.g., flags, backdrop of U.S. Capitol building) were coded as including 129

civility cues. This coding procedure arose from theory that connected good citizenship to civility (e.g., Davetian, 2009). Based on this approach to civility, patriotic visuals may signal to people who view the news images that the political actors are behaving appropriately as citizens. However, another possibility exists: people who view the images may see patriotic symbols in the context of political conflict and think that the political actors are behaving worse because they are breaking the ideals of citizenship signaled by the symbols. Only by testing individuals’ reactions to news can researchers and media elites understand whether citizens’ thoughts about conflict in the news parallel the approach used here. Finally, the data captured the presence or absence of each of the codes within a news text or new image but not how extensively the codes were used. Take for instance, a hypothetical program in which Sean Hannity made four references to the uncivil, dangerous, disruptive, and un-American OWS protests, and one of his guests mentioned one time that the protesters were justifiably angry. The codes in my content analysis would signal that the text included both incivility and civility small cues, but not that the text leaned toward incivility cues overall. This coding procedure mirrors many other research projects interested in news coverage, however (e.g., Aday, 2010; Stroud, 2011). Additionally, since this study was a first exploration of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames, it was necessary to start by looking at whether the conflict frames exist in news coverage at all. The magnitudes of the conflict frames can be examined in future research.

Conclusion

What the results clearly signal, despite these limitations, is that there is no one “incivility” definition present in the media. Elites described all four events studied here as full of interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict and 130

labeled them as both civil and uncivil. Instead, incivility is a fluid concept that powerful media elites can frame – and often use for strategic purposes. Rather than approaching incivility as a static concept, I argue that researchers must examine whether perceptions of incivility are prompted by different ways of discussing political conflict in the news. Citizens do not learn about acceptable political behavior in a vacuum. Partisans and media elites guide mediated discussions about incivility. Thus, researchers need to test the consequences of these frames on citizens, as I begin to do in the next chapter, journalists need to keep in mind the frames so they can avoid letting partisans strategically discuss conflicts, and citizens need to know about conflict frames so that they can make their own judgments about political behaviors rather than blindly following the lead of media elites.

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Chapter 4: Incivility from a Citizen Perspective

President Obama, among others, has called for a return to civility in U.S. politics (Remarks by the President, 2010), and 95 percent of citizens believe that civility is necessary for a healthy democracy (Shea & Steadman, 2010). Many behaviors, ranging from yelling and name-calling to extremism and refusal to compromise, are labeled uncivil in the media, often by partisans attacking opponents (as described in Chapter 3). But what kinds of behaviors do citizens believe to be uncivil? Does partisanship influence the way they judge elites’ behaviors? There has been little research taking citizens’ perspectives of incivility into account. The only study that has asked citizens about civility directly found that some citizens perceived as uncivil everything from using insulting language to calling a member of Congress to express an opinion (Shea & Steadman, 2010). The Shea and Steadman study is an important start but only asked participants whether behaviors should or should not be considered uncivil. This chapter, however, (a) looks at citizen reactions to different types of uncivil behaviors, (b) takes the partisanship of a political actor into account, and (c) tests whether perceptions of incivility have consequential effects. In this chapter, I address the lack of a citizen perspective in civility research. This chapter investigates citizens’ thoughts about incivility by reporting the results of two of the experiments explained in Chapter 2: “Judging Political Behaviors” and “Incivility and Partisan News.” The findings provide evidence that type of behavior and, especially, partisanship play important roles in citizens’ thoughts about political incivility.

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EXPERIMENT 1: JUDGING POLITICAL BEHAVIORS

Researchers have not thoroughly studied the ways in which citizens think about uncivil political behaviors. The results of the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment shed light on this understudied aspect of incivility and give citizens a voice in incivility research. In the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment, participants read a series of 24 short statements that described a variety of political behaviors. The stimuli included a mix of behaviors drawn from the media content examined in Chapter 3. These behaviors represented either civil behaviors or one of the two incivility categorizations I outlined (interpersonal-level or public-level conflict). Six of the behaviors represented civil behaviors (e.g., a news host had a polite discussion with her guest). Eight represented interpersonal-level conflict (e.g., a politician called the opposition delusional). Eight reflected public-level conflict (e.g., there is deadlock in Congress). The final two represented both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict (e.g., a news host compared partisans to Hitler and the Nazis) to help test whether these types of mixed behaviors aligned with name-calling (interpersonal-level conflict) or extreme partisanship (public- level conflict) (see Table 7 and Appendix D for stimuli). I based these categories on previous incivility research but, throughout this chapter, I test the whether citizens perceive different types of incivility in this way as well. The political actor in each statement was varied, with some participants reading about likeminded political actors (likeminded condition), others reading about political actors not sharing their partisanship (counter-attitudinal condition), and a final group reading statements where the partisanship of a political actor was not mentioned (nonpartisan condition). The design of the experiment allowed me to explore whether the type of behavior enacted by a political figure and the

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partisanship of a political figure influenced the way in which citizens thought about political behaviors.

Perceptions of Incivility

I first examined whether study participants perceived each behavior as civil, uncivil, or somewhere in between (RQ4.1). Since the perceptions of incivility variable ranged from 1 (extremely civil) to 5 (extremely uncivil), I used one-tailed t- tests to analyze whether each statement was perceived as significantly greater or less than the midpoint of three. Any mean significantly higher than three indicated that, on average, participants perceived the behavior as uncivil, whereas any mean significantly lower than three indicated that participants perceived the behavior as civil. For these first tests, the partisan condition – that is, whether a person saw likeminded, counter-attitudinal, or nonpartisan political actors – was ignored but partisanship will be investigated in more detail later in this chapter. The results are presented in Table 7. Overall, the statements were perceived in ways that aligned with previous incivility research. Of the 18 behaviors chosen to replicate interpersonal-level or public-level conflict, 17 were perceived as significantly uncivil. All six of the behaviors that represented civility were perceived as significantly civil. In only one instance was a statement containing an uncivil behavior not perceived as significantly different from the midpoint of three: when partisans were described as consistently voting along party lines. Thus, at first glance, it seemed that participants generally agreed with academic definitions of incivility and civility.

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Table 7. Perceived Incivility in Political Behaviors. Cohen’s d Mean (SD) Statements Perceived as Uncivil (Mean > 3) A partisan news host compared politicians from the opposing political 4.60*** 1.85 party to Hitler and the Nazis. (I & P) (0.87) A candidate’s Senate campaign aired phony television ads using paid out-of- 4.53*** 2.03 state actors to spread rumors about his political opponent. (P) (0.76) During a recent episode of a cable news show, the host shouted down his 4.52*** 1.84 guest from the opposing political party and interrupted him many times. (I) (0.83) The host of a partisan political news show recently said, “damn the political 4.04*** 1.15 opposition.” (I) (0.90) 3.84*** A Senate candidate ran a negative campaign against his opponent. (I) 0.97 (0.87) 3.83*** A politician said that lawmakers of the opposing party are delusional. (I) 0.96 (0.86) An advisor to a political candidate said that it would be embarrassing to the 3.81*** 0.94 state if his opponent became a U.S. senator. (I) (0.86) Partisan criticism of new Congressional legislation has been getting louder 3.75*** 0.79 and more inflammatory. (I) (0.94)

Interest groups, super PACs and other powerful political groups have 3.75*** sponsored a sophisticated, shadowy campaign against a recent 0.72 (1.03) Congressional legislative effort led by their opponents. (P) Partisan political groups that support one political party are accepting 3.71*** 0.68 money from unknown foreign investors. (P) (1.05) Members of the House of Representatives don’t believe they need to 3.67*** 0.69 compromise with members of the political party they oppose. (P) (0.97) A fact-checking segment on a political news program found that ads 3.61*** 0.60 produced by a recent political campaign were misleading. (P) (1.02) Many members of Congress will not pass a bill that is supported by their 3.60*** 0.58 opponents, leading to deadlock in the House of Representatives. (P) (1.02)

A partisan host for a cable news program is encouraging likeminded 3.48*** politicians in Congress to go at it alone and pass legislation supported only 0.46 (1.05) by members of their own political party. (P) Politicians started a heated exchange with members of the opposing party 3.43*** 0.45 on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. (I) (0.96) A partisan television show host said that extremism from members of the 3.30*** 0.32 opposing political party has taken over the U.S. Congress. (I & P) (0.93) Several members of Congress from one political party say their opponents 3.21** 0.22 are wrong on most political issues. (I) (0.95) Notes. **p<0.01, ***p <0.001. The statements listed above are from the “Nonpartisan” condition, but the statistics presented are from all conditions. The letters in parentheses indicate the hypothesized type of behavior represented by the statement, I = Interpersonal-Level Conflict, P = Public-Level Conflict, C = Civil Behaviors.

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Table 7 continued. Perceived Incivility in Political Behaviors. Cohen’s d Mean (SD) Statements Perceived as Civil (Mean < 3) Members of Congress from one political party had a respectful discussion 1.46*** about new policies with Congress members from the opposing political -1.80 (0.85) party. (C) On her television program, a partisan cable news pundit had a polite 1.51*** -1.82 exchange with her guest from the opposing political party. (C) (0.82)

Most likely, a new bill will pass because members of both political parties 1.60*** are working together to draft a compromise that could gain bipartisan -1.46 (0.96) support. (C) A fact-checking organization found that an advertisement from a recent 1.78*** -1.19 political campaign provided truthful information. (C) (1.03) A U.S. Senator said that there are some reasonable, moderate politicians 1.84*** -1.34 from the opposing party in Congress. (C) (0.87) During an official campaign debate, a House of Representatives candidate 2.01*** -1.05 asked her opponent a number of questions. (C) (0.94) Statement Perceived as Neutral (Mean = 3) According to a recent news report, the politicians in Congress have shown 0.04 3.04 (0.99) their extreme ideological purity by voting along party lines. (P) Notes. **p<0.01, ***p <0.001. The statements listed above are from the “Nonpartisan” condition, but the statistics presented are from all conditions. The letters in parentheses indicate the hypothesized type of behavior represented by the statement, I = Interpersonal-level Conflict, P = Public-Level Conflict, C = Civil Behaviors.

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Perhaps perceptions of incivility are not so simple, however. Statistical significance signaled whether a difference from three was present, no matter how large or small the difference. Turning to an effect size statistic, Cohen’s d in this case, can show how substantial the significant difference is. A small Cohen’s d ranges from 0.20 to 0.49, a moderate Cohen’s d ranges from 0.50 to 0.79, and a large Cohen’s d is larger than 0.80 (Ellis, 2010). As shown in Tables 4.1 and 4.2, the absolute values of the effect sizes in these tests ranged from 0.04 to 2.03, or from very small to very large. For behaviors perceived as civil, the range was from -1.05 to -1.89, and, for behaviors perceived as uncivil, the effect sizes ranged from 0.22 to 2.03. Across all of the statements, and particularly across the statements perceived as uncivil, there was substantial variation in how uniformly citizens interpreted the messages as different from the mid-point. Looking at participants’ responses to some of the statements is helpful in understanding the disparity. Participants rated the statement, “A candidate’s Senate campaign aired phony television ads using paid out-of-state actors to spread rumors about his political opponent” as substantially uncivil (M = 4.53, Cohen’s d = 2.03), while they rated the statement, “Several members of Congress from one political party say their opponents are wrong on most political issues” as only slightly uncivil (M = 3.12, Cohen’s d = 0.22). Moreover, participants varied more in how they rated the latter statement (SD = 0.95) than in how they rated the former statement (SD = 0.73). Participants perceived both of these statements as uncivil, but the strength of their perceptions varied depending on the behavior. Even with statements that were, on average, rated as extremely civil or extremely uncivil, there were some participants who disagreed. Take, for instance, the statement, “Members of Congress from one political party had a respectful

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discussion about new policies with Congress members from the opposing political party,” which the participants, overall, rated as the most civil statement (M = 2.01, SD = 0.94). One percent of the participants said the statement was extremely uncivil and another three percent said that the statement was somewhat uncivil. On the incivility side, the statement, “A partisan news host compared politicians from the opposing political party to Hitler and the Nazis” was rated, overall, as the most uncivil statement (M = 4.60, SD = 1.85). Yet two percent of the participants reported that the statement was extremely civil and another three percent reported that it was somewhat civil. As these examples show, even with the most extreme statements, not everyone agreed on their level of civility. So how do these data answer the question of whether citizens judge behaviors as civil or uncivil in similar ways as researchers (RQ4.1)? Citizens did, on average, think that behaviors previously classified as uncivil were uncivil. However, the variance in the means, standard deviations, and effect sizes for each statement suggested that citizens did not view the statements as equally uncivil or civil. Even this preliminary test revealed that citizens think about behaviors in a nuanced manner. To more formally test whether participants reacted to behaviors in ways that mirrored conceptions of incivility as interpersonal-level and public-level conflict, I conducted an exploratory factor analysis.20 The data were skewed (ranging from skew = -2.64 to skew = 2.05), which violated an assumption of the often-used maximum likelihood extraction method (Costello & Osborne, 2005;

20An exploratory factor analysis was appropriate given the lack of research examining citizens’ perceptions of incivility. As discussed throughout this dissertation, previous incivility theory suggests that there are two types of incivility – one based on interpersonal-level conflict and one based on public-level conflict – but there is little evidence as to whether citizens think about political behaviors in the same way. 138

Curran, West, & Finch, 1996; Fabrigar, Wegener, MacCallum, & Strahan, 1999). Thus, I ran the factor analysis using multi-level modeling (mlm) with a promax rotation to extract the factors (Introduction to MPlus, 2013).21 By following the steps laid out by Costello and Osborne (2005) in their article outlining the best- practices of exploratory factor analysis – examine the scree plot, run multiple analyses to compare different numbers of factors, and choose the number of factors that allow for the clearest interpretation out of the acceptable models – I determined that a three factor model fit the data best (see Appendix E for more details about the factor analysis). Collectively, I call the factors that emerged from the factor analysis Political Conflict Factors. Twelve items clustered onto a factor I’ve labeled interpersonal- level conflict, 6 items on a public-level conflict factor, and 6 items on a civility factor (see Tables 8 & 9). These labels correspond to the types of uncivil behaviors discussed in the literature review and examined in the content analysis presented in Chapter 3, but there were some differences in what specific behaviors citizens grouped together compared to prior research. I elaborate on each factor, along with the similarities to and differences from previous research, in the following paragraphs.

21 When the factor analysis was run using a maximum likelihood extraction, the results were nearly identical, but the magnitudes of the factor loadings were smaller. 139

Table 8. Factor Loadings for Political Conflict Factors. Interpersonal- Public-Level Civility Level Conflict Conflict A partisan news host compared politicians from the opposing political 0.67 party to Hitler and the Nazis. (I & P) A candidate’s Senate campaign aired phony television ads using paid 0.64 out-of-state actors to spread rumors about his political opponent. (P) During a recent episode of a cable news show, the host shouted down his guest from the opposing political party and interrupted him many 0.62 times. (I) Partisan criticism of new Congressional legislation has been getting 0.58 louder and more inflammatory. (I) The host of a partisan political news show recently said, “damn the 0.56 political opposition.” (I) A politician said that lawmakers of the opposing party are delusional. 0.55 (I) An advisor to a political candidate said that it would be embarrassing 0.51 to the state if his opponent became a U.S. senator. (I) Interest groups, super PACs and other powerful political groups have sponsored a sophisticated, shadowy campaign against a recent 0.51 Congressional legislative effort led by their opponents. (P) A Senate candidate ran a negative campaign against his opponent. (I) 0.50 Politicians started a heated exchange with members of the opposing 0.44 party on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. (I) A partisan television show host said that extremism from members of 0.39 the opposing political party has taken over the U.S. Congress. (I & P) A fact-checking segment on a political news program found that ads 0.37 produced by a recent political campaign were misleading. (P) Partisan political groups that support one political party are accepting 0.59 money from unknown foreign investors. (P) Members of the House of Representatives don’t believe they need to 0.58 compromise with members of the political party they oppose. (P) Many members of Congress will not pass a bill that is supported by their opponents, leading to deadlock in the House of Representatives. 0.57 (P) Several members of Congress from one political party say their 0.47 opponents are wrong on most political issues. (I) A partisan host for a cable news program is encouraging likeminded politicians in Congress to go at it alone and pass legislation supported 0.42 only by members of their own political party. (P) According to a recent news report, the politicians in Congress have 0.39 shown their extreme ideological purity by voting along party lines. (P) Note. Factor loadings < .35 suppressed. Letters in parentheses indicate the hypothesized type of behavior represented by the statement, I = Interpersonal-level Conflict, P = Public-Level Conflict, C = Civil Behaviors.

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Table 8 continued. Factor Loadings for Political Conflict Factors. Interpersonal- Public-Level Civility level Conflict Conflict Most likely, a new bill will pass because members of both political parties are working together to draft a compromise that could gain 0.62 bipartisan support. (C) A U.S. Senator said that there are some reasonable, moderate 0.60 politicians from the opposing party in Congress. (C) During an official campaign debate, a House of Representatives 0.60 candidate asked her opponent a number of questions. (C) Members of Congress from one political party had a respectful discussion about new policies with Congress members from the 0.52 opposing political party. (C) On her television program, a partisan cable news pundit had a polite 0.47 exchange with her guest from the opposing political party. (C) A fact-checking organization found that an advertisement from a recent political campaign provided truthful information. (C) 0.36 Note. Factor loadings < .35 suppressed. Letters in parentheses indicate the hypothesized type of behavior represented by the statement, I = Interpersonal-level Conflict, P = Public-Level Conflict, C = Civil Behaviors.

Table 9. Descriptive Statistics for Political Conflict Factors. Factor # Items M (SD) Cronbach’s α

Interpersonal-Level Conflict 12 3.87 (0.68) .86

Public-Level Conflict 6 3.42 (0.73) .80

Civility 6 1.68 (0.59) .70

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I begin with a discussion of the clearest factor: civility. Participants perceived civil behaviors as clearly distinct from uncivil behaviors. Every statement created with civil behaviors in mind was perceived as civil and none fell into the two factors that included uncivil behaviors. Citizens viewed all instances of civility similarly, no matter whether the statements emphasized politeness (a lack of interpersonal-level conflict) or compromise (a lack of public-level conflict). For example, study participants responded similarly to the statement, “On her television program, a partisan cable news pundit had a polite exchange with her guest from the opposing political party” and the statement, “Most likely, a new bill will pass because members of both political parties are working together to draft a compromise that could gain bipartisan support.” Civility was clearly distinct from the two factors with uncivil behaviors. The two remaining factors were comprised of the stimuli classified as uncivil prior to the study. The largest of these factors was interpersonal-level conflict with 12 statements loading onto the factor and 8 of those statements loading at higher than .50, which Costello and Osborne (2004) have argued is a strong factor loading. The statements that loaded onto this factor included those with name-calling and harsh language (e.g., damning the opposition) and those mentioning negative or underhanded campaign tactics (e.g., influence of powerful political interest groups). This factor also included the statements that were not clearly interpersonal-level or public-level conflicts (e.g., calling opponents Nazis or extremists), suggesting that citizens saw these behaviors as name-calling rather than extreme partisanship. The final factor, public-level conflict, also was comprised of statements that were manipulated to be perceived as uncivil, but these statements related to division among the political parties and lack of compromise. All the statements

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participants read were manipulated to signal that politicians and media figures were or were not getting along. The six statements that loaded on the public-level conflict factor, however, were those that specifically mentioned compromise, deadlock, and voting along party lines. Only one statement that loaded on the public-level conflict factor did not fit the pattern: partisan groups accepting foreign campaign funds. Even in this statement, however, partisan political groups were mentioned, perhaps prompting participants to group the statement with other public-level conflict stimuli. Although these two incivility factors did not line up identically with the theorized interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames, there were many similarities. The majority of the statements that clustered together in the interpersonal-level conflict factor paralleled the incivility research conducted by Mutz (2007) and Brooks and Geer (2007). In these statements, the political figures called their opponents names, yelled at guests on television, engaged in loud political debate, and more. Similarly, the majority of the public-level conflict statements centered on political figures refusing to work together and encouraging their party to pass single-party legislation, mirroring the conceptualization of incivility proposed by Uslaner (2000) and Bennett (2011). Participants turned away from the theoretical interpersonal-level versus public-level conflict behaviors in four instances. In the first instance, calling opponents “wrong on many issues” was included as a moderate form of name- calling, much like it was used in Mutz’s research (Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005), but citizens perceived it as public-level conflict between the two parties. Although this was different from what I expected when creating the stimuli, the emphasis on the disagreements between political parties does fit well with the public-level

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conflict factor. The other three differences between the theorized categories and the citizen factors occurred when behaviors theorized as public-level conflict actually clustered in the interpersonal-level conflict. All three of these statements (i.e., politicians using misleading advertisements, candidates creating phony television ads with actors, and political interest groups running shadowy campaigns) involved campaigning in some way. I chose the statements because they mentioned aspects of elections that had less to do with interpersonal exchanges and more to do with citizenship and truthful campaigning, for instance, candidates spreading misinformation or political interest groups running backroom campaigns. Although I expected these statements to group with the other public-level conflict items, they loaded on the interpersonal-level conflict factor. Given that political candidates often hurl personal attacks at each other (Geer, 2006; Jamieson, 1992), perhaps people associated campaigns with interpersonal-level conflict even when name-calling, obscenity, and emotional behaviors were not mentioned directly. These analyses showed that: citizens perceived both interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict, along with civility, in political behaviors (RQ4.1). The differences between citizens’ perceptions of incivility and academics’ depictions of it largely occurred when campaigning was involved. Future researchers can keep this in mind, testing the differences between interpersonal-level conflict (conceptualized as harsh language and extreme campaigning) and public-level conflict (conceptualized as lack of compromise between people with different political ideas). The interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict factors were strongly correlated (Pearson’s r = .70, p < .001) and neither was correlated significantly with the civility factor (Interpersonal-level Conflict: Pearson’s r = -.04, p = .57; Public-level Conflict: Pearson’s r = .10, p = .11). Despite a strong correlation

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between the two factors that prompted perceptions of incivility, I kept them separate in the following analyses since (a) the factor analysis results favored a three factor solution, (b) theory suggested that the two types of conflict can prompt people to think about incivility differently, and (c) research has found that correlated variables should not always be combined because they may lead to different outcomes (Wojcieszak, 2012). The next sections of this chapter look into these factors more, testing whether individuals perceived the activities in each factor to be acceptable or objectionable, whether citizens’ latitudes of acceptance and rejection differed based on the factors, and whether partisanship affected how political behaviors in each factor were perceived. Is Incivility Unacceptable?

Many scholars argue, or assume, that incivility is objectionable (e.g., Mutz, 2007; Rawls, 1993), but some contend that incivility is acceptable in certain situations (e.g., Darr, 2007; Lozano-Reich & Cloud, 2009). Perhaps citizens also vary in whether they think civil and uncivil behaviors are acceptable (RQ4.2). In the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment, participants rated political behaviors according to whether they perceived them to be civil or uncivil (Range = 1 to 5) and, later in the questionnaire, whether they perceived the same statements to be acceptable or objectionable (Range = 1 to 5). I ran correlation analyses testing the relationship between participants’ perceptions that a behavior was uncivil and perceptions that the same behavior was objectionable. For all 24 stimuli, the correlations were significant at the .05 level (see Appendix E). That is, in every instance, participants rated the behaviors as similarly uncivil (civil) and objectionable (acceptable).

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A more advanced analysis reinforced this finding. Since the data followed a repeated measures structure where each participant rated the same 24 statements as civil/uncivil and as acceptable/objectionable during the study, I also tested the relationship between perceptions of uncivil and objectionable behavior using hierarchical linear models (HLMs). These models allowed me to group responses to the incivility perceptions items by person. The multi-level models presented in this section used participants’ reactions to each statement as the level-1 variables, since each person responded to multiple statements throughout the experiment. Variables connected to individuals, rather than the statements, were added as level- 2 variables. I tested whether perceptions of incivility continued to predict perceptions that a behavior was objectionable, even when taking multi-level variance into account. I added perceptions of incivility to the model at the statement-level (level- 1) and found that it significantly predicted perceptions that a behavior was objectionable (B = 0.80, S.E. = 0.02, p < .001; see Table 10). Adding perceptions of incivility to a baseline unconditional means model accounted for 50 percent of the variance (see, for unconditional means model, Appendix E; see, for details about accounting for variance, Hayes, 2006; Nir, 2012; Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). The models clearly showed that, when a person rated political behaviors as increasingly uncivil, that person also was significantly and substantially likely to rate the behaviors as increasingly objectionable.

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Table 10. Multi-level Model Predicting Perceptions of Objectionable Behavior. Coefficient (SE) Statement-Level (Level-1) 3.10*** Intercept (0.04) Perceptions of Incivility Random Effects Variance Component

(SD) 0.18*** Person-Level Variance (Level-2), r 0 (0.42) Statement-Level Variance (Level-1), 1.81 a e0 (1.34) Deviance 10774.83 N of level one units 4440 N of level two units 185 Notes. +p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001, aThe HLM program does not generate significance tests for the level-1 (in this case, the statement-level) variance.22 Although both the correlation analyses and the HLM test signaled that perceptions that a behavior was uncivil and perceptions that a behavior was objectionable were related, there was variation in the relationship. The strength of the correlations differed among the statements, ranging from a moderate Pearson’s r = .33 (p < 0.01) for the “a politician asked a number of questions” statement in the civility factor” to a strong Pearson’s r = .69 (p < 0.01) for the “comparing opponents to Nazis” statement in the interpersonal-level conflict factor. This suggested that the relationship between perceptions of incivility and perceptions of objectionable behavior varied depending on the behavior participants saw. Further, the HLM test

22Since the partisan conditions are included in HLM models later in this section, nonpartisan participants (n = 52) were not included. Participants who did not report support for either Democrats or Republicans could not be randomly assigned to either the counter-attitudinal or likeminded partisan condition, so nonpartisans were cut from all of the tests, including the nonpartisan political actor condition. I also ran the models without including the partisan actor experimental condition to see whether the effect of the control variables and political conflict changed when nonpartisans were included. The results were the same as those that did not include nonpartisans. 147

indicated that significant variance remained even after including perceptions of

2 incivility as a predictor [r0 = 0.09, χ (187, n = 184) = 722. 45, p < .001] (see Table 10). These data prompted me to ask: why doesn’t incivility predict unacceptability all of the time? What explains the difference between these perceptions? To answer these questions, I created a variable that captured the difference between each individual’s perception that a behavior was objectionable (acceptable) and his/her perception that a behavior was uncivil (civil). I did this by subtracting an individual’s perception of uncivil behavior from his/her perception of objectionable behavior. This subtraction created an objectionable/uncivil difference variable for each statement ranging from -4 (a behavior is very uncivil, but also very acceptable) to 0 (a behavior is rated equally on both measures) to 4 (a behavior is very objectionable, but also very civil). I used these variables for four HLM tests: one predicting objectionable/uncivil differences for all of the items and three predicting objectionable/uncivil differences for each of the political conflict factors (interpersonal-level conflict, public-level conflict, and civility). Based on previous literature, I added a number of predictor variables to the level-2 model to explore whether individual difference variables or experimental variables affected objectionable/uncivil differences. Previous incivility research has shown that certain individuals are affected by incivility differently than others. People who are younger (Ben-Porath, 2008) and male (Brooks, 2010) tend to have fewer negative reactions to political incivility than other individuals. Those people who avoid conflict tend to have stronger reactions to incivility (Ben-Porath 2008; Mutz & Reeves, 2005). Thus, I added age, sex, and conflict avoidance to the model predicting the objectionable/uncivil difference variable.

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I added two novel variables to the model as well. Since social judgment theory suggests that attitude involvement can affect citizens’ attitudes toward that issue (Sherif et al., 1965), I also included partisan strength in the models. Typically, attitude involvement is measured by asking individuals questions about whether they think that a specific issue is relevant to their values and self-concept (Choi et al., 2009; Park et al., 2007). Partisan strength was a strong measure in this instance because the “issue” at hand was political behaviors in general rather than health care, immigration, or another specific issue. Strong partisanship suggests that a person’s attitude involvement in politics is high. I also added a question asking participants whether they believed that civility is important in a democracy (coded important = 0, not important = 1). Shea and Steadman (2010) measured this variable in a national survey but didn’t look at whether participants’ responses to this question predicted their reactions to individual political behaviors.23 Finally, I added the experimental partisan condition (that is, exposure to likeminded, counter-attitudinal, or nonpartisan political actors) to the models at level-2 to test whether people who saw likeminded political actors, counter- attitudinal political actors, or political actors with no clear partisanship thought differently about the relationship between incivility and unacceptability. I dummy- coded the variables using the nonpartisan condition as a reference group, creating a likeminded and a counter-attitudinal variable for inclusion in the models. To create the HLMs, I added the individual difference variables and the partisan condition variables to the level-2 models. If any of the individual difference

23 These variables – age, sex, conflict avoidance, belief civility is not important, and partisan strength – also were used as control variables in the other statistical analyses presented in this chapter, unless otherwise noted.

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variables were significant, it would suggest that individual characteristics encourage people to think differently about whether incivility is also objectionable. If the partisan conditions significantly predicted the difference in perceptions, the models would indicate that the partisanship of a political figure affects how people think about incivility and objectionable behavior. Finally, if these variables predict objectionable/uncivil differences inconsistently across the political conflict factors, then there will be evidence that the conflict factors prompt people to think differently about political conflict. The results are displayed in Table 11. Adding variables to each model accounted for between 9 and 25 percent of the variance in the outcome variables compared to a baseline unconditional means model (see Appendix E). Several variables predicted the difference between rating a behavior as being objectionable and rating it as being uncivil. First, age was either significant (p < .05) or marginally significant (p < .10) in each model (see Table 11, Models 1 through 4). Younger participants rated the statements as relatively more acceptable than their ratings of incivility.24 For instance, they were more likely to say that a behavior they judged to be uncivil was acceptable, or that a behavior that they saw as only somewhat civil was extremely acceptable. Younger people were more accepting of the behaviors, even when they didn’t rate them as particularly civil.

24I say relatively here in case participants rated the behaviors on the civil and acceptable sides of those variables. Even if they did rate the behaviors as civil and acceptable overall, they could still rate the behavior as relatively more uncivil than acceptable. For instance, a participant may have rated the behaviors as somewhat civil and extremely acceptable. Even though both of these judgments are on the “civil/acceptable” side of the measure, that participants still judged the behavior as relatively more uncivil than acceptable. 150

Table 11. Multi-Level Models Predicting Differences between Perceptions of Objectionable Behavior and Perceptions of Uncivil Behavior.

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 All Political Interpersonal- Public-level Civility Conflict Factors level Conflict Conflict Parameter Coefficient (SE) Coefficient (SE) Coefficient (SE) Coefficient (SE) Individual-Level Variables (Level-2) 0.26+ 0.29+ 0.42+ -0.14*** Intercept (0.15) (0.15) (0.003) (0.03) -0.005* -0.004+ -0.005+ -0.004+ Age (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) (0.002) -0.08 -0.08 -0.07 -0.10 Female (0.06) (0.06) (0.08) (0.08) -0.05 -0.03 -0.12+ -0.04 Partisan Strength (0.05) (0.05) (0.07) (0.06) 0.02 0.01 0.03 0.01 Conflict Avoidance (0.03) (0.03) (0.04) (0.04) Civility Not Important to -0.21* -0.29** -0.24+ -0.02 Democracy (0.09) (0.10) (0.14) (0.12) 0.06 0.02 0.03 0.16* Likeminded Condition (0.05) (0.07) (0.09) (0.07) Counter-Attitudinal 0.14* 0.15* 0.11 0.13 Condition (0.06) (0.07) (0.09) (0.09) Nonpartisan Condition

(Reference Group) Random Effects Variance Variance Variance Variance Component Component Component Component (S.D.) (S.D.) (S.D.) (S.D.) Person-Level Variance 0.09*** 0.08*** 0.10*** 0.09*** (Level-2), r0 (0.29) (0.29) (0.32) (0.30) Statement-Level Variance 0.78 0.77 0.86 0.69 a (Level-1), e0 (0.88) (0.89) (0.93) (0.83) Deviance 11704.23 5889.45 3091.51 2832.81 Variance Accounted For .08 .11 .09 .25 N of level one units 4440 2220 1110 1110 N of level two units 185 185 185 185 aThe HLM program does not generate significance tests for the level-1 (in this case, the statement- level) variance. +p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .00125

Second, the belief that civility is not important to a democracy was significant or marginally significant in three of the four models. People who believed that

25Participants who did not report support for either Democrats or Republicans were not included in this analysis (see Footnote 22). 151

civility was not important followed a similar pattern as younger individuals. They were likely to judge the behaviors as relatively more acceptable than they were uncivil (see Table 11, Models 1 through 3), except in the civility factor where it was not significant (see Table 11, Model 4). In the case of civil behaviors, beliefs about civility did not predict differences in ratings of civility and acceptability. Being a strong partisan was a marginally significant predictor in the public- level conflict model (see Table 11, Model 3) and followed a same pattern as the two variables discussed above. The other individual difference variables (sex and conflict avoidance) did not significantly predict the objectionable/uncivil difference. The partisan conditions significantly predicted objectionable/uncivil differences, as well. Participants who saw counter-attitudinal political figures behaving badly were likely to rate the behaviors as relatively more objectionable than uncivil, 26 at least when taking behaviors in all of the factors or the interpersonal-level conflict factor into account (see Table 11, Models 1 & 2). People in the likeminded condition also were significantly likely to do the same – that is, say that behaviors were relatively more civil than acceptable – when rating behaviors in the civility factor (see Table 11, Model 4). In both cases, participants were more likely to think that behaviors they rated as slightly uncivil were extremely unacceptable, or that behaviors they rated extremely civil were only somewhat acceptable. That is, people who opposed the political figures they read about thought that the opposing partisans were relatively more unacceptable than uncivil when they used interpersonal-level conflict. Similarly, people were likely to say that

26Again, I use relatively here because participants could rate the behaviors on the acceptable/civil side of the measures and still have relative differences. For instance, a participant could judge a behavior as somewhat acceptable but extremely civil, leading to a positive “objectionable/uncivil difference” score. In this case, the participant still rated the behavior as relatively more objectionable than uncivil because it was not seen as uncivil at all but was only seen as somewhat acceptable. 152

likeminded partisans were acting relatively more civilly than acceptably when the party members were behaving politely and compromising with the opposition. There was variance remaining in all of the models, suggesting that there are more reasons why people differed in their objectionable and uncivil ratings. Interestingly, there was more variance remaining at both level-1 and level-2 in the public-level conflict model than there were in the other models (Table 11, Model 3). This suggests that other variables need to be incorporated to future models predicting public-level conflict than the other types of conflict behaviors. The results, overall, show that (a) certain people, particularly younger individuals and people who don’t see civility as an ideal in democracy tended to think that uncivil behaviors were more acceptable, (b) people who viewed opposing partisans using interpersonal-level conflict behaviors were likely to think that the behaviors were relatively more objectionable than uncivil, and (c) citizens who saw likeminded partisans acting civility tended to judge the behaviors are relatively more civil than acceptable. This was the first indication that there were differences in the ways in which participants thought about incivility across different political conflict factors and different partisan conditions. I return the effects of partisan condition later in this chapter, but, first, I look a bit more at how participants judged the political conflict factors differently. Even though the strength of the relationship differed among the various behaviors, participants’ perception that any behavior was uncivil was consistently, significantly, and substantially related to whether participants found the behavior objectionable (RQ4.2). Thus, for the remaining analyses in this chapter, perceptions

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of incivility and perceptions that a behavior was objectionable were combined for each stimuli statement into an uncivil/objectionable perceptions variable.27

Latitudes of Acceptance and Rejection

So far, I have demonstrated that (a) individuals do not perceive all acts of incivility in the same way, and (b) people tend to think that uncivil actions are, with some notable exceptions described above, not acceptable. Next, I turn to latitudes of acceptance and rejection. Rather than running analyses that tested whether the political conflict factor affected each of the statements participants saw, I looked at the number of statements people perceived as acceptable (LOA) or objectionable (LOR). Knowing how individuals reacted to one specific behavior does not shed much light on how citizens may react to uncivil behaviors in general. Thus, I built on previous social judgment theory (SJT) research (e.g., Sherif, 1963) by treating the Likert-type items in the questionnaire as categorical variables. That is, I added up the number of statements out of 24 total statements that each participant rated as civil/acceptable (that is, the behaviors that fell between 1 and 2.49 on the uncivil/objectionable perceptions measure) to create the latitude of acceptance (LOA) variable. I then added the number of uncivil/objectionable statements (that is, the behaviors that fell between 3.51 and 5 on the uncivil/objectionable perceptions measure) to create the latitude of rejection (LOR) variable. On average, participants placed 6.56 behaviors in their LOAs (SD = 3.82) and 9.09 behaviors in their LORs (SD = 4.59). Adopting SJT terminology, I call the number of behaviors that fall into each latitude the “widths” of participants’ LOAs and LORs.

27 As a robustness check, I ran the remaining analyses in the chapter with both the perceptions of incivility and perceptions of objectionable behavior combined (as presented in the chapter) and separately. When the variables were kept separate, the results were similar. 154

Incivility centering on interpersonal-level conflict involves relatively concrete behaviors like name-calling and insulting language (e.g., Brooks & Geer, 2007), whereas public-level conflict includes more ambiguous behaviors like citizenship and compromise (e.g., Davetian, 2009; Uslaner, 1996). People may be more willing to accept the ambiguous behaviors aligning with public-level conflict than the more concrete violations of social norms related to interpersonal-level conflict. Researchers have not investigated whether participants are more accepting of different types of incivility, however. Thus, I proposed that the widths of participants’ latitudes of acceptance (H4.1) and rejection (H4.2) differed based on the type of incivility participants viewed. I drew from the participants’ LOAs and LORs, as described above, to test these hypotheses. Since the three political conflict factors included different numbers of statements, I averaged the width of individuals’ LOA and LOR for each factor and used these averages as the outcome variables throughout this section. I conducted within-subjects ANCOVAs to test differences in participants’ attitudes toward each factor using the same control variables mentioned earlier. The experimental partisan conditions (that is, whether people read about likeminded, counter-attitudinal, or nonpartisan political figures) were not included here but will be discussed in detail in the next section.

There were significant differences among the factors.28 Both ANCOVAs were significant (LOA: F(1.32, 288.36) = 40.85, p <.001; LOR: F(1.88, 409.95) = 16.65, p

<.001). 29 Post-hoc tests with a Bonferroni correction showed significant differences among all of the political conflict factors. The civility factor had the largest average

28 See Appendix E for the ANCOVA tables used to create the figures presented throughout Chapter 4. 29 The Mauchly's Test of Sphericity was significant so the statistics presented include Greenhouse- Geisser corrections. 155

LOA and the smallest average LOR, and the interpersonal-level conflict factor had the opposite: the smallest LOA and the largest LOR (see Figures 14 & 15). The public- level conflict factor differed significantly from both the civility factor and the interpersonal-level conflict factor – signaling once again that people react to these different types of behaviors in different ways. Although more behaviors in both the interpersonal-level and public-level conflict factors were judged to be less acceptable than behaviors in the civility factor, public-level conflict was judged to be more acceptable than interpersonal-level conflict.

1.00 0.90 0.82c 0.80 0.70 0.60 0.50 0.40 0.30 Avg. Width of LOA 0.20 0.11b 0.06a 0.10 0.00 Interpersonal-Level Public-Level Conlict Civility Factor Conlict Factor Factor

Figure 14. Average width of latitude of acceptance by political conflict factor. Note. Matching lowercase letters across the conflict factors indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < . 001 level. Lowercase letters that differ across the conflict factors indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .001 level. All values of control variables were held constant at their mean or modal value, F(1.32, 288.36) = 40.85, p <.001.

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1.00 0.90 0.80 0.70 0.61a 0.60 0.50 0.39b 0.40 0.30 Avg. Width of LOR 0.20 0.10 0.01c 0.00 Interpersonal-Level Public-Level Conlict Civility Factor Conlict Factor Factor

Figure 15. Average width of latitude of rejection by political conflict factor. Note. Matching lowercase letters across the conflict factors indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < . 001 level. Lowercase letters that differ across the conflict factors indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .001 level. All values of control variables were held constant at their mean or modal value F(1.88, 409.95) = 16.65, p <.001.

The analyses provide support for H4.1 and H4.2. The results suggest that participants judged the political conflict factors differently. Participants thought that politicians who stood their ground and refused to compromise were acting more acceptably than political figures who yelled, swore, and waged negative campaigns.

Influence of Partisanship

For the remainder of this chapter, I investigate the role of partisanship – or rather, whether people go easy on partisans with whom they agree when judging their uncivil behaviors. Given the influence that partisanship has on perceptions of media bias (Gunther, & Schmitt, 2004; Hansen & Kim, 2011) and the selection of news stories (Knobloch-Westerwick & Meng, 2009; Stroud, 2011), among other political variables, this is likely the case. In this section, I test whether and how the partisan lean of political actors affected participants’ reactions to political behaviors.

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I once again draw from SJT. 30 Researchers studying SJT have not previously examined whether the latitudes differ according to the frame of reference in a message. Therefore, testing whether there were differences in participants’ LOAs and LORs according to partisan condition helps incivility theorists by understanding the role of partisanship in incivility judgments and SJT researchers by determining whether SJT can account for the frame of reference presented in a message. I ran two ANCOVA tests using the average LOA and LOR outcome variables and the same control variables discussed earlier, but used the experimental partisan condition, where participants read about likeminded, counter-attitudinal, or nonpartisan political actors, as the predictor variable. These tests allowed me to examine whether people who read about likeminded political actors were more open- minded toward uncivil political behaviors (that is, they had larger LOAs and smaller LORs as defined in the section above) than people who read about behaviors enacted by people not sharing their partisanship (H4.3 & H4.4). The results also helped me explore how partisans react to behaviors when the partisanship of political actors isn’t mentioned. Both hypotheses were supported. The first analysis investigated influences on the width of the LOA. The ANCOVA that predicted width of LOA using partisan condition as the independent variable was significant [F(2,185) = 8.90, p < .001]. Post-hoc tests with Bonferroni corrections showed that people who read about

30I also tested participants’ responses to each statement on its own using one-way ANOVAs. The patterns were the same, with nearly all of the statements in the interpersonal and public conflict factors differing according to the partisan condition and nearly all of the statements in the civility factor not differing according to partisan condition. Only three statements broke this pattern. First, participants rated an interpersonal-level conflict statement about misleading political advertisements as equally uncivil no matter their partisanship. Second, they differed in their judgments of two civility statements according to partisanship: one that mentioned partisans calling the other party reasonable and moderate and the other that mentioned a bill passing because of compromise and bipartisan support. 158

political figures they support had significantly wider average LOAs (M = .33, SD = 0.21) than people who read statements that didn’t mention partisanship (M = .26, SD = 0.08) or people who read about political figures they oppose (M = .23, SD = 0.08) (see Figure 16). In short, people accepted more behaviors of likeminded political actors than counter-attitudinal and nonpartisan political figures.

1.00 0.90 0.80 0.70 0.60 0.50 b 0.40 0.33 0.26a a 0.30 0.23 0.20 Avg. Width of LOA 0.10 0.00 Nonpartisan Likeminded Counter-Attitudinal Condition Condition Condition

Figure 16. Width of latitude of acceptance by partisan condition. Note. Matching lowercase letters across the partisan condition groups indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ horizontally across the partisan condition groups indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. All values of control variables were held constant at their mean or modal value, F(2,185) = 8.90, p < .001.

The second test [F(2,185) = 23.75, p < .001], which investigated influences on the width of the LOR, produced similar results. Post-hoc tests with Bonferroni corrections showed that people who read statements about political figures they supported had smaller LORs (M = .29, SD = 0.17) than people who read nonpartisan statements (M = .45, SD =0.13) and people who read about political figures they opposed (M = .47, SD = .17) (see Figure 17). Since there were main effects of partisan condition on both LOAs and LORs, both H4.3 and H4.4 were supported. That is, people rejected more behaviors if they disagreed with the political figures than if the political actor was likeminded. Additionally, the results showed that partisans

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reacted to the political behaviors of nonpartisans in exactly the same way as they reacted to counter-attitudinal partisans.

1.00 0.90 0.80 0.70 0.60 a 0.47a 0.50 0.45 0.40 0.29b 0.30 0.20 Avg. Width of LOR 0.10 0.00 Nonpartisan Likeminded Counter-Attitudinal Condition Condition Condition

Figure 17. Width of latitude of rejection by partisan condition. Note. Matching lowercase letters across the partisan condition groups indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ across the partisan condition groups indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. All values of control variables were held constant at their mean or modal value, F(2,185) = 23.75, p < .001.

Beyond the main effects of partisan condition and political conflict factors, it was possible that these two predictor variables interacted. Does partisan agreement affect attitudes differently when partisans are exposed to different types of behaviors (RQ4.3)? Two repeated measures ANCOVAs using partisan condition (likeminded / counter-attitudinal / nonpartisan) as a between-groups variable and political conflict factor (interpersonal-level conflict / public-level conflict / civility) as a within-group variable investigated this possibility. The tests also included the control variables that have been used throughout this chapter. The interactions were significant in each case [LOA: F(2.81,248.43) = 4.68, p < .001; LOR: F(3.81,336.84) = 11.56, p < .001]. No matter whether participants agreed or disagreed with the political figures in the messages they read, they reacted similarly to behaviors in the civility factor.

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Post-hoc tests of the interaction effects using a Bonferroni correction showed that people were likely to have large LOAs and very small LORs for civil messages no matter their partisan lean (see Figures 18 & 19).

1.00 0.87a 0.90 0.82a 0.81a 0.80 0.70 0.60 0.50 0.40 0.30 0.21b Avg. Width of LOA 0.15b 0.20 a 0.10 0.07a 0.10 0.04a 0.03a 0.00 Interpersonal-Level Public-Level Conlict Civility Factor Conlict Factor Factor Nonpartisan Condition Like-Minded Condition Counter-Attitudinal Condition

Figure 18. Average width of latitude of acceptance by political conflict factor and partisan condition. Note. Matching lowercase letters across the partisan condition groups indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .01 level. Lowercase letters that differ across the partisan condition groups indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .01 level. All values of control variables were held constant at their mean or modal value, F(2.81,248.43) = 4.68, p < .001.

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1.00 0.90 0.80 0.68a 0.68a 0.70 0.60 0.51a 0.45b 0.50 0.42a 0.40 0.30 0.24b Avg. Width of LOR 0.20 0.10 0.01a 0.01a 0.02a 0.00 Interpersonal Conlict Public Conlict Factor Civility Factor Factor Nonpartisan Condition Like-Minded Condition Counter-attitudinal Condition

Figure 19. Average width of latitude of rejection by political conflict factor and partisan condition. Note. Matching lowercase letters across the partisan conditions indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Lowercase letters that differ across the partisan conditions indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .05 level. All values of control variables were held constant at their mean or modal value, F(3.81,336.84) = 11.56, p < .001.

For both of the other factors (interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict) participants had exactly the opposite reaction (larger latitudes of rejection and smaller latitudes of acceptance), but these interpretations were affected by political orientation. Partisans who agreed with the political figures in the stimuli were likely to have larger latitudes of acceptance and smaller latitudes of rejection for both the interpersonal-level conflict and the public-level conflict factors compared to partisans who disagreed with the political actors or who were not exposed to the partisanship of the political actors. There were no significant differences in LOAs or LORs between the counter-attitudinal and nonpartisan conditions for any of the political conflict factors. The significant interactions suggest that, yes, both partisanship and the type of political behavior matters to citizens (RQ4.3). Partisans watching civil behaviors did not differ in the number of behaviors they accepted. However, once political

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conflict was injected into partisans’ behaviors, individuals were more lenient toward likeminded rather than counter-attitudinal political figures and nonpartisans. The “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment provided more information about how citizens think about political conflict than the body of previous political incivility research. Citizens were likely to think that uncivil behaviors were also unacceptable – but this relationship varied based on participants’ age, belief about incivility in a democracy, and whether they saw likeminded, opposing, or nonpartisan actors performing the behaviors. Further, citizens largely thought about political behaviors in ways similar to incivility research, with their reactions to interpersonal-level conflict (i.e., harsh language and negative campaigning) differing from their reactions to public-level conflict (i.e., lack of compromise). They were less accepting of interpersonal-level conflict behaviors than public-level conflict behaviors and were more accepting of likeminded partisan actors than counter-attitudinal or nonpartisan actors. But the differences among partisan conditions disappeared when participants were rating behaviors from the civility factor. Thus, it seems that partisans can see respectful behaviors and agree that they are civil. Otherwise, people are likely to think that their own side is behaving well, while nonpartisans and politicians from the other political leaning are behaving badly. All of these results came from people judging behaviors alone. What happens when the behaviors are placed into a news article? I turn to these questions in the next section.

EXPERIMENT 2: INCIVILITY AND PARTISAN NEWS

Partisanship and type of political behavior influenced how objectionable and uncivil individuals perceived the actions of political and media elites. But, in the 163

“Judging Political Behaviors” experiment, these behaviors were presented out of context. There was no news article describing the events and no issue at the center of a political conflict. A second experiment, “Incivility and Partisan News,” examined the practical implications of partisans processing uncivil messages. The data from this experiment allowed me to test three areas of interest: First, do citizens perceive incivility after reading news articles that contain interpersonal-level and public- level conflict (RQ4.4)? Second, do citizens perceive incivility in counter-attitudinal news articles (RQ4.5)? And, finally, do perceptions of incivility have effects on whether citizens would like to read more news (RQ4.6)?

Perceptions of Incivility in Partisan News

To test these questions, I used data from the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment. Individuals were randomly assigned to read an article that included one of the following political conflict frames: a civil conflict frame, an interpersonal- level conflict frame, a public-level conflict frame, or a mix of both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames (see Appendix F for stimuli). The frames echoed the statements used earlier in this chapter. In the civil news condition, politicians on both sides of the aisle disagreed about the issue at hand (the 2010 Affordable Care Act) but did so respectfully and signaled that they were open to compromise. In the interpersonal-level conflict news condition, political figures were quoted calling their opponents names like delusional and comparing them to Nazis. In the public-level conflict condition, politicians talked about how they would stand their ground and refuse to compromise with their opposition. Finally, in the both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict condition, participants read an article that included a mix of public-level and Interpersonal-level conflicts. In the analysis, I again included control variables used previously in this chapter, namely age, sex, and partisan 164

strength. Conflict avoidance and belief that civility is not important for a democracy were not measured in this experiment, so they were not included as controls.

Perceptions of Incivility across Political Conflict Conditions

I began by testing whether participants perceived different levels of incivility in the news articles that included civil, interpersonal-level, public-level, or mixed conflicts. An ANCOVA indicated significant differences in perceptions of incivility among the political conflict conditions [F(3,271) = 2.89, p < .05]. Post hoc Bonferroni tests showed that the only significant difference occurred between the condition in which the news article included civil content (M = 3.04, SD = 0.79) and the condition in which the news article included interpersonal-level conflict (M = 3.43, SD = 0.87) (see Figure 20). Interpersonal-level conflict prompted significantly more perceptions of incivility than civil behaviors.

5.00 4.50 4.00 b,c 3.43 a,c 3.31a,c 3.50 3.04a 3.18 3.00 2.50 2.00 1.50 1.00 0.50

Perceptions of Incivility 0.00 Civil Condition Interpersonal-Level Public-Level Mixed Conlict Conlict Condition Conlict Condition Frames Condition

Figure 20. Perceptions of incivility by political conflict condition. Note. Matching lowercase letters across the political conflict frame conditions indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .01 level. Lowercase letters that differ across the political conflict frame conditions indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .01 level. All values of control variables were held constant at their mean or modal value, F(3,271) = 2.89, p < .05.31

31In some of the figures in this dissertation, there are multiple letters listed for a given group. This means that the percentage does not differ from more than one group. For instance, in Figure 20, both the “b” and “c” superscripts are listed for the interpersonal-level conflict frame condition. Thus, the mean perception of incivility prompted by the interpersonal-level conflict frame condition is 165

These results help answer the question: do citizens perceive incivility when they are presented with conflict frames in the news (RQ4.4)? On one hand, participants did perceive less incivility in the civil condition than in the interpersonal-level conflict condition, much like they perceived differences in the interpersonal-level Conflict and civility factors in the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment. On the other hand, there were no significant differences among the conditions with other types of political conflict, but there were significant differences between the public-level and interpersonal-level conflict factors in the previous experiment. Perhaps this discrepancy is not as large as it seems, however. Participants in the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment thought that the interpersonal-level conflict behaviors were less acceptable than the public-level conflict behaviors. It is conceivable that interpersonal-level conflict prompts stronger reactions than public-level conflict regardless of whether the behaviors stand alone or are in news articles.

Perceptions of Incivility across Partisan Conditions

Apart from the type of conflict influencing citizens’ perceptions of incivility in the previous experiment, the partisanship of the political actor influenced judgments of incivility as well. Thus, I ask whether the participants perceived incivility in counter-attitudinal news, as well (RQ4.5). In addition to varying on the type of conflict presented, the article that participants in the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment read also included either a political position with which they agreed or a political position with which they disagreed. The articles focused on the 2012 statistically equivalent to the mean perception of incivility prompted by the public-level conflict frame condition and the mixed conflict frames condition (both of which include the “c” superscript). It is, however, is statistically different from the mean perception of incivility prompted by the civil conflict condition because the “b” and “c” superscripts both differ from the “a” superscript listed for the civil conflict condition. 166

Supreme Court ruling that the Affordable Care Act of 2010 was constitutional. Half of the articles were written from a Republican perspective – that is, the article included conservative Republicans conservatives critiquing the ruling and the health care law. The other half of the articles were written from a Democratic perspective – that is, the article included Democrats and liberals celebrating the ruling and the health care law. Participants were randomly assigned to a news article that included people and ideas they supported (likeminded condition) or people and ideas they opposed (counter-attitudinal condition).32 I tested whether the partisan lean of the news article influenced whether participants found the article to be uncivil, regardless of the type of conflict the article contained. An ANCOVA test indicated that the partisan lean of an article significantly influenced citizens’ perceptions of incivility [F(1,273) = 49.57, p < .001], such that counter-attitudinal articles were perceived as more uncivil (M = 3.55, SD = 0.77) than likeminded articles (M = 2.91, SD = 0.73) (see Figure 21). No matter the type of conflict presented in a message, individuals perceived counter-attitudinal messages as more uncivil than likeminded messages. This answered RQ4.5 in the affirmative: regardless of whether people view partisan behaviors in the context of a news article or as behaviors standing on their own, they view likeminded partisans as more civil than counter-attitudinal partisans.

32Since people who did not report a preference for the Democratic or Republican Party could not be randomly assigned to a likeminded or counter-attitudinal condition, they were not included in any of the analyses. 167

5.00 4.50

4.00 3.55b 3.50 2.91a 3.00 2.50 2.00 1.50 Perceptions of Incivility 1.00 Likeminded Condition Counter-Attitudinal Condition

Figure 21. Perceptions of incivility by partisan condition. Note. Matching lowercase letters across the partisan conditions indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .01 level. Lowercase letters that differ across the partisan condition indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .01 level. All values of control variables were held constant at their mean or modal value, F(1,273) = 49.57, p < .001. Interaction between Political Conflict and Partisan Conditions In testing the data from the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment, I showed that there was a significant interaction between whether participants viewed likeminded or counter-attitudinal partisans behaving badly and the type of political conflict in which they were engaged. To fully test whether individuals react to conflict behaviors when they are present in the news, as well, I examined this interaction again. As explained in the previous two sections, participants read an experimental news article that varied both on the type of conflict included and on the partisan lean of the news article. I tested whether the type of conflict and the partisan lean interacted in predicting participants’ perceptions of incivility in the article. For instance, did people think that counter-attitudinal articles that included interpersonal-level conflict were the more uncivil than counter-attitudinal articles that included civil conflict? An ANCOVA test showed that the interaction was not significant, however [F(3,267) = 0.21, p = .89], suggesting that people reacted to the conflict conditions similarly no matter the partisan lean of an article.

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This finding complicates the results from the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment described above. When participants reacted to political behaviors alone, there was an interaction between the partisan condition and the type of incivility they saw, but the two variables did not influence each other in the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment. The inconsistency may be due to differences in context. When the political behaviors were presented alone in the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment, participants were asked to report how much incivility they perceived in a single statement with a single behavior. Once the behaviors were placed in the context of a news article, other elements of message may dilute perceptions of incivility but may not dilute partisan thoughts. When the behaviors were placed in a news article, participants were asked to report the extent of incivility they saw in the article, not the amount of incivility they perceived in a specific behavior. Further, the news articles were partisan not only because partisans were named in the articles participants read but also because each article put forward a pro-health care or anti-health care argument. This may have prompted participants to think about partisanship to such an extent that the specific behaviors enacted did not change the way participants thought about the news article they read. Despite the differences, however, the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment shows that type of political conflict and partisan lean of a news article both prompt citizens to think that incivility is occurring in a news article.

Intention to Read News in Future

A strength of the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment was that it included a question asking participants whether they would like to read more articles from the same source as the article they just read. This variable allowed me to test one effect of exposure to various types of political conflict. After reading a 169

news article, participants were asked whether they would like to read more articles from the web site where the article supposedly originated (coded as 1; 54% of participants) or not (coded as 0; 46% of participants). This variable helped me answer the question: do perceptions of incivility influence individuals’ intentions to read the news in the future (RQ4.6)? Since the outcome variable was dichotomous, I built a logistic regression model to determine what predicted citizens’ desire to read more from the site. In the next sections, I discuss whether the political conflict condition and the partisan condition prompted perceptions of incivility, which then influenced citizens’ desire to read more news.

Political Conflict Condition and Intention to Read News in Future

I began with the effects of the political conflict conditions. To test whether the type of conflict participants read affected their intention to read more news, I created three dummy variables (interpersonal-level conflict, public-level conflict, and mixed conflict) using the civil news condition as reference category. The conflict conditions (Interpersonal-level Conflict: B = -0.21, S.E. = 0.36, p = .55; Public-level Conflict: B = -0.27, S.E. = 0.36, p = .45; Mixed Conflict: B = -0.21, S.E. = 0.36, p = .55), however, were not significant (see Table 12). People in all of the political conflict conditions were equally likely to want to read more in the future.

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Table 12. Logistic Regression Predicting Intention to Read from News Source in Future. Coefficient (S.E.) 1.08* Constant (0.50) -0.003 Age (0.01) -0.01 Female (0.25) -0.04 Partisan Strength (0.18) -1.09*** Counter-Attitudinal Article Condition (0.25) -0.21 Interpersonal-level Conflict Condition (0.36) -0.27 Public-level Conflict Condition (0.36) -0.21 Mixed Conflict Condition (0.36) Civil Condition (Reference Group) N 280 Nagelkerke R2 .09** Note. +p <0.10, *p<0.05, **p<0.01, ***p <0.001.

As explained earlier, however, the political conflict condition did influence perceptions of incivility, with the interpersonal-level conflict condition prompting more thoughts of incivility than the other political conflict conditions.33 Perhaps, then, the Interpersonal-level Conflict condition increased perceptions of incivility and then influenced whether people wanted to read more news. I ran an indirect effects model using Hayes’ (2012) PROCESS program to test this claim.34 This model

33 Although older perspectives on mediation tests required a direct effect between the predictor and outcome variable (Baron & Kenny, 1986), newer approaches to indirect effects suggest that it is possible to have indirect effects among variables without having significant main effects (Zhao et al., 2010). 34 The PROCESS program can account for predictor variables with multiple categories but only by dummy coding the variables and running a series of models that include one of the dummy-coded variables as the outcome variable and the other dummy variables as control variables (Hayes & Preacher, 2013). This process can reveal the relative differences in indirect effects among categories of a variable. I created three indirect effects models using bias-corrected 95 percent confidence intervals and 10,000 bootstrapped samples to determine whether the conflict condition indirectly affected individuals’ intent to read more from the web site through increasing perceptions of incivility. Each model included three sets of control variables: (a) the individual difference variables 171

showed that Interpersonal-level Conflict had a significant indirect effect on intention to read the experimental website in the future (B = -0.43, S.E. = 0.18, Confidence

Interval: -.8271, -.1092). This finding provided one answer to RQ4.6: presentation of behaviors like name-calling in news articles can increase perceptions of incivility and then decrease individuals’ desire to read more news in the future.

Partisanship and Intention to Read News in Future

In each of the tests run with data from the “Judging Political Behaviors” and the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiments, partisanship clearly influenced the ways in which individuals interpreted political behaviors. These results make the following question essential to ask: Can reading counter-attitudinal news prompt perceptions of incivility and lead partisans to avoid counter-attitudinal information in the future? Many studies have found evidence of partisan selective exposure – that is, seeking out information that matches one’s partisan political beliefs (e.g., Iyengar & Hahn, 2009; Knobloch-Westerwick & Meng, 2009; Stroud, 2011). The data from the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment found more evidence to suggest that people choose to read information with which they agree. Looking again at the logistic regression model predicting likelihood of reading more from the website, there were significant differences between people in the counter- attitudinal versus the likeminded condition (see Table 12). People in the counter- attitudinal news article condition (i.e., people who read news articles with positions on health care reform with which they disagreed) were less likely to want to read mentioned at the beginning of the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment section, (b) the dummy- coded political conflict condition variables not used as the predictor variable, and (c) the counter- attitudinal partisan condition variable to ensure that the effect of the political conflict condition went beyond the effect of whether a participant was in the likeminded or counter-attitudinal condition. In the models that included public conflict (B = -0.15, S.E. = 0.17, CI: -.5036, .1488) and mixed conflict (B = -0.29, S.E. = 0.17, CI: -.6597, .0125) as the predictor variables, the indirect effects from conflict condition on intent to read the news site through perceptions of incivility were not significant. 172

news articles from the same news source in the future than people who read likeminded news (B = -0.48, S.E. = 0.15, CI = -.79, -.24). Interpreting the logistic regression will be helpful in understanding the size of the effect of the partisan condition on intention to read more from a news source. Converting the logistic regression coefficients into expected probabilities shows that, holding the control variables constant at their mean or modal values and the conflict frame condition to the civil conflict, people who read likeminded articles had a .72 expected probability of intending to read more from the news source in the future compared to only .46 for people who read articles with which they disagreed.35

Given the robustness of the finding that partisan selection exposure occurs,36 understanding reasons why people choose likeminded political information is particularly important. To connect to the investigation of perceptions of incivility in which I engage throughout this chapter, I can ask a more specific question: do perceptions of incivility prompted by counter-attitudinal news led to decreased intentions to read news in the future? I turned to Hayes’ (2012) PROCESS program again to test whether perceptions of incivility helped explain the significant relationship between reading a likeminded or counter-attitudinal article and intentions to read more from a web site. Specifically, I tested whether being in the counter-attitudinal news condition increased perceptions of incivility, which then decreased intentions to read more news in the future. 37

35 There were no significant interactions between the partisan condition and the type of conflict people read, showing that individuals who saw a likeminded article wanted to read more from the web site – regardless of the presence of incivility in the article. 36This finding has been robust at least when individuals are selecting likeminded information rather than avoiding counter-attitudinal information. See Garrett (2009) for more information. 37I used a model similar to the one used to test the indirect effects of the political conflict condition explained earlier, but the partisan condition (with counter-attitudinal condition coded as 1) was the predictor variable and all of the dummy-coded political conflict condition variables were included as 173

The test showed that perceptions of incivility played an important role in predicting intentions to read more from the news source in the future, once again showing that perceptions of incivility influence intentions to read more news

(RQ4.6). The indirect effects analysis using bias-corrected 95 percent confidence intervals and 10,000 bootstrapped samples indicated that exposure to a counter- attitudinal news article (B = -0.46, S.E. = 0.17, CI = -.84, -.19) had a significant indirect effect on intentions based on perceptions of incivility. In other words, people who read counter-attitudinal news were more likely to think that the information was uncivil and then were more likely to turn away from reading more information from the web site in the future.

DISCUSSION

When President Obama calls for a return to civility in politics, what civility does he mean? Should politicians avoid name-calling and harsh language, seek out bipartisanship and compromise, or both? Can partisans even accept that likeminded political figures are acting uncivilly, or do they argue that the problem is with their political opponents? Incivility is not a single concept agreed upon by citizens, particularly when partisanship is involved. Citizens’ Judgments of Incivility This chapter was founded on what seems like a simple question: how do citizens think about incivility? The answer is both as simple as the question and much more complex. The simple answer is that citizens, in general, thought that behaviors conceptualized as uncivil in previous research were uncivil. The more complex answer is that citizens’ thoughts about incivility depend on the type of

controls, along with the same individual difference variables used as controls throughout the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment. 174

conflict they view. Overall, incivility from the perspective of citizens is not always objectionable. Moreover, citizen perceptions confirmed academic conceptions of incivility (with a slight alteration). Although scholars (Rawls, 1993; Uslaner, 1996, 2000) and politicians (Remarks by the President, 2010) often argue that incivility is a negative for society, citizens did not always agree. Individuals rated behaviors as similarly uncivil/civil and objectionable/acceptable, but the relationship between the two judgments varied in interesting ways. Some people thought that incivility was less objectionable than others. In particular, younger people and people who did not believe that civility was important to democracy had wider gaps between their ratings of incivility and unacceptability. They didn’t think uncivil behaviors were all that bad. This finding supported past research suggesting that age and predisposition to conflict38 affected judgments of uncivil behavior (Ben-Porath, 2008; Mutz & Reeves, 2005) and shows that there are individual differences that influence how citizens think about political incivility. Further, the experiments show that citizens think about different types of conflict in similar ways to how it has been conceptualized in academic research. Citizens perceived name-calling, obscenity, shouting, and other types of impoliteness similarly, suggesting that citizens judge interpersonal-level conflicts as correspondingly uncivil. This is in keeping with how Borah (forthcoming), Fridkin and Kenney (2011), Mutz (2005), Mutz and Reeves (2007), and others have studied incivility. However, when politicians and media figures stood their ground, refused to compromise, and blindly voted along party lines, citizens also perceived incivility

38I did not find any significant effects of conflict avoidance, specifically, as did Mutz and Reeves (2005). However, the belief about incivility item that was significant also measures the way people feel about conflict, but specifically how they feel about incivility and democracy. 175

in the behaviors. Although this type of public-level conflict rarely has been tested in incivility effects research, it has been theorized by scholars who argue that incivility is more than impoliteness and involves the ways in which politicians work together (e.g., Uslaner, 2000; Walzer, 1974; Wolf et al., 2012). Citizens judged both interpersonal-level and public-level conflicts as uncivil, giving more evidence that researchers should begin studying both types of incivility in the same studies. The political conflict factors do not exactly match research conceptualizations of incivility, however. The finding that campaign behaviors dealing with fact checking and misinformation fell in the interpersonal-level conflict factor, rather than the public-level conflict factor, was surprising. Perhaps citizens, through experience with prior political campaigns, connect any campaign to interpersonal-level conflict, even when interpersonal-level conflicts are not explicit. Given the recent trends in campaign ads, this may not be too farfetched. Political attack advertisements that highlight the negative characteristics of a political opponent increased significantly in the 2012 election (Fowler & Ridout, 2013). News coverage of political attack ads has substantially increased since the late 1980s as well (Geer, 2012). If citizens are exposed to an attack-heavy political environment for years, it is feasible that any mention of campaigns prompts thoughts about conflict between two individuals. Despite the different location of misinformation and campaign conflicts, the conceptualizations of incivility outlined in Chapter 2 largely were verified for the second time in this dissertation: once in media coverage and once in citizens’ thoughts about incivility.

Reactions to Different Types of Incivility

Not only did participants think about two types of incivility (one centering on interpersonal-level conflict and one centering on public-level conflict), they reacted 176

to these factors in different ways. The results from the “Judging Political Behaviors” and the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiments consistently found differences among the factors, not just between perceptions of civil and uncivil behaviors. More interpersonal-level and public-level conflict behaviors were considered objectionable and fewer were considered acceptable than civil behaviors. But public-level conflict was judged as more acceptable than interpersonal-level conflict. Additionally, once these behaviors were placed in news articles, participants had stronger reactions to interpersonal-level conflict than to public-level conflict. Individuals were less likely to want to read more news from a source when they read an article that included interpersonal-level conflict because they perceived more incivility in the article than people who read articles with civil conflict. The argument could be made that the examples of public-level conflict in the “Incivility and Partisan News” stimuli should have been stronger to be more equivalent to the interpersonal-level conflict. However, the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment showed that a public-level conflict behavior that is of similar strength to an interpersonal-level conflict behavior is difficult to find. Overall, citizens perceived public-level conflict behaviors as more acceptable and less objectionable than interpersonal-level conflict behaviors. Thus a “stronger” public-level conflict frame in a news article would still likely be perceived as less uncivil than a strong set of interpersonal-level conflict behaviors. Why might individuals have responded more strongly to interpersonal-level conflict in the “Judging Political Behaviors” and “Incivility and Partisan News” experiments? One possibility is that since politeness principles (e.g., Brown &

Levinson, 1987) are involved in interpersonal interactions, individuals may be more familiar with how people are “supposed” to talk to other individuals. But public-

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level conflict is based on political theory (e.g., Rawls 1993) that may be less familiar to many people. They may not have clear norms of acceptable behavior when it comes to political compromise, whereas they know that calling someone a Nazi is just wrong. The differences I found between reactions to interpersonal-level and public- level conflict need to be explored further. Although the effects of interpersonal-level conflict have been studied most (e.g., Mutz, 2007; Borah, forthcoming), some scholars have argued that public-level conflict, rather than impoliteness, is more threatening to democracy (Bennett, 2011; Papacharissi, 2004; Uslaner, 2000, 1996). Yet citizens seem to have stronger reactions to interpersonal-level – rather than public-level – conflict. If partisan stalemates are more acceptable to citizens than name-calling and the like, political figures may have little reason to change their behaviors. In the next chapter, I will embark on additional analysis of the political effects of these conflict frames.

Partisanship and Incivility Perceptions

Even more than other individual differences, partisanship had a strong and consistent effect on how citizens made sense of political incivility. For only one factor – civility – did partisanship not matter in participants’ judgments. Citizens, regardless of partisanship, tended to agree that traditional conceptions of civility – that is respect, politeness, compromise, etc. (e.g., Arnett, 2001) – were civil and acceptable. Partisans, however, disagreed when it came to more uncivil behaviors. Citizens judged more behaviors as acceptable and rejected fewer behaviors as objectionable when they saw likeminded partisans behaving badly. Compared to likeminded partisans, they were less accepting of interpersonal-level and public- level conflict from nonpartisans and opposing partisans. Furthermore, people who 178

read counter-attitudinal news perceived it as uncivil, no matter the political conflict emphasized in the message, and these perceptions of incivility had a real-world effect on intentions to read more messages like it in the future. This finding provides a mechanism through which partisan selective exposure (e.g., Garrett, 2009; Knobloch-Westerwick & Meng, 2009; Stroud, 2011) may be working. Interestingly, participants judged the behaviors of politicians with no clear partisan lean no differently than the behaviors of counter-attitudinal political actors. This finding prompts the question: are people treating unnamed political figures like opponents, that is, are they judging anyone who is not a likeminded partisan harshly? Hostile media perception (HMP) research suggests that the first may be the case. HMP posits that partisans look at a putatively neutral news article and believe that the article is biased against them (Gunther & Schmitt, 2004; Hansen & Kim, 2011; Reid, 2012; Vallone, Ross, & Lepper, 1985). Similarly, people may be looking at political behaviors and reacting harshly to politicians who are not labeled as Republicans or Democrats because they think that the politicians are from the other side of the political aisle. Based on this pattern of findings, particularly the influence of partisanship on perceptions of incivility, I contend that incivility should be approached through a perceptual lens, rather than as an abstract concept on which all partisans can agree. Often, media figures, politicians, researchers, and citizens call for more civility in politics. Without taking into account different types of incivility and partisan interpretations of political behavior, however, calls for incivility may fall on deaf ears. Concerned parties need to find ways to work around partisan interpretations of incivility when attempting to decrease incivility in the U.S. Maisel (2012) has argued that incivility is something we know when we see it. The results

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here suggest, instead, that people know when they see incivility – but that doesn’t mean that everyone else sees it in the same way.

Limitations

A few limitations to the experiments presented in this chapter should be noted. First, participants read about politicians behaving badly in these studies, rather than watching them do so in videos. As shown in the content analysis presented in Chapter 3, political conflict frames appear in news visuals as well. Further, scholars have argued that television and visual news are more intimate, interpersonal, and engaging than print news (e.g., Hart, 1999; Mutz & Reeves, 2005), suggesting that visuals may prompt stronger effects than news texts. Reading about political behaviors may be a more conservative test than using engaging visuals. If results were found even when participants read about the behaviors, perhaps visuals will prompt similar, but heightened, results. Additionally, this study focused on the behaviors of politicians, not citizens. The content analysis presented in Chapter 3 illustrated that citizens often were discussed in the news media in relation to political conflict and incivility. It is important, then, to replicate the findings of these experiments when citizens are engaging in civil and uncivil political behaviors. Do citizens judge other citizens more or less harshly than politicians when they are engaging in uncivil acts? Are citizens vilified or celebrated for standing up to the government? Do the types of behaviors they use alter individuals’ perceptions of incivility? These questions are important particularly since some researchers contend that citizens must sometimes be impolite in order to gain attention for their causes (e.g., Lozano-Reich

& Cloud, 2009; Young et. al, 2010). If this is the case, it is necessary to explore

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citizens’ reactions to other citizens’ behaviors to see whether they judge them more or less harshly than they judge politicians. Next, the sample was a convenience sample recruited through Mechanical Turk (MTurk.com) rather than a probability sample. The participants were, for instance, more highly educated and more liberal/Democratic than the average United States resident. However, the results of experiments that use MTurk.com samples compare well to the results produced by the same experiments that use other samples (Berinsky et al., 2012). Since the studies presented here explored causality through experimental designs, the differences between the MTurk.com participants and the average American are not very concerning. Finally, the information-seeking measure could be stronger. In the “Incivility and Partisan News” study, I asked participants whether they would be interested in reading more from the website that posted the news article they read. This measures intention to read from a news source in the future. Measuring actual information seeking behavior would be a stronger measure of information seeking and selective exposure. For instance, many selective exposure projects have unobtrusively tracked participants as they clicked around a website (e.g., Knobloch- Westerwick & Meng, 2009; Stroud & Muddiman, Forthcoming). Future research can integrate stronger measures of information seeking to replicate the results. Conclusion Much like the content analysis results presented in Chapter 3, the experiments discussed here feature the difficulty in defining political incivility. Chapter 3 outlined how media and political figures engage in a struggle to interpret political behaviors as civil or uncivil. The experiments in this chapter signal that citizens, like media elites, do not agree in all instances on what constitutes incivility.

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The type of behavior, as well as the partisan lean of media elites, changes the way in which citizens think about and react to incivility. Individuals found behaviors such as yelling at a talk show guest and calling a political opponent a Nazi (interpersonal-level conflict) more strongly uncivil than a pattern of voting along party lines (public-level conflict). Much of the experimental mediated incivility research thus far has focused on the effects of impoliteness, harsh language, and interpersonal-level conflict (e.g., Ben-Porath, 2010; Mutz, 2007). The results in this chapter indicate that researchers need to examine the effects of public-level conflict and lack of compromise as well, particularly since gridlock in government may have just as many detrimental effects on the U.S. political system as impoliteness (e.g., Uslaner, 1996). Given the presence of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames in news coverage, as well as the variation in citizens’ perceptions of these political behaviors, the following question gains particular importance: Can media messages influence the way citizens think about and react to political conflict and incivility? I turn to this question in the next chapter.

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Chapter 5: Mediated Conflict and Perceptions of Incivility

Conflict and discord make for compelling news. Texas State Senator Wendy Davis captured headlines when she filibustered for 11 hours to halt the passage of an abortion bill. Occupy Wall Street, Tea Party, and Arab Spring protesters demanded newscasters’ attention with each demonstration. Yet we know little about whether news coverage of political incivility affects citizens. Researchers interested in the effects of political incivility have focused their attention mainly on the influence of talk show hosts and guests treating each other poorly on television – what Mutz has called in-your-face TV (Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005) – or candidates attacking each other in campaign advertisements (Brooks, 2010; Brooks & Geer, 2007; Fridkin & Kenney, 2008, 2011). But what about when news covers and interprets political conflict, rather than creating conflict on political talk shows? This question builds on the findings of the previous two chapters. News organizations cover conflicts extensively and often include multiple conflict frames and small cues to portray conflicts in more than one way (Chapter 3). Further, citizens vary in their perceptions of political incivility, even without a news program labeling a conflict as civil or uncivil (Chapter 4). In this chapter, I investigate whether news coverage can influence citizens’ thoughts about a political conflict, as well as their attitudinal, emotional, and argumentative reactions to the story. If media elites frame and interpret political conflict, do citizens adopt their perspectives on the political world? The results presented in this chapter answer this question in the affirmative and show that perceptions of incivility have real and often detrimental effects on citizens. To explore these effects, I, first, briefly outline the experimental design of the final experiment presented in this dissertation. Then I examine the effects of the

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conflict frames on attitudes toward Congress’ handling of legislation, emotions, and perceptions of argument legitimacy, followed by the effects of the small cues on the same outcome variables. Finally, I look at whether the conflict frames and small cues jointly affect the outcomes. The findings show that conflict frames in news articles have substantial effects on citizens.

OVERVIEW OF EXPERIMENT 3: INCIVILITY AND IMMIGRATION REFORM

Throughout this chapter, I report on the results from a final experiment – “Incivility and Immigration Reform” – that investigated the effects of mediated conflict frames and small cues on citizens. In this study, participants read experimentally manipulated news stories about the handling of immigration reform in the U.S. House of Representatives, as described in detail in Chapter 2. The participants read a news article about Congress and immigration reform that was manipulated on two levels: the conflict frame (whether the immigration reform debate was civil, made up of interpersonal-level conflict, made up of public- level conflict, or both), and the small cue (whether media elites interpreted the political conflict as uncivil, both civil and uncivil, or neither) (see Appendix G for stimuli). Below, I first provide more details about the conflict frames, as well as the direct and indirect effects they had on the participants, and then I look at whether the same outcomes were affected by the small cues present in the stimuli.

EFFECTS OF MEDIATED CONFLICT FRAMES

The news articles participants read about immigration reform varied according to the conflict frame used in the article. The conflict frame conditions were constructed based on information gathered from the “Media Coverage of Conflict” study reported in Chapter 3 and the results from the “Judging Political

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Behaviors” experiment presented in Chapter 4. The “Media Coverage of Conflict” content analysis provided (a) examples of political behaviors that I included in the experimental stimuli and (b) reason to use a topic like immigration reform that focused on conflict among politicians. In the content analysis, there were some instances in which politician-focused events were portrayed as interpersonal-level conflicts, others in which they were portrayed as public-level conflicts, and still others where they were portrayed as both public-level and interpersonal-level conflicts. Thus, there is evidence that media coverage often draws from all of the conflict frames used in the experimental stimuli. The sorting activities from the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment (Chapter 4) helped determine which behaviors to include. I selected four behaviors from the interpersonal-level conflict factor and four behaviors from the public-level conflict factor to incorporate into the stimuli (see Table 13 for descriptive statistics of the behaviors included in the experimental news articles). Statements that I included in the experimental news articles either (a) did not prompt a mean incivility perception different from the midpoint of three or (b) had smaller effect- sizes, as measured by Cohen’s d, than the other statements. Using behaviors that were perceived as moderately uncivil ensured that there was some gray area in the interpretation of the articles. If nearly everyone agreed that behaviors were highly unacceptable, the small cues, as examined in the second half of this chapter, would have little room to change individuals’ interpretations of the events. Gray area in the interpretation of the behaviors, however, allowed for a stronger test of whether the small cues could influence individuals’ thoughts about the events surrounding immigration reform.

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Table 13. Behaviors Included in Experimental Stimuli. Mean Cohen’s d (SD) Interpersonal-Level Conflict Behaviors Included 3.83*** A politician said that lawmakers of the opposing party are delusional. 0.96 (0.86) An advisor to a political candidate said that it would be embarrassing to 3.81*** 0.94 the state if his opponent became a U.S. senator. (0.86)

Partisan criticism of new Congressional legislation has been getting 3.75*** 0.79 louder and more inflammatory. (0.94)

Politicians started a heated exchange with members of the opposing 3.43*** 0.45 party on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. (0.96)

Public-Level Conflict Behaviors Included

Members of the House of Representatives don’t believe they need to 3.67*** 0.69 compromise with members of the political party they oppose. (0.97)

Many members of Congress will not pass a bill that is supported by their 3.60*** 0.58 opponents, leading to deadlock in the House of Representatives. (1.02) A partisan host for a cable news program is encouraging likeminded 3.48*** politicians in Congress to go at it alone and pass legislation supported 0.46 only by members of their own political party. (1.05)

According to a recent news report, the politicians in Congress have 3.04 0.04 shown their extreme ideological purity by voting along party lines. (0.99) Note. ***p <0.001. Two examples help to illustrate this choice. A statement comparing “politicians from the opposing political party to Hitler and the Nazis” was not used in the stimuli for the “Incivility and Immigration Reform” study because the mean rating of incivility for the statement was 4.60 out of 5 and the effect size was quite large (Cohen’s d = 1.85). As this statement was nearly universally seen as uncivil, the presence of small cues likely would have no effect. Alternatively, a statement about politicians “starting a heated exchange with members of the opposing party” was included in the stimuli because the mean (M = 3.43) was much closer to the neutral rating of three, and the effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.45) was much smaller than

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in the first example. The study was better able to capture the effects of small cues because statements like the latter and not the former were used. The behaviors outlined in Table 13 were inserted into the experimental news articles about immigration reform. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of three experimental articles that varied in the conflict frame presented in the article or a control article with none of these conflict frames. The news article read by the control group portrayed partisans disagreeing about immigration policy but doing so respectfully while mentioning that compromise may be possible. In the first conflict frame condition, interpersonal-level conflict, participants read a news article that included the four interpersonal-level conflict behaviors listed in Table 13, all of which clustered in the interpersonal-level conflict factor discussed in Chapter 4. In the second conflict frame condition, public-level conflict, the participants read a news article that included the four public-level conflict behaviors listed in Table 13, all of which clustered in the public-level conflict factor outlined in Chapter 4. In a final conflict frame condition – both interpersonal-level and public- level conflict – the participants read a news story that included all eight behaviors listed in Table 13.39

39I included all eight of the behaviors in the final experimental condition because the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment showed how differently participants perceived different political behaviors. To include only four behaviors in the condition with both interpersonal and public conflict frames, I would have needed to ignore two interpersonal and two public-level conflict behaviors that people in other conditions would have read. This would have been problematic because there was no mix of behaviors that could replicate the exact strength of the interpersonal conflict frame and public-level conflict frame conditions that contained all four behaviors. Only two of the behaviors prompted similar perceptions of incivility (the “embarrassing” and “delusional” statements in Table 13), and they were both interpersonal conflict behaviors. The other behaviors varied widely in their means (Range of Ms = 3.04 to 3.84), standard deviations (Range of SDs = 0.86 to 1.05), and effect sizes (Range of Cohen’s d = 0.04 to 0.96). If I dropped any of these behaviors from the both conflict frames condition, it would be hard to argue that participants in the both conflict frames condition saw frames of a similar strength as the interpersonal conflict frame and public-level conflict frame conditions. 187

Unlike the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment discussed in Chapter 4, the stimuli here included balanced references to conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats behaving badly. That is, there were two instances of Republicans behaving badly and two instances of Democrats behaving uncivilly in each experimental news article, except for in the control condition where both parties were framed as behaving civilly. Given the findings from Chapter 4 about the power of partisanship to influence citizens’ perceptions of incivility, it was necessary to balance partisanship so that individuals from either party could have similar reactions to the news articles. Adopting Conflict Frames I began my investigation with a basic question: do citizens adopt the frames presented in the news as their own? Scheufele (1999) calls this frame setting, arguing that individuals can take frames presented in the media and use them in their own descriptions of an issue. As Chapter 3 showed, conflict frames are extensively used in news coverage of political conflict, so it is important to understand the effects of these conflict frames in shaping citizens’ thoughts about political behaviors. I tested whether individuals adopted the conflict frames presented to them in the news stimuli (H5.1a) by measuring participants’ perceptions of incivility in the stimulus.40 In past research, scholars have conducted manipulation checks using a

40In some frame-setting research (e.g., Price et al., 1997), participants wrote about an issue and their open-ended responses were coded to see if participants used the frames when describing issues in their own words. I used closed-ended responses here because it aligns with previous incivility research (e.g., Mutz, 2007). However, as a robustness check, I also examined participants’ open- ended responses to see whether they used the conflict frame when describing the issue of immigration reform to a friend. A series of χ2 analyses analyzed whether participants in the conflict frame conditions or control group used (coded 1) or did not use (coded 0), first, an interpersonal- level conflict frame, or second, a public-level conflict frame when describing immigration reform. Unlike the analyses presented in the main text, open-ended use of an interpersonal-level conflict frame was not predicted by the conflict frame conditions or control group [χ2 (3, n = 547) = 4.48, p = 188

series of closed-ended questions to determine whether their experimental stimuli prompted perceptions of incivility (Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005). My measure of conflict frame adoption followed this previous research to test whether the participants perceived different types of conflict in the news articles but builds on prior research by (a) explicating a difference between perceptions of interpersonal- level and public-level conflict, and, later in this chapter, (b) testing whether these perceptions lead to other effects prompted by the mediated conflict frames. I asked participants to respond to a series of semantic differential items about whether they found the immigration reform debate to include conflict or not (see Table 14 for the items). Previous measures of perceived incivility drawn from Mutz (2007) and Mutz and Reeves (2005) leaned heavily toward interpersonal-level conflict, asking individuals whether they thought people in a stimulus were being rude or polite, for example. Thus, I added a few new word sets that could be related to public-level, rather than interpersonal-level, conflict: disruptive-not disruptive, acceptable-not acceptable, and good for democracy-bad for democracy.41 Since this mix of semantic differential items had not been used in the past, I conducted a factor analysis to ensure that there were multiple conflict factors that clustered together in participants’ responses. The incivility literature and the

.22], probably because only 97 of the 547 participants who provided an open-ended response used an interpersonal-level conflict frame in their description of immigration reform. However, open- ended use of the public-level conflict frame was significantly different across the conflict frame and control groups [χ2 (3, n = 547) = 14.49, p < .01], such that the public-level conflict frame and the both conflict frames groups were significantly more likely to use the public-level conflict frame than the control and interpersonal conflict frame conditions. These open-ended responses were similar to the closed-ended responses discussed in the main text in that using a public-level conflict frame was tied closely to the presence of public-level conflict behaviors in the experimental texts, and use of the interpersonal conflict frame was less tied to specific conflict behaviors. 41 Each of these word pairs could be considered small cues, since there is a judgment of the political behaviors as well as the type of conflict included in the measure. However, as shown later in this chapter, the small cues presented to participants did not have an effect on their responses to these questions. Thus, these measures adequately reflected conflict frames better than small cues. 189

findings presented in Chapter 4 indicated that individuals perceive incivility in two ways: one related to interpersonal-level conflict and a second related to public-level conflict. A factor analysis of the items included in the current experiment mirrored the two factors outlined in the previous chapter. Following the advice of Costello and Osborne (2005), I examined the scree plot and the factor loadings to determine the appropriate number of factors.42 A maximum likelihood exploratory factor analysis with a promax rotation found two factors. The factor loadings, which were all between .56 and .95, or well over acceptable according to Costello and Osborne (2004), are listed in Table 14. The two variables were significantly correlated but only at a moderate level (Pearson’s r = .49, p < .001). Since the factor analysis offered two factors that incivility theory suggests should have different results, I kept these factors separate throughout this chapter. The variables that fell into each factor were averaged to create the perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict and perceptions of public-level conflict variables (see Table 15 for descriptive statistics).

42This two-factor structure emerged after dropping the “disruptive-not disruptive” item from the analysis. When it was included, a three-factor model fit best, but the third factor included only one item(the “disruptive-not disruptive” item), which Costello and Osborne (2005) have argued is not a strong factor. When the item was included in the two-factor model, it cross-loaded significantly on both the interpersonal conflict and the public conflict factors. Thus, it was dropped from the factor analysis and the remainder of the tests in this chapter. As a robustness check, I ran a parallel analysis using O’Conner’s (2000) program. This test also concluded that the two-factor model fit best. 190

Table 14. Perceptions of Incivility Factors. Perceptions of Perceptions of Item Interpersonal-level Public-level Conflict Conflict

Friendly – Unfriendly .79

Calm – Agitated .77

Cooperative – Quarrelsome .72

Polite – Rude .66

Unemotional – Emotional .56

Good – Bad for Democracy .95

Acceptable – Unacceptable .66

Note. Factor loadings < .35 are suppressed.

Table 15. Descriptive Statistics for Perceptions of Incivility Factors. # Items M (SD) Cronbach’s α Perceptions of Interpersonal-level Conflict 5 5.33 (1.01) .82

Perceptions of Public-level Conflict 2 4.54 (1.49) .7443

I tested H5.1a using participants’ responses to the perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict and perceptions of public-level conflict as outcome variables. In particular, I was interested in whether the conflict frames affected perceptions of incivility and the other outcome variables compared to news that portrayed conflict as a civil disagreement, so I ran planned comparisons between the control group and each of the conflict frame groups. Since the perceptions of incivility variables were continuous, ranging from 1 (low interpersonal-level or public-level conflict) to 7 (high interpersonal-level or public-level conflict), I used a series of t-tests44 to examine whether the conflict frame conditions (interpersonal-

43 Since there are only two items in the Public Conflict factor, a correlation also is appropriate to test the reliability of the factor. The two items are significantly correlated (Pearson’s r = .60, p < .001). 44 Unlike in the previous chapter, no covariates were included in the statistical tests in this chapter. One of the experiments in Chapter 4 (“Judging Political Behaviors”) followed a repeated-measures design and was created to investigate what variables – both experimental and individual difference – 191

level conflict frame, public-level conflict frame, both conflict frames) increased perceptions of incivility compared to the control condition. There were significant differences between the control group and each of the conflict frame conditions

[interpersonal-level conflict frame:45 t(99.23) = -3.46, p < .01; public-level conflict frame: t(203) = -3.75, p < .001; both conflict frames: t(202) = -5.26, p < .001; see Figure 22]. When it comes to individuals’ perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict, all of the conditions were perceived as more uncivil at the interpersonal-level than the news articles with civil behaviors.

Both Conlict Frames Article 5.58*** Control Article 4.76***

Public-Level Conlict Article 5.32*** Control Article 4.76***

Interpersonal-Level Conlict Article 5.29** Control Article 4.76** 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00

Perceptions of Interpersonal-Level Conlict

Figure 22. Mean perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict between control condition and conflict frame conditions. ***p < .001; **p < .01

could help to explain citizens’ perceptions of incivility. Further, the randomization check indicated that differences appeared between the experimental conditions for some individual difference variables in the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment. Thus, covariates were helpful to include in Chapter 4. The “Incivility and Immigration Reform” experiment in this chapter, however, did not require the covariates for two reasons. First, it followed a between-subjects experimental design that included randomly assigning participants to all of the experimental groups, and the randomization tests presented in the Methods chapter suggested that this randomization worked. Thus, individual differences should be accounted for without including covariates. Second, as Mutz (2011) has persuasively argued, including covariates can add noise to experimental models without adding much value. Even if covariates are significant in experimental models, they may be hiding true effects of the experimental manipulations by adding this noise and increasing the critical values by which an effect is deemed significant. Following her advice, I left covariates out of the models in this chapter. 45 The Levene’s test for equality of variances was significant for the interpersonal-level conflict v. control group t-test, so the results do not assume equal variances between the groups. 192

What about adopting public-level conflict frames? Did people perceive more public-level conflict in articles with the conflict frames compared to the control group? Using a series of planned comparison t-tests between the control group and each of the conflict frames, I again found significant differences. Both the public- level conflict frame and the condition with both conflict frames prompted significantly more thoughts of public-level conflict than the control group [public- level conflict frame: t(203) = -2.61, p < .05; both conflict frames: t(202) = -3.42, p < .01, see Figure 23]. The interpersonal-conflict condition prompted more thoughts of public-level conflict compared to the control group, as well, but only at a marginally significant level [t(203) = -1.92, p < .10]. These findings suggest that perceptions of public-level conflict were prompted most when public-level conflict was available in the news frames people read, either by itself or in combination with interpersonal- level conflict.

Both Conlict Frames Article 4.81** Control Article 3.98**

Public-Level Conlict Article 4.58* Control Article 3.98*

Interpersonal-Level Conlict Article 4.43+ Control Article 3.98+ 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00 6.00 7.00

Perceptions of Public-Level Conlict

Figure 23.Mean perceptions of public-level conflict between control condition and conflict frame conditions. **p < .01; *p < .05; +p < .10

These findings provide support for H5.1a in relation to perceptions of public- level conflict and offer mixed support in relation to perceptions of interpersonal- level conflict. The public-level conflict condition encouraged people to think more

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about public-level conflict than the control article. The both conflict frames condition, which also included public-level conflict behaviors, strongly encouraged people to think of public-level conflict. Finally, the interpersonal-level conflict condition prompted marginally more thoughts about public-level conflict, but the magnitude of this effect was smaller than the effect of the other two conditions. This indicates that some type of public-level conflict in a news article was helpful in prompting people to think about public-level – rather than interpersonal-level – conflict. Participants needed to read about lack of compromise and stalemates in Congress to think about the immigration debate in a similar way. Perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict, however, depended more on the amount of conflict present in a news article, rather than on the specific type of conflict present. All of the conflict frame conditions increased perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict compared to a news article that presented Congress disagreeing but getting along. It seems that perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict were triggered by the presence of any type of uncivil behavior, rather than interpersonal-level behaviors specifically. These findings provide two important conclusions. First, the conflict frames – even though they were chosen to be moderate examples from each frame – encouraged people to think about incivility. Second, participants tended to think of interpersonal-level conflict no matter the conflict condition, whereas perceptions of public-level conflict arose when public-level conflict specifically was present in a news frame. If these perceptions of incivility do no more than encourage people to think about political conflicts in different ways, there may be little reason to worry about the conflict frames. However, if conflict frames have significant effects on

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individuals’ attitudes toward Congress, emotional reactions, and perception of argument legitimacy, perhaps citizens, media elites, and researchers should be concerned. In the next section, I provide the results of tests examining whether the conflict frames influenced these three important outcome variables. For each outcome variable, I followed the same steps to test the effects of the conflict frames. First, I analyzed whether there were differences between the control group and the experimental groups (interpersonal-level, public-level, and both conflict frame conditions). Second, I investigated whether the conflict frame conditions indirectly affected each variable through perceptions of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict. These analyses each unpacked (a) whether conflict frames have effects compared to coverage of civil disagreements and (c) whether conflict frames prompt perceptions of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict, which then lead to various effects through these perceptions.

Conflict Frames and Attitudes

Beginning with attitudes, I investigated whether exposure to the conflict frames affected how favorably citizens looked upon Congress’ handling of immigration reform. As discussed in the previous chapters, Herbst (2010) has argued that incivility often is a strategic tool for politicians. If, however, citizens become less favorable toward political groups and institutions shown as behaving in an unacceptable manner, the effectiveness of strategic incivility comes into question. Control v. Conflict Frames

First, RQ5.2a asked whether participants who read that politicians were behaving civilly – that is, participants who were in the control group – evaluated the political institution presented in a message more favorably than participants who read about politicians behaving poorly. I tested the differences between the control 195

group and each experimental conflict frame group using a series of independent- sample t-tests. Compared to the control condition, participants assigned to read the article that included both the interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames had significantly lower impressions of Congress’ handing of immigration reform [t(201) = 2.49, p < .05] and those reading the article with a public-level conflict frame had marginally lower impressions of Congress’ work [t(202) = 1.90, p < .10]. There was no difference between people in the control group and the interpersonal-level conflict frame condition [t(203) = 0.96, p = .34] (see Figure 24). In two out of the three cases, exposure to conflict frames decreased participants’ favorability toward Congress’ handling of an issue compared to seeing members of Congress mention that they are willing to work together.

Both Conlict Frames Article 2.10* Control Article 2.50*

Public-Level Conlict Frame Article 2.18+ Control Article 2.50+

Interpersonal-Level Conlict Frame 2.35 Control Article 2.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00

Favorability toward Congress' Handling of Immigration Reform

Figure 24. Mean favorability toward Congress’ handling of immigration reform between control condition and conflict frame conditions. *p < .05; +p < .10

Indirect Effect of Perceptions of Incivility A major impetuous behind this dissertation was to understand how incivility worked. That is, do people’s perceptions of incivility, sparked by different types of conflict, lead them to react to politics differently? Mutz (2007), for instance, found that physiological arousal was connected more strongly to the effects of televised

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incivility than cognitive thoughts about news messages. Earlier chapters in this dissertation, however, detailed that citizens have wide-ranging perceptions of incivility. The effects of these perceptions need more investigation. To this end, I tested whether perceptions of incivility acted as mediating variables for each of the outcomes I examine in this chapter. That is, I assessed whether the conflict frame conditions led to perceptions of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict, which then led to the outcome variables of interest. For every test of indirect effects, I used Hayes and Preacher’s (2013) MEDIATE macro for

SPSS.46 For each of the indirect effects models tested throughout this chapter, I used the control condition as the reference category because this allowed me to see both whether the conflict frames had effects compared to a civil presentation of politics and whether each conflict frame had different patterns of effects compared to the others. For every outcome variable, I predicted that the individual-level conflict condition would increase perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict, the public-level conflict frame condition would increase perceptions of public-level conflict, and the condition with both conflict frames would increase perceptions of both types of conflict compared to the control condition. Since the “Adopting Conflict Frames” analysis discussed in detail earlier found that both the interpersonal-level conflict and the public-level conflict frame predicted both perceptions of incivility at least at a marginal level, I also tested the indirect effects of these conflict frames through perceptions of both types of incivility. However, I expected the paths connecting (a)

46 I used the MEDIATE macro because (a) the program generates bootstrapped samples that provide strong estimates indirect effects, (b) the program can estimate indirect effects for independent categorical variables that have more than two categories, and (c) the models can include multiple continuous mediator variables. 197

interpersonal-level conflict frame and perceptions of public-level conflict variable and (b) the public-level conflict frame and perceptions of individual-level conflict variable to be weaker, so I noted them with dashed lines in the prediction models throughout this chapter. I further tested whether the outcome variables would be predicted by these indirect effects. In relation to attitudes toward Congress’ handling of immigration reform (RQ5.3a), the predictions are presented in Figure 25.

Figure 25. Hypothesized indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on favorability toward Congress’s handling of immigration reform. Control condition served as a reference category. The dashed lines represent paths tested in the analysis based on findings from the “Adopting Conflict Frames” section, but that are expected to be weaker than the paths with solid lines.

There were a number of significant indirect effects on participants’ favorability toward Congress’ handling of immigration reform (see Figure 26). First, as predicted, the interpersonal-level conflict frame condition had a significant indirect effect through increased perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict [B = - 0.08, S.E. = 0.04; 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.17, -.03)] but not through perceptions of public-level conflict [B = -0.13, S.E. = 0.07; 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.29, .003)]. Also as predicted, the both conflict frames

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condition had significant indirect effects through both increased perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict [B = -0.12, S.E. = 0.04; 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.23, -.05)] and increased perceptions of public-level conflict [B = -0.24, S.E. = 0.07; 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.39, -.11)]. In each of these cases, the more incivility people perceived, the less favorably they rated Congress’ handling of immigration reform.

Figure 26. Indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on favorability toward Congress’ handling of immigration reform. Control condition served as a reference category. ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; +p < .1047,48

The public-level conflict condition deviated slightly from the hypothesis. The condition had a significant indirect effect through perceptions of public-level conflict [B = -0.09, S.E. = 0.04; 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.18, -.03)], as predicted. However, the public-level conflict condition also had a significant indirect effect through perceptions of interpersonal conflict [B = -0.18, S.E. = 0.07; 95%

47 Once I controlled for the indirect effects of the conflict frame conditions, there were no significant direct effects of the conditions on any of the outcome variables discussed in this chapter. Thus, the direct effects of the conflict frame conditions are not included in any of the models. 48 Across the different outcome variables in this chapter, there are slight differences in the coefficients for the relationships between the conflict frame conditions and perceptions of both types of conflict. These differences are due to small changes in the number of participants who responded to the items related to each of the outcome variables. 199

bootstrapped confidence interval (-.32, -.05)]. Thus, similar to the both conflict frames condition, the public-conflict frame led to decreased in favorability toward Congress through perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict.

The indirect effects provided two conclusions that help answer RQ5.3a. First, compared to the control condition, all of the conflict frames increased perceptions of incivility and led to decreased favorability toward Congress’ handling of immigration reform. Second, how the conflict frames eventually led to decreased favorability differed. The interpersonal-level conflict condition decreased favorability toward Congress only through perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict, whereas the public-level conflict condition and both conflict frames condition decreased favorability toward Congress through increased perceptions of both types of conflict. Finally, even though the eventual direction of effects did not differ across the conflict frame conditions, the magnitude of effects did. The public-level conflict frame and the both conflict frames condition had stronger indirect effects through perceptions of public-level conflict (Public-level Conflict Condition: Effect Size = - 0.18; Both Conflict Frames Condition: Effect Size = -0.24) than the interpersonal-level conflict frame condition had through perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict (Effect Size = -0.08). These effect sizes suggest that the effect of the public-level conflict condition and the both conflict frames condition predicted larger decreases in favorability toward Congress’ handling of an issue than the interpersonal-level conflict condition.

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Emotional Reponses to Conflict Frames Not all reactions to news are attitudinal. Emotional responses are prevalent as well. Many studies have found that exposure to incivility increases physiological arousal (Mutz, 2007) and interest in politics (Brooks & Geer, 2007), but research thus far has not examined the emotional reactions people have toward media coverage of political incivility. Do portrayals of political conflict make people angry? Excited? Anxious? In this section, I investigate the emotions people reported feeling in response to the conflict frame conditions, particularly enthusiasm, anxiety, and aversion (see Chapter 2 for more detail). Control v. Conflict Frames To explore the effects of the conflict frames on emotional reactions, I asked whether participants would have stronger emotional reactions to news messages that included conflict frames compared to news messages that did not (RQ5.4a). I ran a series of independent sample t-tests examining the difference between the control group and each of the conflict frame conditions. None of the t-tests were significant when predicting enthusiasm [control v. interpersonal: t(203) = -0.59, p = .55; control v. public: t(201) = 0.46, p = .65; control v. both conflict frames: t(199) = - 0.18, p = .86] or aversion [control v. interpersonal: t(202) = -0.68, p = .50; control v. public: t(202) = -1.14, p = .26; control v. both conflict frames: t(202) = -1.63, p = .10]. There were differences when predicting anxiety, such that the condition with both conflict frames prompted significantly more anxiety than the control condition [t(199) = -2.38, p < .05] and the public-level conflict condition prompted marginally more anxiety than the control condition [t(201) = -1.78, p < .10]. There were no differences between the interpersonal-level conflict condition and the control group [t(197) = -1.61, p < .11] (see Figure 27). Overall, only anxiety differed among the

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control and conflict frame conditions, since it was significantly increased by the both conflict frames condition and marginally increased by the public-level conflict condition.

Both Conlict Frames Article 2.51* Control Article 2.10*

Public-Level Conlict Frame Article 2.42+ Control Article 2.10+

Interpersonal-Level Conlict Frame 2.37 Control Article 2.10 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 5.00

Feelings of Anxiety

Figure 27.Mean Feelings of anxiety between control condition and conflict frame conditions. *p < .05; +p < .10

Indirect Effect of Perceptions of Incivility Next, I looked at whether the emotional effects of the conflict frame conditions worked through – or were mediated by – perceptions of interpersonal- level and public-level incivility (RQ5.5a). The predictions followed the effects outlined in Figure 25. Essentially, I predicted that the conflict frame conditions would predict their respective perceptions of conflict and that perceptions of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict would decrease perceptions of enthusiasm, and increase feelings of anxiety and aversion. Enthusiasm acted differently than the two negative emotions of anxiety and aversion. The conflict frames predicted enthusiasm in the same way they predicted favorability toward Congress’ handling of immigration (see Figure 28). Compared to the control condition, the individual-level conflict condition indirectly decreased enthusiasm through increased perceptions of interpersonal-conflict [B = -0.11, SE =

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0.04, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.21, -.05)], but not through increased perceptions of public-level conflict [B = -0.02, SE = 0.02, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.08, .0002)]. The two other conflict conditions, public-level conflict and both conflict frames, predicted decreased enthusiasm through increased perceptions of both interpersonal-level [public-level conflict condition: B = -0.12, SE = 0.04, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.21, -.05); both conflict frames condition: B = - 0.17, SE = 0.05, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.27, -.09)] and public-level conflict [public-level conflict condition: B = -0.03, SE = 0.02, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.09, -.001); both conflict frames condition: B = -0.04, SE = 0.03, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.11, -.001)]. Once again, the predictions for the interpersonal-level conflict condition and the both conflict frames condition were supported, but the public-level conflict frame again had an indirect effect through perceptions of both interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict.

Figure 28. Indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on feelings of enthusiasm. Control condition served as a reference category.***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; +p < .10

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In the other two emotion models, the conflict frames predicted increases in feelings of aversion (see Figure 29) and anxiety (see Figure 30). The both conflict frames condition followed the hypothesized models for both of the negative emotion variables. The condition increased feelings of aversion and anxiety via both perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict [Aversion: B = 0.18, SE = 0.05, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.10, .31); Anxiety: B = 0.11, SE = 0.06, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.04, .22)] and perceptions of public-level conflict [Aversion: B = 0.18, SE = 0.06, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.07, .32); Anxiety: B = 0.11, SE = 0.04, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.04, .21)].

Figure 29. Indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on feelings of aversion. Control condition served as a reference category.***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; +p < .1049

49 The path between the interpersonal-level conflict condition and perceptions of public-level conflict is marginally significant (p < .05) for every indirect effects model in this chapter. However, I only include this path in the figures when the entire indirect effect is significant. 204

Figure 30. Indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on feelings of anxiety. Control condition served as a reference category. ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; +p < .10 The other two conditions followed this same pattern in predicting aversion and anxiety. That is, the interpersonal-level conflict condition increased anxiety and aversion through perceptions of both interpersonal-level conflict [Aversion: B = 0.12, SE = 0.05, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.05, .23); Anxiety: B = 0.08, SE = 0.03, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.02, .16)] and public-level conflict [Aversion: B = 0.10, SE = 0.06, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.001, .22); Anxiety: B = 0.06, SE = 0.04, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.004, .15)]. The public-level conflict condition had the same indirect effects through both perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict [Aversion: B = 0.13, SE = 0.04, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.06, .23); Anxiety: B = 0.08, SE = 0.03, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.03, .17)] and public-level conflict [Aversion: B = 0.13, SE = 0.06, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.03, .26); Anxiety: B = 0.08, SE = 0.04, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.02, .17)]. Both the interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict conditions violated the proposed patterns of indirect effects by having indirect effects though perceptions of public-level conflict and interpersonal-level conflict, rather than just through their respective conflict type. 205

In sum, the conflict frames significantly and repeatedly predicted emotional reactions to news articles (RQ5.5a). Two summary points are important to note for these analyses. First, the conditions had powerful effects on increasing negative emotions. All three of the conflict frame conditions predicted increased feelings of anxiety and aversion compared to the control condition. Interestingly, the magnitudes of the indirect effects were similar for perceptions of interpersonal- level conflict and perceptions of public-level conflict, but the effect sizes for the both conflict frames condition were the strongest in both models. Perceptions of all of the types of incivility provide a strong link to increased anxiety and aversion, meaning that all of the conflict frames increased negative emotions toward politics. Second, the effects of decreasing enthusiasm were much weaker. Enthusiasm, the positive emotion variable, was the only model that included no indirect effect of the interpersonal-level conflict frame through perceptions of public- level conflict. Both the public-level conflict and the both conflict frames conditions predicted decreases in enthusiasm, but much more of the effect was through perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict (magnitude of indirect effects ranged from -0.11 to -.17) than through the perceptions of public-level conflict path (magnitude of indirect effects ranged from -0.04 to -0.04). This is evidence to support the Marcus et al. (2000) finding that enthusiasm works differently than negative types of emotion. Enthusiasm effects were much weaker and worked almost entirely through perceptions that politicians were being rude and impolite. Overall, reading news full of any kind of conflict was likely to increase negative reactions to the events portrayed in the news and, more weakly, decrease feelings of enthusiasm.

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Argument Legitimacy and Conflict Frames A last outcome of interest is argument legitimacy, or a person’s perception that an argument is strong, even if that person disagrees with the position of the argument. Previous research has found that incivility in the news decreases citizens’ perceptions that opposing political arguments have legitimate value (Mutz, 2007). Mutz (2007), however, tested whether a political talk show program could change perceptions of legitimacy, whereas I test whether coverage of political conflict in conventional news has the same effect and whether this effect works through perceptions of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict. To test participants’ perceptions of legitimacy, I created two variables: the first an average of participants’ perceptions of the legitimacy for two arguments made by political figures with the same partisan leaning (legitimacy of likeminded arguments) and a second an average of their perceptions of the legitimacy for two arguments made by political figures with a partisan leaning unlike their own (legitimacy of counter- attitudinal arguments). Like the outcomes above, these two variables were tested by, first, comparing the conflict conditions to the control condition, second, by looking at potential indirect effects of perceptions of incivility. Control v. Conflict Frames I tested whether participants who read a news story where politicians were behaving civilly found the arguments in the message more legitimate than participants who read the news articles that included the conflict frames (RQ5.6a). I ran a series of independent sample t-tests between the control group and each of the conflict frame conditions predicting, first, legitimacy of likeminded arguments and, second, legitimacy of counter-attitudinal arguments. None of the t-tests predicting likeminded legitimacy were significant [control v. interpersonal conflict:

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t(162) = 0.42, p = .67; control v. public conflict: t(165) = 0.46, p = .65; control v. both interpersonal-level and public conflict: t(165) = 1.60, p = .11]. That is, there were no differences between the control and experimental conflict frame conditions in how legitimate participants found likeminded arguments. There were significant differences between the control and experimental conflict frame groups in counter-attitudinal legitimacy. Participants who read the control news reported significantly higher perceptions of counter-attitudinal legitimacy than participants in the interpersonal-level conflict condition [t(162) = 2.00, p < .05] and the public-level conflict condition [t(165) = 2.26, p < .05] and marginally higher counter-attitudinal legitimacy than people in the condition with both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames [t(165) = 1.84, p < .10] (see Figure 31).

Both Conlict Frames Article 4.17+ Control Article 4.69+

Public-Level Conlict Frame Article 4.02* Control Article 4.69*

Interpersonal-Level Conlict Frame 4.10* Control Article 4.69* 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Perceptions of Counter-Attitudinal Argument Legitimacy

Figure 31.Mean perceptions of counter-attitudinal argument legitimacy between control condition and conflict frame conditions. *p < .05; +p < .10

For arguments promoted by likeminded partisans, there were no differences between the control group and any of the conflict frame conditions. For arguments supported by partisans from the other side of the political aisle, however, people in

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the control condition were more likely to find opposing arguments legitimate compared to people who saw the conflict frames (RQ5.6a). Indirect Effect of Perceptions of Incivility For the final investigation into how mediated conflict frames affected individuals who read the news, I tested the indirect effects of the conflict frames on argument legitimacy through perceptions of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict (RQ5.7a). Similarly to the previous outcome variables, I predicted that the conflict frame conditions would predict either perceptions of interpersonal-level or public-level conflict (or both), which would then affect perceptions of legitimacy in likeminded and counter-attitudinal arguments. There were significant indirect effects in the model predicting likeminded legitimacy (see Figure 32). Compared to the control condition, the both conflict frames condition and the public-level conflict condition significantly predicted likeminded legitimacy through perceptions of both interpersonal-level conflict [public-level conflict condition: B = 0.09, SE = 0.05, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.004, .21); both conflict frames condition: B = 0.11, SE = 0.06, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.002, .26)] and public-level conflict [public-level conflict condition: B = -0.06, SE = 0.04, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.18, - .002); both conflict frames condition: B = -0.08, SE = 0.04, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-.22, -.005)]. The interpersonal-level conflict condition had an indirect effect through perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict [B = 0.07, SE = 0.05, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (.01, .19)] but not through perceptions of public-level conflict [B = -0.04, SE = 0.04, 95% bootstrapped confidence interval (-

.15, .01)]. Again, there were significant indirect effects of perceptions of incivility.

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Figure 32. Indirect effects of conflict frame conditions on likeminded legitimacy. Control condition served as a reference category.***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; +p < .10 Unlike the previous models, perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict and perceptions of public-level conflict led to effects that pointed in different directions. Perceptions of public-level conflict led to the hypothesized decrease in perceptions of likeminded legitimacy. However, perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict led to increased perceptions of likeminded legitimacy. That is, people who perceived interpersonal-level conflict in the news articles thought more highly of their own arguments than people who perceived less interpersonal-conflict. Since the public- level conflict and both conflict frames variables had a negative indirect effect through perceptions of public-level conflict and a positive indirect effect through perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict, the overall magnitude of the indirect effect of increased likeminded legitimacy was weakened. This was not the case for the interpersonal-level conflict frame. Reading news articles mentioning name-calling and heated debates (interpersonal-level conflict) did not predict increases in perceptions of public-level conflict. Thus, the sole effect of exposure to an interpersonal-level conflict frame on counter-attitudinal legitimacy was to increase support for one’s own arguments (see Figure 32). Especially for the interpersonal- 210

level conflict condition, people saw conflict and doubled-down on their support for likeminded arguments. This is yet another finding that emphasized the role of partisan thinking in political incivility. Although there were significant indirect effects in predicting likeminded legitimacy, there were no significant indirect effects predicting counter-attitudinal legitimacy, so these results are not reported here. The lack of an indirect effect signals that researchers should explore what in uncivil news messages leads to decreases in counter-attitudinal argument legitimacy if not perceptions of incivility. For instance, it may be that physiological arousal directly led to decreases in counter-attitudinal legitimacy, as Mutz and Reeves (2005) have claimed. Alternatively, people who saw the conflict frames may have felt that counter- attitudinal arguments were further away from their own position on immigration compared to people reading stories covering civil disagreement. This last option would be similar to an attitudinal boomerang effect predicted by social judgment theory (Sherif et al., 1965). In either case, the conflict frames did lead to decreases in counter-attitudinal legitimacy; they just did not lead to the effect through perceptions of incivility. The partisan findings surrounding argument legitimacy also prompts a suggestion for the future. Perhaps perceptions of incivility could predict partisan effects even more strongly if the perceptions of incivility measures were asked about both parties separately, rather than about the debate presented in the news article as a whole. My approach to ask about overall perceptions of incivility in the experimental news articles mirrored previous research (e.g., Mutz, 2007) and was appropriate for studying a news article that showed equal numbers of partisans on the left and right behaving badly. In the future, however, measuring perceptions of

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incivility separately for Democrats and Republicans – even if they both appear in the same news article – may make the effects of conflict frames on argument legitimacy even stronger. Summary of Conflict Frame Effects The results examining differences in favorability toward Congress’ handling of immigration reform, emotional responses to the news, and perceptions of argument legitimacy across conflict frame conditions provided two important take- aways. First, news articles that portrayed Congress as a heated, emotional group of people prone to stalemates and lack of compromise led to significantly lower favorability ratings toward Congress, higher levels of anxiety, and lower levels of counter-attitudinal legitimacy than news articles that described Congress as engaging in civil disagreements. Second, all but one of the effects were mediated by perceptions of political conflict. The public-level conflict and both conflict frames conditions led to attitudes toward Congress, emotional reactions, and perceptions of likeminded and counter- attitudinal legitimacy through perceptions of both interpersonal-and public-level conflict. Interpersonal-level conflict condition led to effects only through perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict in at least three instances: predicting favorability toward Congress, enthusiasm, and likeminded legitimacy. This suggests that (a) perceptions of incivility matter in predicting a range of important outcome variables, and (b) conflict frames that prompt thoughts about both types of incivility may lead to stronger effects , at least if the signs of the indirect effects point in the same direction. All in all, these results showed that framing politics as interpersonal-level, public-level, or mixed interpersonal- and public-level conflicts has important effects on citizens.

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EFFECTS OF SMALL CUES

Thus far, I have discussed the effects of conflict frames – that is, news that portrayed politicians as name-calling, rude, and impolite (interpersonal-level conflict) or as stubborn politicians who refuse to compromise (public-level conflict). The news articles participants read in the “Incivility and Immigration Reform” experiment, however, also varied according to the small cues present in the article. These small cues used single words and short phrases to describe the immigration reform debate as uncivil and nasty or as a legitimate debate. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three small cue conditions: no small cue, incivility small cues, or both incivility and civility small cues. All of these conditions contained uncivil behaviors conveyed via the conflict frames, but the behaviors were interpreted differently across the small cues conditions. Much like the conflict frame condition described at the beginning of this chapter, the small cues were chosen from media coverage of political conflict, as described in Chapter 3. Some of the participants read articles that included incivility cues, or words such as nasty, messy, and uncivil, that interpreted the immigration reform debate in a negative light. Other participants read articles that included a mix of incivility and civility cues, which included the same uncivil words used in the incivility cue condition but added interpretive terms that reframed the debate as civil and important, such as necessary, serious, and legitimate. Finally, other participants read articles that included no small cues interpreting the immigration debate as either civil or uncivil. The small cues were attributed to nonpartisans, rather than widely-known partisan actors. Given the finding from the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment in Chapter 4 that partisanship influenced individuals’ perceptions of incivility, I

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wanted to be sure that the small cues were coming from nonpartisans so that participants would not simply side with a likeminded political actor labeling an event uncivil. For instance, the stimuli referenced a founder of No Labels, a nonpartisan political group, describing the debate as nasty and uncivil, rather than a partisan media host or politician. Below, I follow the same pattern of presenting results that I used with the effects of conflict frames. I, first, look at whether participants adopted the small cues as their own, before turning to the outcome variables of favorability toward Congress, emotional reactions to the article, and argument legitimacy. For the conflict frame conditions, I expected the differences in outcome variables to occur between the control group and each of the conflict frame conditions. For the small cue conditions, however, I wanted to know both whether there were differences between the no small cue condition and the conditions with small cues and whether there were differences between the article that signaled that the immigration debate was uncivil and the article that signaled the debate was uncivil and civil. Thus, I ran ANOVA tests to determine the differences between all of the small cue conditions (no small cue / incivility small cues / both incivility and civility small cues) for each outcome variable. As will become clear very quickly, the effects of small cues were nowhere near as strong as the effects of the conflict frames. Adopting Small Cues

Before testing the normative outcome variables, I investigated whether participants adopted the small cues presented to them in the small cue conditions

(H5.1b). Two ANOVA tests, one predicting perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict [F(2,464) = 0.69, p = .50] and one predicting perceptions of public-level conflict [F(2,464) = 0.02, p = .98] across the small cue conditions, were not significant,

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however. This suggested that participants were more likely adopting the conflict frames when they were responding to the perceptions of incivility questions than adopting the small cues.50 Participants did not adopt the small cues as their own, providing no support for H5.1b. Since the indirect effects research questions I posited were related to the indirect effects of perceptions of public-level and interpersonal-level conflict, and the small cue conditions did not predict adopting the perceptions of incivility, I do not present the indirect effects tests for the small cue conditions in these results

Thus, RQ5.3b, RQ5.5b, and RQ5.7b all are answered with a “no”; there are no indirect effects of the small cues on the outcome variables of interest. Small cues still may have effects on attitudes toward Congress, emotional reactions to the articles, and argument legitimacy, however, and these variables are analyzed below.

Small Cues and Attitudes

Perhaps small cues affect citizens’ attitudes toward Congress, since the small cues judged the behaviors of the politicians involved in the immigration debate

(RQ5.2b). I looked for differences among all of the small cues conditions. A non- significant ANOVA test predicting attitudes toward Congress indicated that there were no differences [F(2,462) = 0.84, p = .43]. Overall, how participants rated Congress’ handling of immigration reform did not depend on the small cues present in a news article.

50I also examined descriptions of the immigration reform debate written by the participants to see if they did (coded 1) or did not (coded 0) adopt the small cues from the articles when describing the immigration debate in their own terms. An analysis of these open ended responses showed that participants did not adopt the small cues based on the small cue conditions [χ2 (3, n = 447) = 3.57, p = .31]. 215

Emotional Reponses to Conflict Frames Small cues did not affect citizens’ attitudes toward Congress. But maybe they influenced the emotional responses citizens had to news messages (RQ5.4b). Citizens could have gotten upset or angry if they realized how tense the immigration reform was getting, for instance. However, there were no differences among the small cues, as indicated by three non-significant ANOVA tests predicting enthusiasm [F(2,459) = 1.14, p = .32], aversion [F(2,462) = 0.55, p = .58], and anxiety [F(2,459) = 0.64, p = .53]. The small cues did not have any effects on emotional reactions to the news articles. Argument Legitimacy and Conflict Frames Finally, I returned to perceptions of argument legitimacy. Do small cues encourage people to think differently about likeminded and opposing arguments

(RQ5.6b)? I ran two ANOVA tests (one predicting likeminded legitimacy and one predicting counter-attitudinal legitimacy) to determine whether this was the case. The ANOVA testing differences across likeminded legitimacy was not significant [F(2,378) = 0.23, p = .79], meaning that the small cues did not influence what people thought about arguments espoused by likeminded partisans. However, the ANOVA testing the differences across counter-attitudinal legitimacy was marginally significant [F(2,378) = 2.94, p < .10].51 Tukey’s post-hoc analyses indicated that the marginal differences emerged between the incivility cue condition and the condition that included both cues (see Figure 33). People who saw only incivility cues to describe the conflicts felt that opposing arguments were marginally weaker than people who read both incivility and civility cues.

51 See Appendix H for information about the statistical tests used to generate the figures presented throughout Chapter 5. 216

7.00

6.00

5.00 b 4.13a,b 4.33 3.84a 4.00

3.00

2.00 Attitudinal Legitimacy Perceptions of Counter- 1.00 No Small Cues Article Incivility Small Cues Civility and Incivility Article Small Cues Article

Figure 33. Mean Perceptions of Counter-Attitudinal Argument Legitimacy between Small Cue Conditions. Note. Matching lowercase letters across the partisan conditions indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .10 level. Lowercase letters that differ across the groups indicate that there is a significant difference at the p < .10 level.52

As these results show, small cues had little effect on citizens. Although reading a news article with both civility and incivility small cues may increase perceptions of counter-attitudinal argument legitimacy compared to reading a news article with only incivility small cues, this relationship was only marginal.

INTERACTION BETWEEN CONFLICT FRAMES AND SMALL CUES

Finally, RQ5.1 asked whether the conflict frames or small cues had stronger effects on citizens. Small cues had nearly no effects on the participants alone, but I also tested interactions between conflict frames and small cues to see if small cues altered the effects of the frames. I ran analyses predicting favorability toward Congress, emotions, and argument legitimacy again, this time including interaction effects between conflict frames and small cues conditions. There were no

52In some of the figures in this dissertation, there are multiple letters listed for a given group. This means that the percentage does not differ from more than one group. For instance, in Figure 33, both the “a” and “b” superscripts are listed for the no small cues article. Thus, the mean perception of counter-attitudinal legitimacy prompted by the no small cues article is statistically equivalent to the mean perception of counter-attitudinal legitimacy prompted by the incivility small cues article (which includes the “a” superscript) and the incivility and civility small cues article (which includes the “b” superscript). 217

interactions between the variables. That is, all of the effects of the conflict frames, as discussed above, and the one marginal effect of small cues were due solely to these experimental conditions and not to an interaction between the two.

DISCUSSION

This chapter tied together media coverage of political conflict (Chapter 3) and citizens’ perceptions of political conflict (Chapter 4), asking the broad question: does news coverage of political conflict affect how citizens perceive and react to that conflict? In short, the answer is yes: the way news covers political conflict encourages citizens to view conflicts as more or less uncivil and these perceptions lead to troubling effects. Media elites could cover discussions in Congress as simple disagreements between Republicans and Democrats, but disagreements that could possibly be resolved in the future (as the control condition did). They could emphasize name-calling and emotional exchanges that take place in Congress (as in the interpersonal-level conflict condition). They could focus on the huge partisan gap between the political parties and their refusal to compromise (as in the public- level conflict condition). Or they could present a mix of the conflict frames. The event, in this case congressional discussion of immigration reform, may be the same, but a conflict frame can substantially affect citizens’ perceptions, attitudes, and emotions toward politics. To understand the full extent of the effects found in this chapter, I, first, tie together the results, then examine differences between interpersonal-level and public-level conflict, and end by emphasizing the power of incivility perceptions. Overview of Results

Given the number of statistical analyses run in this chapter, a brief review of the findings is warranted (see Table 16). The conflict frames had numerous 218

significant effects. Participants adopted the conflict frames as their own. Notably, participants’ perceived more interpersonal-level conflict in each conflict frame condition compared to the control, but only perceived significantly more public- level conflict when there was a public-conflict frame in a news article. The conflict frames, compared to the civil disagreements presented in the control group, also decreased favorability toward Congress, increased feelings of anxiety, and decreased perceptions of legitimacy in counter-attitudinal arguments. Indirectly through perceptions of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict, news that included conflict frames significant decreased favorability toward Congress and feelings of enthusiasm, increased feelings of aversion and anxiety, and both increased and decreased perceptions that likeminded arguments were legitimate, Consistently, the conflict frames led to significant and important effects. However, some of the effects were direct differences with the civil disagreement article (i.e., favorability toward Congress, anxiety, counter-attitudinal legitimacy) and some occurred only indirectly through perceptions of incivility (i.e., enthusiasm, aversion, likeminded legitimacy). Why might this be the case? Perhaps this difference has something to do with being in a complacent, habitual behavior mindset. Enthusiasm and aversion are the emotions most often connected with thoughts of partisan belonging, habitual behaviors, and decreased open-mindedness to other points of view (MacKuen et al., 2010; Marcus et al., 2000; Valentino et al., 2008). Likeminded legitimacy may be similar to enthusiasm and aversion because the questions directly asked citizens to think about arguments on their own side.

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Table 16. Summary of Chapter 5 Results. Interpersonal- Public-Level Both Conflict Level Conflict Conflict Frames

Adopting Conflict Frames

Perceptions of Interpersonal Conflict ++ ++ ++ Perceptions of Public Conflict + ++ ++

Outcomes of Conflict Frames Favorability toward Congress - -- Direct Effect Indirect Interpersonal-Level Conflict ------Perceptions -- -- Indirect Public-Level Conflict Perceptions Enthusiasm Direct Effect Indirect Interpersonal-Level Conflict ------Perceptions -- -- Indirect Public-Level Conflict Perceptions Aversion Direct Effect Indirect Interpersonal-Level Conflict ++ ++ ++ Perceptions Indirect Public-Level Conflict Perceptions ++ ++ ++

Anxiety + ++ Direct Effect Indirect Interpersonal-Level Conflict ++ ++ ++ Perceptions Indirect Public-Level Conflict Perceptions ++ ++ ++

Likeminded Legitimacy Direct Effect Indirect Interpersonal-Level Conflict ++ ++ ++ Perceptions -- -- Indirect Public-Level Conflict Perceptions Counter-Attitudinal Legitimacy - -- Direct Effect Note. ++ is significant positive effect at p < .05; + is marginal positive effect at p < .10; -- is significant negative effect at p < .05; - is marginal negative effect at p < .10. The control condition served as a reference group for the indirect effects. All of the effects are in comparison to the control group.

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The variables on which the conflict frames had direct effects may have involved less habitual thought. For instance, when confronted by counter- attitudinal arguments, participants may have needed to think more deeply about their answers than when shown likeminded arguments. Further, feelings of anxiety often prompt people to want more information about a political issue to better consider the arguments (Marcus et al., 2000), so the feelings may make people think more carefully about their surroundings as well. If this is the case, emotions and questions that involved less thought may have had fewer direct effects because people were not carefully considering the questions they were asked. Thus far, I have only spoken about the implications of exposure to conflict frames and the role perceptions of public-level and interpersonal-level conflict play in influencing important outcomes. So what about small cues? Should researchers studying incivility rule them out? The results here indicated that the conflict frames had much stronger effects than the small cues and that the conflict frames and small cues did not interact, a pattern that contrasted with the results of Shah et al.’s (2010) research. Before claiming that small cues have no effects, however, researchers should explore whether small cues are more influential when a likeminded or counter-attitudinal partisan source is using the small cues. For instance, the finding that elite claims that the media are liberal influence citizens perceptions that the media are biased (e.g., Ladd, 2010; Smith, 2010) may be true, in part, because many elites who claim the media are biased are partisans from whom citizens know they can take their cues. At least in balanced, nonpartisan news, however, the conflict frames are more likely to have effects – and nearly all negative effects – on citizens compared to the small cues.

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Interpersonal-Level versus Public-Level Conflict In every test presented in this project, I have found differences between interpersonal-level and public-level conflict. This last chapter is no exception. Much like in the previous chapter, participants in the “Incivility and Immigration Reform” experiment perceived different types of incivility based on the type of conflict with which they were presented. Further, the public-level conflict condition led to marginally lower favorability ratings toward Congress and marginally higher feelings of anxiety than the control group, neither of which occurred for the interpersonal-level conflict condition. Even though many of the indirect effects that occurred through these perceptions of incivility were more similar between interpersonal-level and public-level conflict than expected, I argue that researchers should keep them separate for three reasons. First, although the directions of the indirect effects for the interpersonal- level conflict condition and the public-level conflict condition were similar in all but the likeminded legitimacy model, the magnitude of the effects often differed. Interpersonal-level conflict perceptions had a stronger effect on decreases in enthusiasm, for instance, compared to perceptions of public-level conflict whereas public-level conflict perceptions had a stronger effect on decreased favorability toward Congress. For this study, the different strengths of the indirect effects were especially important because two of the conflict frame conditions – public-level conflict and both conflict frames – consistently worked through both interpersonal- level conflict perceptions and public-level conflict perceptions. In all but the likeminded legitimacy model, the indirect effect coefficients pointed in the same direction. This meant that, at least in those models with multiple indirect effects that pointed in the same direction, experimental articles with public-level conflict

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and with both of the conflict frames had the strongest effects because there were two ways through which the conflict frames could affect the outcome variables. Second, the strength of the conflict frame may change the way interpersonal- level and public-level conflict work. The interpersonal-level conflict frame had stronger effects in the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment discussed in Chapter 4, for instance, than in did in this chapter. I believe this is because the conflict frames included in the experimental stimuli for the “Incivility and Immigration Reform” study were moderate examples of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict so as to give the small cues as much of an opportunity to affect citizens as possible. Stronger frames may lead to different amounts of perceived interpersonal-level and public-level conflict, which may then have different effects on outcome variables. Indeed, in Chapter 4, the experimental article that included intense interpersonal-level conflict had stronger effects on participants than the other conflict frames and even made them want to avoid news from the same source in the future. Thus, interpersonal-conflict likely has greater effects in stronger versions of the frame than in the more moderate version used in the “Incivility and Immigration Reform” experiment. Finally, in one instance, perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict and interpersonal-level conflict led to opposite effects. Perceptions of interpersonal- level conflict encouraged participants to cling to likeminded arguments while perceptions of public-level conflict led them to think that likeminded arguments were weaker (see Figure 32). The most likely reason for this divergence is that I measured participants’ perceptions of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict for the entire article, not for each partisan side. In other words, I asked participants whether they perceived incivility in the article, which followed previous incivility

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research (e.g., Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005), but I did not ask whether participants thought the Democrats or Republicans were behaving uncivilly. Since the argument legitimacy variables were separated based on partisanship, a measure of partisan incivility perceptions may have more strongly predicted perceptions of legitimacy in the arguments. The difference between the effects of the conflict frames on both likeminded and counter-attitudinal argument legitimacy bears this idea out. There were direct differences between the control condition and some of the conflict conditions, most strongly with the both conflict frames condition, in how counter-attitudinal legitimacy was predicted. This result signals that people may have judged the incivility of a news article largely based on how they judged the opponents’ behaviors. If this is the case, then the connection between counter-attitudinal legitimacy, that is, the strength of the arguments put forward by a partisan’s opponents, and the perceptions of incivility in an article may be more tightly connected. Alternatively, participants’ may not have thought that their side was behaving particularly uncivilly in the news. If this were the case, the connection between partisans’ perceptions of incivility in a news article may not have been tightly connected with the likeminded legitimacy outcome, leading to only indirect effects. Future iterations of this research will break down perceptions of incivility further to test whether partisan judgments occur even when participants are reading news articles with people from both political parties behaving badly. Taken together, these findings suggest that researchers and practitioners need to keep the effects of both interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict in mind. Given that the conflict frames were chosen for this study because they were moderate, not because they were extreme, these effects may be amplified with

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stronger frames. If anything, the consistency of the effects of moderate conflict frames signals the power of media coverage that draws from these perspectives when covering the news. I turn now to discussing the power of these effects in detail. Powerful, and Troubling, Incivility Perceptions Although there were differences in the patterns of effects, there is a clear overarching implication from this study: conflict frames and incivility perceptions substantially affect citizens and usually in a negative way. In fact, I went out of my way to select behaviors that were not at the extremes of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict, and there still were differences between the frames. This is particularly true for the condition with the strongest indirect effects and most consistent influence on participants: news that included both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict. These mixed conflict frames directly led to lower favorability ratings toward Congress, higher levels of anxiety, and lower amounts of perceived legitimacy in counter-attitudinal arguments, and indirectly led to lower levels of enthusiasm and higher levels of aversion often with higher magnitudes than any of the other conflict frame conditions. The power of news that contains mixed conflict frames is important both for news framing research and as evidence the effects documented here may be widespread. First, finding that the condition that included both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames had the most consistent effects validated the move in experimental framing research to test the effects of multiple frames (see, for example, Chong & Druckman, 2007a,b; Druckman et al., 2012). Second, this type of mixed conflict frame was used extensively in media coverage of the political conflicts discussed earlier in this dissertation. Sixty-five percent of the news articles

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analyzed in Chapter 3 included frames that portrayed both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict. In other words, the conflict frame condition that had the strongest effects in the “Incivility and Immigration Reform” study also was the most prevalent type of conflict frame that I found in my content analysis. If the news outlets portray conflict using both conflict frames, such as opinionated news tends to do, the effects of the conflict frames may be amplified. Citizens exposed to news programs that use the conflict frames extensively likely are decreasing their favorability toward political institutions, feeling more negative emotions toward the news, and thinking that counter-attitudinal arguments are illegitimate. This is a troubling scenario because each of these outcomes – attitudinal, emotional, and argumentative – is important to a functioning democracy. Beginning with citizens’ attitudes toward Congress, U.S. citizens already have an incredibly low approval rating of Congress, for instance. As of November 2012, only 18 percent of Americans approved of the job Congress was doing, and that percentage had been at a low of 10 percent only months before (Saad, 2012). Conflict frames, like the ones I’ve presented throughout this project, may be adding to citizens’ discontent with the federal government. The favorability toward Congress finding also suggests a path for future research. Conflict frames decrease favorability toward a political institution, so they may decrease favorability toward less powerful organizations and groups as well. If Herbst’s (2010) claim is correct that politicians use incivility strategically, the finding that exposure to the conflict frames decreases favorability could give partisans reason to use the conflict frames against their opponents. That is, since the conflict frames led to lower favorability ratings of the group involved in the

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conflict (Congress, in this instance), partisans may use conflict frames to negatively influence the attitudes people hold toward other political groups. A hypothetical example can help outline such a scenario. For instance, Rachel Maddow could air a broadcast in which she frames Republicans on the House of Representatives Appropriations committee as making the committee dysfunctional and refusing to compromise. Given the results presented in this chapter, citizens watching the program may think less positively about the committee. Since the attitude questions in the “Incivility and Immigration Reform” study asked only about Congress’ handling of immigration reform, I cannot say for sure whether citizens will react the same way when news messages frame other groups, such as a House committee or a OWS protest. But it is important to look out for instances in which partisans are framing their opposition as uncivil, especially since the results from the content analysis in Chapter 3 showed that partisans consistently used conflict frames and small cues to promote their own political positions. The emotional effects of the conflict frames have slightly more mixed implications but are not encouraging. Two effects – exposure to both conflict frames decreasing enthusiasm and increasing anxiety through perceptions of interpersonal- level and public-level conflict – may not be too worrying on their own. Enthusiasm, for instance, is connected often with habitual, partisan behaviors in which citizens do not consider opposing viewpoints, whereas anxiety is related to more information seeking behaviors (Marcus et al., 2000). Thus, decreasing enthusiasm and increasing anxiety may have some normative benefit. But increased aversion is problematic. Aversion may encourage political participation (Valentino et al, 2011). However, it also prompts partisan responses in which individuals defend their own

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beliefs rather than seeking out new information (MacKuen et al., 2010; Valentino et al., 2008). Moreover, if the conflict frames encourage feelings of anxiety but only in combination with aversion, it is possible that the beneficial outcomes of anxiety, like information-seeking behaviors, may be cancelled out by the anger people feel after reading the conflict frames. Overall, the increase in aversion from exposure to the conflict frames is troubling. The findings for both likeminded and counter-attitudinal legitimacy are even more concerning. The mixed conflict frame condition directly decreased counter- attitudinal legitimacy, meaning that participants who saw Congress behaving badly thought that counter-attitudinal arguments about immigration reform were not strong. Further, since the indirect effect through interpersonal-level conflict perceptions was stronger than the indirect effect through public-level conflict perceptions, the total indirect effects magnitudes indicated that all of the conflict conditions increased likeminded legitimacy. People responded in partisan ways to both likeminded and counter-attitudinal arguments when exposed to the conflict frames. The consistent and powerful negative outcomes of conflict frames should challenge researchers to examine other effects of conflict frames as well. Perhaps conflict frames transmit some information to citizens. Although the intensity of the conflict likely does not provide new facts to citizens, it may transmit the information that an event is an important one to certain groups of people. Thus, examining whether conflict frames heighten agenda-setting effects (e.g., McCombs & Shaw, 1972) could be a sensible next research step. Or perhaps the conflict frames sensationalize politics to the extent that the conflict overrides individuals’ retention

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of political facts. Thus, measuring learning (or lack thereof) from the conflict frames is important as well. Based on the findings presented in this chapter, I contend that the trend of media elites discussing politics using conflict frames is troubling for civic dialogue. Even though the results seem a bit complex at first, the consequences of the findings are clear: first, there are differences between interpersonal-level and public-level conflict, and, second, exposure to these conflict frames have disturbing affects on citizens, since they decrease citizens’ favorability toward Congress, increase their feelings of aversion, and encourage them to think in partisan ways about the strength of arguments. News users are exposed to substantial doses of the conflict frames, particularly mixed conflict frames, which suggests that the effects of conflict frames may be widespread. Journalists need to be aware of the frames they use to describe conflict and politicians should reflect on the behaviors in which they engage to mitigate the negative effects of political conflict on citizens. Limitations Future research should take into account some limitations of the current study. First, some of the outcome variables studied here did not generate sizeable reactions. For instance, the emotion variables ranged from 1 (low emotion) to 5 (high emotion), but the means for enthusiasm, aversion, and anxiety were all well below the midpoint of three. Even with the limited range of participants’ responses, however, I found significant effects. Second, although immigration reform was an ideal topic in many ways, others should replicate this analysis using other topics. Second, the sample was not nationally representative. Mechanical Turk participants, such as those who took part in my study, tend to be more highly educated and more liberal/Democratic than the average United States resident. In

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experimental research, however, the results from studies that used MTurk.com to recruit participants match the results generated with other samples (Berinsky et al., 2012). The experiment in this chapter explored in the causal processes related to mediated political conflict, so the differences between the MTurk.com participants and the average American were not as concerning as they would be in survey research. Finally, more research clarifying the perceptions of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict variables is necessary. It is possible the reason that public-level conflict frames predicted perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict is because the two measures are not adequately distinct. The factor analysis described earlier in this chapter, which found two perceptions of incivility factors, signals that I am on the right track in distinguishing between interpersonal-level and public-level conflict. However, the two perceptions of incivility variables were significantly correlated (Pearson’s r = .49, p < .001). Further, the public-level conflict frame predicted perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict in every model in this study, signaling that researchers should look for more distinct measures to best explicate differences between the public-level and interpersonal-level conflict frames. Even though the measure needs to be validated in future research, the factor analysis and outcome tests presented here found differences in what predicted perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict and perceptions of public-level conflict. Stronger measures may solidify these effects even further. Conclusion This experiment ties together the results from Chapters 3 and 4. Media elites cover political conflict in complex ways. They sometimes frame events as interpersonal-level conflicts, sometimes frame them as public-level conflicts,

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sometimes support the conflicts and other times dismiss them. Citizens, without the aid of media frames, perceive incivility differently depending on the behavior and the partisanship of an uncivil actor. Given the shades of gray involved in perceptions of incivility, it seemed likely that media frames and small cues would influence how citizens perceived a conflict. This experiment provides evidence that this is in fact the case – at least for the conflict frames. When media elites use conflict frames, citizens often follow their lead, particularly when both conflict frames are used in the same news article. And the conflict frames lead to changes in emotions, attitudes, and thoughts about political arguments. Although there surely are instances in which most people agree that incivility is occurring, this research shows that perceptions of incivility can shift with media framing of political events, and these shifts can have real effects on citizens.

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Chapter 6: Instability of Incivility

“Empowered by faith, consistently, prayerfully, we need to find our way back to civility.” --President Barack Obama, 2010

“All of us need to work together, accept differences and bridge gaps. The only way that can be done is by treating each other with the respect and civility we each deserve.” --Texas Governor Rick Perry, 2013

Throughout this dissertation, I’ve quoted elites’ calls to regain civility in politics. These calls have come from prominent Democrats and Republicans, such as

President Barack Obama (“Remarks by the President,” 2010) and Texas Governor

Rick Perry (“Perry on civility,” 2013). Policy institutes dedicated to promoting civility in politics have flourished recently (see, for example, Civility Project, 2013; National Institute for Civil Discourse, 2013). When confronted with examples like the anger of the 2009 health care town hall protests, the deadlock of the debt ceiling debate in 2010, and the more recent partisan skirmish in the Texas State Senate between State Senator Wendy Davis and Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, it seems almost mandatory to agree with these sentiments. Who wouldn’t want a political environment where filibusters were rarely necessary and no one ever called protesters angry mobs? If only getting rid of incivility were that simple. As I have shown throughout this dissertation, incivility is a slippery, shifting concept, not a list of behaviors that everyone, of any political partisanship, can agree to eradicate. Perceptions of incivility arise based on how elites discuss political conflicts and how citizens relate to those conflicts. Take Senator Davis’s filibuster and the eleventh hour turmoil in the Texas legislature. Democratic Senator Davis and her opponent, Republican Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, used conflict frames and small cues to describe the late-night events,

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with Lt. Gov. Dewhurst calling citizens protesting in the Texas Capitol an “unruly mob” (Jones, 2013) and Senator Davis responding by reframing the citizens as “courageously” defending Texas values (Senator Wendy Davis, 2013). The same behaviors can be discussed in myriad ways, and, importantly, these discussions affect citizens. Use of mediated conflict frames is damaging to citizens exposed to the news. Outside of a mediated stage, there may be benefits of political incivility. Minority groups or the minority political party, for instance, may be able to make their voice heard through uncivil acts when they would otherwise be ignored (e.g., Lozano- Reich & Cloud, 2009). Given my data, I cannot speak to whether uncivil behaviors are beneficial or detrimental outside of a mediated context. But I contend that, once conflict is shaped by media elites and shared with citizens through use of conflict frames, the outcomes are troublesome for democracy. Citizens’ increased feelings of aversion, decreased favorability toward Congress’ handling of issues, and partisan reactions to arguments after exposure to mediated conflict frames show that interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames push citizens away from politics. I uncovered these effects by taking a novel approach to incivility. Rather than studying incivility as a stable concept with a set definition, I looked at how media elites framed conflict, asked citizens to share their thoughts about incivility, and found that media coverage influenced individuals’ thoughts about and reactions to political conflict. The results of this approach provided a more complete, and complex, understanding of incivility and its effects on citizens than can be found in previous media effects research. The studies in this dissertation point to the need to research incivility as a two-dimensional concept that is shaped by the media,

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perceived by citizens, and advanced by partisans. Each of these characteristics has powerful implications.

INCIVILITY IS TWO-DIMENSIONAL

When media elites discussed political conflict in the news and when citizens thought of political behaviors, incivility took two forms: one centering on interpersonal-level conflict (e.g., name-calling, obscenity, harsh language, stereotyping, emotional behaviors) and a second centering on public-level conflict (e.g., political deadlock, refusal to compromise, extreme partisan disagreement, dysfunctional government). Examining incivility as a multidimensional concept is important for two reasons. First, it recognizes that incivility is “more than” impoliteness (see, for example, Ben-Porath, 2010; Orwin, 1992; Papacharissi, 2004 Rawls, 1993; Uslaner, 1996, 2000). Although interpersonal respect is an important goal, focusing only on name-calling and interpersonal nastiness misses the citizenship component that also is part of civility’s etymology. Since the word “civility” comes from the Latin words for city and citizen, the term implies that civility is about being a good citizen and acting in the public good, not only about being polite (Davetian, 2009). My research shows that this is the case. Second, only when both types of incivility are recognized can their effects be taken into account. Citizens’ reactions to incivility in the news differ based on the focus on interpersonal-level rather than public-level conflict. Testing only the effects of rude political exchanges, as much mediated incivility research has done (e.g., Fridkin & Kenny, 2011; Mutz 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005), leaves questions unanswered when it comes to the effects of dysfunction at the public level.

Recognizing that there are multiple dimensions of incivility, and finding evidence for these dimensions, helps researchers as they study incivility in the future. 234

These two types of incivility (interpersonal-level and public-level) appeared repeatedly in my research. They were present in the academic theory overviewed in Chapter 2. Many scholars examined the effects of rudeness, nastiness, and name- calling (Brooks & Geer, 2007; Fridkin & Kenney, 2008; Mutz, 2007) and others explored the implications of extreme partisanship, the spread of misinformation, and the lack of compromise among politicians (Bennett, 2010; Entman, 2010; Papacharissi, 2004; Uslaner, 1996, 2000), but none had tested the effects of both. Media elites drew from both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames when describing a range of political events in the news, as shown in Chapter 3. Both of these conflict frames were widespread and were included in nearly three-fourths of all news articles about the political conflicts. Conflict was not portrayed simply as a loss of interpersonal politeness, but also as comprising serious infractions on the rules of public citizenship. The two types of incivility were not simply ivory tower academic thoughts; they also were ideas present in mainstream media coverage. Citizens perceived two distinct conflict frames as well, as shown in both Chapters 4 and 5. They differed slightly from theory in what they thought about as interpersonal-level conflict, seeing campaign-related activities as related to interpersonal-level rather than public-level conflict no matter whether name-calling or misinformation was involved. But they still thought lack of compromise and political stalemates were substantially different from behaviors more closely related to impoliteness. Further, citizens showed in Chapter 4 that they were more accepting of public-level conflict than interpersonal-level conflict. Knowing that citizens’ thoughts about incivility match substantially with researchers’ conceptualizations provides external validity for academic definitions. Moreover, knowing that citizens group campaign activities with interpersonal-conflict is

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helpful for researchers who are interested in building experimental stimuli to test the different effects between interpersonal- and public-level conflicts. If behaviors like misinformation in campaigns are grouped with public-level conflict, even though citizens perceive them to be interpersonal-level conflict, significant differences between types of incivility may not appear. Chapter 5 tied together use of conflict frames in the media and citizens’ judgments of political conflict by finding that citizens’ reactions to incivility varied, again, based on whether they were exposed to an interpersonal-level conflict frame, a public-level conflict frame, or both. Once again, citizens perceived two types of incivility, which suggests that researchers should build on Mutz’s (2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005) measure of incivility perceptions by adding items related to public- level, rather than interpersonal-level, conflict. Further, the conflict frames affected citizens, often in a negative way. As discussed in detail in Chapter 5, exposure to conflict frames, particularly a conflict frame that included both interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict, decreased favorability toward Congress’ handling of immigration reform, feelings of enthusiasm, and perceptions of counter- attitudinal legitimacy, as well as increased feelings of anxiety and aversion. The directional effects of interpersonal- and public-level conflict did not differ often, but the magnitudes of the effects did, suggesting that ignoring differences between the conflict frames may miss nuances in how conflict coverage influences citizens. My findings make it clear that looking at incivility as comprising both interpersonal-and public-level conflict is essential. Uslaner (2000) made a similar argument when discussing civility – which he aligned with interpersonal respect – and comity – which he aligned with broader definition of helpfulness and working together in the U.S. Congress:

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Civility alone, to paraphrase former vice president John Nance Garner, isn't worth a warm bucket of spit. Civility matters because it is part of comity, a more general syndrome of treating others with respect both in language and in deed. (p. 34)

Ignoring the multifaceted nature of incivility allows researchers to only tell half a story. Interpersonal-level conflict has important effects, but understanding the effects of public-level conflict is essential as well. This is especially true given the findings from Chapter 5 in which public-level conflict had different direct effects on citizens’ reactions toward politics than interpersonal-level conflict. Researchers need to keep this distinction in mind moving forward and test the differences between incivility focused on interpersonal-level conflict and incivility centering on public-level conflict, as well as the magnification of the effects that occur when the two frames are combined.

INCIVILITY IS SHAPED BY MEDIA ELITES

If incivility were made up of two-dimensions but media elites only drew from interpersonal-level conflict to describe politics, there would be little reason to test the effects of mediated public-level conflict. However, the “Media Coverage of Incivility” content analysis presented in Chapter 3 showed that this is not the case. Media elites draw upon both interpersonal-level and public-level conflict to frame political conflict for citizens. In this project, I examined news coverage of four political issues (health care town halls, Occupy Wall Street protests, 2011 debt ceiling debate, and 2010 campaign) that included high levels of conflict. In describing these events, media elites used both conflict frames. Further, even in these moments of extremely high-conflict politics, there was not a consensus that the behaviors were or were not uncivil. Instead, there was a struggle in the media as elites described the events as interpersonally impolite or publicly dysfunctional, acceptable or unacceptable for U.S. politics.

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The finding that media elites frame political conflict using both interpersonal-and public-level conflict is not, on its own, a cause for concern for journalists and citizens. The results from the content analysis suggest that news coverage provides news users multiple perspectives on political conflict. Citizen protests – the health care town halls and the OWS protests in this project – were not simply dismissed as yelling mobs of citizens behaving rudely. Particularly when citizen-focused events were captured in images, there were many small cues that suggested the people involved were patriots (e.g., inclusion of American flags). This finding may alleviate some of the fears mentioned in previous research about citizens being portrayed and dismissed as uncivil or dangerous (Boyle et al., 2004; Gitlin, 1977/2003; Young et al., 2010). When the findings of the content analysis are paired with the experimental research described in Chapter 5, however, the results are troublesome for two reasons. First, even though citizen-focused events, such as the town hall debates and the OWS protests, were not described as negatively as politician-focused events, such as the debt ceiling debate and the 2010 campaign, the “Incivility and Immigration Reform” experiment from Chapter 5 showed that the small cues simply didn’t matter much to citizens’ perceptions of incivility. That is, the citizen-focused events were not labeled as negatively as other events, but since they were framed using large amounts of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict, people exposed to the news likely reacted just as negatively. Take the health care town hall debates. More than two-thirds of the coverage of the town halls included small cues suggesting that the people involved in the protests were citizens justified in their anger. Yet only three percent of the news texts did not include a conflict frame and 90 percent of the coverage included both conflict frames. Given the results from the

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“Incivility and Immigration Reform” experiment, it is likely that the mix of interpersonal-level and public-level frames overwhelmed the small cues, encouraged people to perceive high levels of incivility in the news, and increased their negative reactions to the conflict. Second, different news outlets portrayed political conflict in starkly different ways, suggesting that citizens’ perspectives on political incivility also may be shaped by the specific type of news they use. Both television news and opinionated news included large amounts of texts with both interpersonal-level conflict and public- level conflict, whereas print news and non-opinionated news were more likely to present either of these conflict frames alone or no conflict frame at all. As Chapter 5 showed, news with both conflict frames significantly decreased favorability toward Congress, increased feelings of anxiety, and decreased perceptions of the legitimacy of counter-attitudinal arguments. Citizens who pay attention to television news and/or opinionated news are more likely to be exposed to news frames that include both types of conflict coverage than people who read the paper or pay attention to non-opinionated programs, and they may be more negatively influenced by the coverage as well. This provides another example of how media coverage has the ability to shape citizens’ thoughts about incivility and reactions toward politics. Use of conflict frames to describe political events is a choice. Even when media elites were discussing intense political conflict, they did not agree on one true interpretation of the event. Instead, they varied in their use of conflict frames in ways that ultimately affected citizens’ reactions to politics.

INCIVILITY IS PERCEIVED BY CITIZENS

Not only is incivility a concept shaped by elite discussions portrayed in the news, it also is influenced by citizen perceptions. Behaviors defined as uncivil in 239

previous research and the news influenced these perceptions. People perceived incivility in behaviors that exemplified interpersonal- and public-level conflict, such as calling political opponents delusional and refusing to work with them. Yet citizens also perceived incivility in the news when they read articles that disagreed with their partisan lean, as shown in the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment. There were even times when people, particularly younger individuals and people who did not believe that civility is necessary for a strong democracy, perceived incivility but didn’t think it was utterly objectionable. For researchers and citizens, incivility perceptions have critical implications. Researchers need to take perceptions of incivility into account when they study the effects of political conflict. Some scholars have measured incivility perceptions to make sure that their experimental stimuli had the desired effects (e.g., Mutz, 2007). Going no further than conducting such manipulation checks, however, could lead scholars to miss important effects of incivility frames. In my studies, for instance, a number of critical effects of conflict frames – including decreased intent to read counter-attitudinal news (Chapter 4), increased feelings of aversion, and decreased feelings of enthusiasm (Chapter 5) – occurred because of perceptions of incivility. There are a number of reasons why it is important to demonstrate that the conflict frames affect citizens’ political attitudes, emotions, and beliefs indirectly by increasing perceptions of incivility. First, my studies were based on written news texts – and one study was based on moderate types of the news frames (Chapter 5). It is possible that incivility effects are stronger when incivility is televised (as argued by Mutz, 2007) or when the texts include more extreme examples of interpersonal- level conflict and public-level conflict frames. The direct and indirect effects may be

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stronger when videos rather than written stimuli are involved. O’Keefe (2003) and others (Rucker, Preacher, Tormala, & Petty, 2011; Zhao et al., 2010) also have argued that measuring psychological mediation variables will help communication scholars understand how messages are working, or, in this case, how exposure to mediated political conflict frames affects citizens’ thoughts about and emotions toward politics. My research findings remind incivility researchers to keep O’Keefe’s argument in mind when they are designing their studies by taking perceptions of incivility into account. My results also point to significant disagreement about what is “uncivil,” or at least what uncivil behaviors are considered damaging, both in news coverage and in citizens’ perceptions. Individuals, overall, tended to be more accepting of politicians who refuse to compromise than political figures who insult one another. Outside of my research, Shea and Steadman (2010) found similar variance in what people thought was uncivil. Specifically, they discovered that some people thought calling legislators to discuss opinions (16% of their sample) and even participating in nonviolent protests (28% of their sample) should be against hypothetical “civility rules.” Some of these behaviors (e.g., reading counter-attitudinal opinions, contacting government officials, and joining peaceful protests) are not only not mentioned as uncivil in most research, they typically are considered beneficial for public life (e.g., Holyoke, forthcoming; Mondak, Hibbing, Canache, Seligson, & Anderson, 2010; Putnam, 2000). Accepting that incivility is a perception – rather than a stable set of unacceptable behaviors – makes it more complicated to address. Even if academics could decide on a set of behaviors that they considered uncivil and even if every one of these uncivil behaviors were eradicated from political life, it is unlikely that

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citizens’ perceptions of incivility would go away. Citizens’ perceptions need to be changed, not just political behaviors.

INCIVILITY IS ADVANCED BY PARTISANS

Of the aspects of incivility teased out in this dissertation, I saved the most troubling for last: incivility is partisan. Every study presented in my dissertation reinforces this assertion. The content analysis in Chapter 3 showed that media elites use conflict frames in ways that portray their own partisan side as being civil while the other side is uncivil and unacceptable. Both experiments in Chapter 4 showed the importance of partisanship. Citizens were more accepting of behaviors when a likeminded partisan enacted them than when a person from the opposite political party or a person without an explicit party affiliation enacted them. Further, partisans perceived more incivility in counter-attitudinal news. Even in Chapter 5, which included news articles that were as balanced as possible, there were partisan effects in relation to the legitimacy of arguments about immigration. Perceptions of interpersonal-level conflict actually increased perceptions of likeminded argument legitimacy, and news with both conflict frames decreased perceptions of counter-attitudinal legitimacy. The partisan pattern of media coverage means that what at first seemed like a complicated portrayal of many sides of political conflict often was two partisans promoting their own conflict frames. Given that citizens already are more accepting of interpersonal-level and public-level conflict when likeminded partisans enact the behaviors, the partisan signals they get from the news may be doing more harm than good. Citizens take signals from political elites, particularly when those citizens know about politics and know which partisan elites to follow (Zaller, 1992). If citizens watch the news and hear partisans discussing political conflict, those 242

citizens may pick up on likeminded considerations and ignore counter-attitudinal ones. That is, even if they are exposed to more generous descriptions of a political conflict, they may just listen to and believe the description put forward by a likeminded elite. Partisan perceptions of incivility mirror sports fans’ reactions to watching a tough-fought rivalry game. In their article “They Saw a Game,” Hastorf and Cantril (1954) document this effect well. College football rivals Princeton and Dartmouth met one afternoon late in the football season. The fans were treated to a rough football game full of penalties, cheap tactics, and injuries. Most of the penalties in the game went against Dartmouth, but not all of the university students remembered it that way. Princeton students who watched clips of the football game saw Dartmouth’s team make twice as many infractions as Dartmouth’s students saw their own team make. In other words, Princeton students saw one game; Dartmouth students saw another. The same pattern applies to incivility. Citizens believe that their team of likeminded partisans behaves acceptably – it is the other partisan team, and even people not associated with a political party, whose behaviors are objectionable. The democratic implications of this finding are especially disturbing. When researchers ask citizens whether civility is important to U.S. democracy, anywhere from 83 percent (Lukensmeyer, 2013) to 95 (Shea & Steadman, 2010) say yes. Researchers from one of these studies even celebrated the fact that these numbers hold true “regardless of political party affiliation” (Lukensmeyer, 2013). This may be the case when civility is held as an abstract ideal, but my results show that, once specific politicians and behaviors are mentioned, these partisan agreements

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disappear. Even if people think that civility is an important political goal, they believe the fault lies with the other side of the political aisle, not their home team. A comparison to agenda-setting research can drive home the problem with partisan perceptions incivility. When citizens disagree on the most important problems facing the nation, largely due to use of varying news outlets, it may be difficult for government officials to decide what policies to pursue (see, for a discussion of consequences, Jamieson & Cappella, 2008; Stroud, 2011). There may be a similar problem when people disagree about the appropriateness of a range of political behaviors. If partisans can’t agree on the acceptability of the most basic behaviors and processes that underlie a democracy, it is difficult to imagine government running smoothly. Most importantly, researchers, politicians, policy institutes, citizens, and anyone else who calls for civility in politics must take note of this finding. If partisans can’t agree on what incivility actually is – let alone on whether it is occurring – simply reminding people to be “civil” won’t do much to change the behaviors of political actors. We need to push citizens and politicians to think about incivility using something other than a partisan mindset, as I will discuss in more detail later in this chapter.

APPROACHING INCIVILITY IN THE FUTURE

The characteristics of incivility found in my dissertation – that it is two- dimensional, shaped by elites, perceived by citizens, and advanced by partisans – have a number of important implications for researchers, practitioners, and citizens. I turn now to each of these groups with recommendations about how to approach political conflict and incivility in the future.

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Researchers: Theoretical and Methodological Implications

Researchers tend to outline behaviors they consider to be uncivil (Arnett, 2001; Carter, 1998; Darr, 2007, 2011; Papacharissi, 2004; Rawls, 1993; Sinopoli, 1995) and test the effects of these behaviors (Ben-Porath, 2008, 2010; Borah, forthcoming; Brooks, 2010; Brooks & Geer, 2007; Forgette & Morris, 2006; Fridkin & Kenney, 2008; Mutz, 2007; Mutz & Reeves, 2005. Theoretically, my dissertation emphasizes the need to study how media elites frame conflict and what prompts citizens to perceive incivility. Methodologically, I argue that incivility researchers must take both dimensions of incivility into account and should be wary of differences in perceptions when conducting content analyses.

Theoretical Implications: Social Judgment Theory and News Framing

The importance of media frames and perceptions of incivility is hard to overstate given the results of Chapters 4 and 5. Incivility researchers should keep these approaches to incivility in mind when they study the concept in the future, particularly by drawing from social judgment theory (SJT), framing, and other research that takes citizens’ perceptions into account. First, scholars interested in incivility should draw from judgment and perception research. Using SJT (Sherif & Hovland, 1961; Sherif et al., 1965) and its focus on latitudes of acceptance and rejection, I found that people judge individual behaviors in very different ways by accepting a number of political behaviors and rejecting others. The SJT perspective was imperative in learning more about incivility. There are thousands of political behaviors that could be considered uncivil. Politicians could roll their eyes at a journalist, question the factuality of a legislator’s statement on the floor of the House of Representatives, use obscenities, exaggerate in campaign advertisements, raise their voices slightly when answering a

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question, lie to voters about past misconduct, take pledges that require no compromise with the opposing party, call the opposition fascists, or engage in many other behaviors. Rather than testing each individual behavior separately – which would be an insurmountable task – SJT allowed me to think about the number of behaviors that participants found acceptable or objectionable. Since the approach encourages researchers to think of ranges and latitudes, it is a helpful way to think about how citizens may react to any number of political behaviors or issues. For instance, I did not look at the exact behaviors that fell into a participant’s LOA or LOR, but I did see that latitudes of acceptance were larger for likeminded partisans than other political actors. Using SJT to study incivility advanced SJT in two ways. First, as mentioned in Chapter 2, researchers have used SJT to investigate political issues and candidates (Scheufele et al., 2007; Sherif & Hovland, 1961) rather than political behaviors. My research, particularly the “Judging Political Behaviors” experiment, shows that ambiguous political behaviors, like incivility, can be approached in similar ways to ambiguous political issues. People accept some behaviors and reject others, much like they do political issues. Understanding that SJT can apply to behaviors broadens the scope of the theory. Second, very little research has examined what variables affect individuals’ latitudes of acceptance and rejection, as I do here. Early research suggested that a person’s attitude involvement in an issue affected their latitudes (Park, et al., 2007; Reid, 2012; Sherif & Hovland, 1961). I add two more groups of variables that can influence LOAs and LORS: characteristics of the person involved in a message (in this case, partisanship) and characteristics of the message itself (in this case, civil or uncivil behaviors). SJT is a flexible theory that helps researchers understand the range of attitudes citizens hold toward a given issue or

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behavior. Studying the variables that influence latitudes of acceptance and rejection is an under-explored area of research, but my dissertation shows that it is a very practical one. Beyond SJT, it also is imperative that researchers approach incivility from a news framing perspective. As argued earlier in this chapter, media elites shape perceptions of incivility by framing political conflict. Although previous research has investigated conflict frames in the news (e.g., Neuman et al., 1992; Price et al, 1997), my study goes further to look at types of conflict in the news, particularly interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict, and whether these conflicts prompt thoughts of incivility in citizens. Conflict is a broad topic that can include everything from a disagreement with a neighbor to an uprising in Egypt. Examining types of conflict can help break down such a broad topic and help researchers explore whether different types of conflict lead to different effects. Additionally, the complexity present in the media coverage of political conflict, which included both conflict frames and small cues and often a mix of both, supported the push by researchers to complicate framing theory (Chong & Druckman, 2007a,b; Druckman et al., 2012). In only some media formats, particularly print news and/or non-opinionated sources, did single frames and small cues make up a sizable portion of the coverage. As Chapter 5 showed, mixed frames had the most consistent effects on citizens. Thus, it is essential to test the effects of mixed frames in the news. Although I found evidence of the presence of small cues (Shah et al., 2010) in the media, I did not find evidence of their effects. Media elites often described political conflicts as nasty, dysfunctional politics or as justifiable, necessary debate, but these small cues did not have strong effects on citizens. Two future research

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paths can shed light on small cue effects. First, I found that the partisans often used small cues in describing political conflict, and they used the small cues in ways that confirmed their partisan positions. Perhaps, then, testing the effects of partisan use of small cues can amplify the effects of small cues. If citizens judge uncivil behaviors in ways that allow them to be more accepting of partisan behaviors, they may follow small cues about incivility in similar ways: following the small cues used by likeminded partisans and ignoring those made by the other side or by nonpartisans. Second, more research is necessary to test why small cues work sometimes (e.g., Gilovich, 1981; Simon & Jerit, 2007; Shah et al., 2010) but not others, like in my study. It may be that, for conflict frames, it is hard to tease apart the frames and the small cues. The language used to describe the conflict frames may include small cues that I did not take into account. Discussing a heated debate may trigger thoughts about specific behaviors (e.g., emotional debate), for instance, but to some people it may also signal that the debate is uncivil. People may have such strong, and often negative, reactions to mediated portrayals of political conflict, as shown in Chapters 4 and 5, that inclusion of incivility small cues is redundant and inclusion of incivility and civility small cues is not powerful enough to overcome participants’ reactions to even moderate conflict frames. Although more research is necessary to understand small cues, the data so far do not promise strong small cue effects in mediated incivility research. Combining SJT and news framing theory in my dissertation helped advance a mindset in which incivility is a shifting concept that relies on citizens’ perceptions and elite discussion. Future research should continue to draw from both theories when testing the effects of incivility. The partisan findings from this study suggest a third perspective that takes citizen perceptions into account and could build on the

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SJT and framing approach taken here: selective perception. Selective perception approaches argue that people of different partisan leans or people who root for different sports teams often see the world in ways that match their predispositions (Gerber & Huber, 2010; Hastorf & Cantril, 1954; Sherrod, 1971). For example, a person may support gay marriage and that person’s favorite political candidate may not. Rather than voting for another candidate, or voting for that candidate after recognizing the difference in opinion, the citizen may perceive that the candidate’s position is more like his/her own than it actually is. Alternatively, as occurs in the hostile media phenomenon (Gunther, Miller, & Liebhart, 2009; Gunther & Schmitt, 2004; Hansen & Kim, 2011; Vallone et al., 1985), liberals may read a fairly balanced news story and think that it is conservatively biased whereas conservatives can read the same news story and think it is liberally biased. Much like these selective perception approaches predict, partisanship mattered in how elites framed conflict, how citizens perceived conflict, and how citizens thought about politics after reading about conflict. People were more accepting of likeminded political figures than counter-attitudinal ones – even when they were both enacting the same bad behavior. This pattern of findings suggests that partisans perceive behaviors differently depending on whether a political figure is likeminded or not. Citizens even reacted to people who did not have a political affiliation as though they were the same as political opponents. In the future, researchers should explore whether selective perception approaches help to explain the instability of incivility perceptions.

Methodological Implications: Multiple Frames and Careful Content Analyses

Apart from theoretical advances and recommendations, the findings of this research have two methodological implications as well. I have repeated the first 249

recommendation throughout this dissertation: researchers should test the effects of incivility arising from interpersonal-level conflict and incivility arising from public- level conflict when they are studying incivility effects, or at least note which type of incivility they are studying. Incivility researchers need to keep in mind that incivility is not a single set of behaviors but should be tested as construct that can be triggered by different types of conflict frames. The role of partisan perceptions of incivility is especially problematic for researchers conducting content analyses. This leads to my second recommendation: researchers involved in coding incivility in the news must take care to ensure that partisans are not coding in biased ways. If coders are asked to find and categorize the “uncivil” messages in an article, they may think that their own political party is playing by civility rules while the other party is acting terribly. This is even more troublesome if all or most of the coders come from one political party. Researchers coding messages for incivility should think about taking two precautions. First, they can use coders who have a range of partisan beliefs. If both a Republican and a Democrat can agree that a message is uncivil, then the probability that partisan interpretations alter the results is low. Second, scholars can do their best to construct a codebook that does not encourage subjective judgments, as I attempted to do for the content analysis presented in Chapter 3. Instead of asking participants to look for “incivility” in the texts, which may trigger partisan thoughts given the findings of Chapter 4, researchers should ask them to search texts for specific terms like “lack of compromise,” “raised voices,” “spreading rumors,” or a list of insulting terms like

“Nazi.” Although there were partisan differences in how partisans judged the specific political behaviors they saw, the differences occurred when I asked them to

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rate the behaviors as civil or uncivil. Perhaps looking for the presence or absence of behaviors, rather than asking coders to judge the behaviors as “uncivil,” can help coders categorize political messages with more objectivity. In either case, coding for incivility is difficult in light of the findings of this study. Researchers should keep partisanship and perceptions in mind when embarking on a content analysis of uncivil politics. Overall, researchers need to take media frames and citizens’ perceptions into account when studying incivility both by drawing from SJT and news framing theories and by expanding their methods to take different types of incivility and individuals’ partisanships into account. Rather than approaching incivility as a stable concept, they should recognize that perceptions shifts with culture, individual differences, and the descriptions promoted by media elites.

Media Elites: Remember the Power of Conflict

Changes in how conflict is framed need to come from media elites. Perhaps it goes without saying that media elites are drawn to social disorder and conflict among partisans (Bennett, 1996; Gans, 1979/2004) or that partisan elites have strategic reasons to frame their opponents as uncivil and promote likeminded politicians as upstanding citizens (Herbst, 2010). However, both groups need to recognize the effects their framing of political conflict has on citizens. Incivility is mediated. When covering political conflict, the news shows citizens that politicians and politically-active individuals are often rude, unmannered, extreme partisans, who refuse to work together. Journalists must be mindful about hyping this type of conflict. Not every political conflict should be framed as a shouting match between protesters or a breakdown of the legislative system. Framing events in that way has negative effects on the how citizens judge 251

the political system and how they react to news. And at least one finding from my research suggests that too much interpersonal-level conflict in a news story can turn citizens away from returning to a news website, which is a problem for the economic goals of newsroom. Politicians must take responsibility too. If they did not behave badly in the first place, it would be more difficult – though not impossible – for news to hype political conflict. One of my research findings gives partisan elites more reason to frame the other side as uncivil. Compared to news with no conflict frames, news that includes both interpersonal-level conflict and public-level conflict decreases citizens’ favorability toward the way Congress is handling an issue (see Chapter 5). Perhaps if favorability toward a political institution can decrease after exposure to conflict frames, favorability toward other political groups and organizations can decrease as well. If partisans can frame their opponents as engaging in intense interpersonal- or public-level conflict, they may be able to decrease citizens’ favorability toward their opponents, for instance. Although this is not a positive finding for democracy, it is an understandable choice from a strategic, partisan perspective. Therefore, although it would be ideal if partisans refrained from using conflict frames to prompt thoughts of incivility, it is unlikely that partisans will stop framing their team as civil and the other side as uncivil. Journalists, however, should counter the troublesome pattern of partisan conflict frame use by challenging partisans who are attempting to frame their opposition as uncivil. One power of journalists is their ability to question political elites (e.g., Schudson, 1996). In interviews or roundtable discussions, journalists should try to push partisans away from their strategic talking points. If journalists notice that politicians are using the media to promote their own definitions of an

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event, journalists can put politicians’ quotes into context (if they are writing a newspaper article) or ask politicians directly how they would react if it were the other side encouraging conflict rather than their own (if they are on a television program). For instance, if liberal guests are framing Tea Party Republicans as mobs of mindless citizens, a journalist could simply ask the guests to remember their reaction to OWS protesters acting in the same way. Or if conservatives are framing the filibuster of Democratic Texas Senator Wendy Davis as a breakdown of the legislative process, a journalist could ask whether they said the same things about Republican Senator Rand Paul’s filibuster that took place a few weeks prior to Senator Davis’. Even if journalists don’t succeed in getting partisan talking heads to stray from their talking points, asking the questions could encourage newsreaders or viewers at least to think about the behaviors outside of a partisan lens. Partisan and media elites need to recognize that the way they frame political conflict has important – and often detrimental – effects on citizens. Anytime they can break out of these frames could help citizens see political conflict in new ways.

Citizens: Remember Disagreement doesn’t have to be Disagreeable

Citizens do not escape responsibility as part of the processes that influence incivility perceptions. Since so many of the effects of political conflict and conflict frames in the news work through perceptions of political incivility, understanding individual psychology and brainstorming ways to encourage people to think differently about conflict are necessary. A few suggestions could go a long way in decreasing unwarranted and partisan perceptions of incivility. First, it is possible that citizens don’t know they are judging political behaviors in partisan ways. Thus, a simple suggestion would be to educate citizens about partisan incivility judgments. That is, we can tell citizens that individuals 253

usually think the politicians they support are much more civil than the opposition and then encourage citizens to avoid thinking in this way. However, solely asking people to be unbiased has backfired when attempting to alter perceptions of media bias (Stroud, 2011) and individuals’ attitudes toward capital punishment (Lord, Lepper, & Preston, 1984). If incivility perceptions work similarly to the hostile media phenomenon, as argued in Chapter 4, it is possible that this method may not work for incivility either. Telling people that most individuals perceive likeminded partisans as more acceptable, no matter their behavior, may prime people to think about partisanship and make them see partisans as even more acceptable than they did before (see, for discussion of priming, Roskos-Ewoldsen, Roskos-Ewoldsen, & Dillman Carpentier, 2002; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007). Alternatively, citizens should become more comfortable with ideas unlike their own. Instead of dismissing as “uncivil” arguments with which they disagree, as Chapter 4 suggests they do, citizens should remain open-minded to the other side and learn to recognize the difference between unreasoned, impolite, and exaggerated arguments from simple disagreements (e.g., Jamieson & Hardy, 2012). As simple as this sounds, there are quite a few difficulties with this approach as well. People in the U.S. are much less likely than residents of other countries to have political conversations across partisan divides (Mutz, 2006) and may be segregating themselves into likeminded communities (Bishop, 2008; see Abrams & Fiorina, 2012, for a contrasting perspective). It is difficult to become comfortable with opposing arguments – and to see them as disagreements rather than incivility – when people are surrounding themselves with likeminded discussion.

Perhaps there is an easier way to help citizens fight against incivility perceptions: prompting perspective taking. This approach mirrors Hart and Burks’

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(1972) suggestion that individuals become rhetorically sensitive by practicing role taking. It also mirrors a “consider-the-opposite” approach promoted by Lord et al. (1984) who argued that asking people to consider the other side of an issue can encourage them to move away from their predispositions toward that issue. By encouraging citizens to think of their roles in political conflicts, maybe individuals will decide to take a nonpartisan role in judging political behaviors. Journalists can ask partisans in the news to explain how they would react if a different partisan group were engaged in conflict. Encouraging perspective taking among citizens is similar. Teaching citizens to put themselves into the position of the other when they see political conflict may encourage them to think more deeply about why a conflict is occurring, who, if anyone, is actually behaving badly, and whether they would think the same way if a different set of partisan actors were involved. Statements prompting these thoughts could be displayed on web pages, in newspaper sidebars, or in television graphics to encourage citizens to think about a political event in novel ways (see, for example, Manosevitch, 2009). Similar tactics have been used to decrease racial bias (Todd, Bodenhausen, Richeson, & Galinsky, 2011) and to help negotiations end in compromise (Trotschel, Huffmeier, Loschelder, Schwartz, & Gollwitzer, 2011), so the idea holds promise. Simple questions may encourage citizens to think outside the partisan box. For instance, a website prompt could ask citizens to think, if this were the Tea Party instead of OWS, or Senate Democrats instead of House Republicans, would you think the same way about how people are acting? Citizens’ perceptions of incivility, especially their partisan perceptions of incivility, are not easy to change. However, psychological research can provide suggestions about how to prompt citizens to think differently about political

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conflict. Approaching incivility as a perception is a first step in helping citizens perceive political behaviors in nonpartisan ways.

Moving Forward: Is Incivility Seductive?

All of these suggestions for reducing the negative outcomes of incivility in the news avoid one question: are citizens drawn to civility or repelled by it? Throughout my dissertation, I have focused on the relationship between perceptions of incivility and attitudes, emotions, and intended news use behaviors. But what about tracking the way citizens actually engage with conflict frames in the news? Previous studies, including the emotional results presented in Chapter 5, suggest that individuals are more interested in, entertained, and aroused by political incivility than “civil” news (e.g., Brooks & Geer, 2007; Mutz, 2007). Does this interest translate into behaviors? On one hand, people are drawn toward negativity (Meffert et al., 2006), so perhaps they can’t look away from incivility in the news. On the other hand, if incivility leads to aversion, which is connected with lower amounts of information seeking (MacKuen et al., 2010; Valentino et al., 2008), perhaps incivility repels citizens. Given a choice, do citizens read articles that contain interpersonal-level and public-level conflict frames more than articles that do not? Do they “like” news on Facebook, comment on online news articles, or stop channel surfing when conflict frames are present rather than when they are not? The next step in incivility research is for scholars to answer these questions. If conflict frames draw people to them, it will be a hard sell to ask news organizations to turn away from producing news that includes this type of political conflict, no matter the normative problems associated with covering politics using the conflict frames. If, however, researchers find evidence that interpersonal-level conflict, public-level conflict, or both, turn people away from the news (as the 256

“Incivility and Partisan News” experiment suggests), perhaps media organizations slowly will move away from using conflict frames that increase negative emotional reactions to news, decrease favorability toward political institutions, and encourage people to think that opposing arguments are illegitimate.

CONCLUSION

This project makes clear that news coverage of conflict hypes incivility and negatively affects citizens. Media elites shape political conflict using interpersonal- and public-level conflict frames. Citizens perceive both types of conflict, as well, and are influenced by their partisanship when determining whether behaviors are acceptable or not. Finally, and importantly, the coverage of political conflict strongly affects citizens in troublesome ways. Particularly when both types of conflict frames are present in the news, citizens have negative reactions to the news, to political institutions, and to counter-attitudinal arguments. These findings matters for journalists, who must be wary of the detrimental effects of conflict frames and the strategies of partisans who promote their own side of a conflict. They matter for citizens, who must become more accepting of behaviors enacted by the other side – or less accepting of likeminded partisans’ behaviors. And they especially matter for anyone interested in decreasing political incivility, who must recognize that what is “uncivil” to one person may be “civil” to another. Unless media frames, perceptions, and partisanship are taken into account, calling for a “return to civility” may do no more than encourage politics as usual.

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Appendix A: Codebook for Content Analysis of News Texts

The purpose of this content analysis is to analyze media coverage of political conflict. I am interested in three questions. (1) What behaviors/language make it into news coverage of political conflict? (2) How do journalists/people quoted in a news story characterize those behaviors? (3) Who is being framed and who doing is doing the framing?

Overall Directions

a) Any article may contain ALL or NONE of the codes below, or anywhere in between b) Please focus ONLY on the mentions of the political events in question – the health care town halls, Occupy Wall Street Protests, debt ceiling debate in Congress, and the 2010 congressional/gubernatorial elections/campaign advertisements/candidates – and the context around them. For instance, if an article calls Republicans ignorant fascists because they will not support gay marriage, do not code this, but do code segments that talk about Democratic candidates in the 2010 campaign. OR if a section of an article talks about the debt ceiling bill, only code the elements there if it also talks about the debate leading up to it getting passed. c) Please look at both the text, headline, and captions of a news article/transcript d) Unless otherwise noted, please code each category as follows: 0=No, code not mentioned; 1=Yes, code mentioned

OWS articles, we should code anything in the articles discussing Occupy Wall Street, specifically, or protests, the 99 percent movement, or Occupy protests in cities other than New York. When looking at the framing of citizens for codes 18a/b and 19a/b, we should look only for framing of citizens involved in the OWS protests *not* citizens involved in the Tea Party protests.

Section 1: What behaviors/language make it into news coverage of the conflicts? Please note that, unless otherwise noted, any word/phrase should only count for ONE of the codes in section 1below. Any news story, or even sentence within a news text, may include multiple of these codes, but each word itself should only count toward one .

1. Insulting Language/Name Calling: Article includes clear insults/attacking terms used “in reference to a person, group of people, branch of the government, political party, or other organization, or their behaviors, planned behaviors, policies, or views. Affectionate, light- hearted teasing is not included. Rather, name-calling language is characterized by words … that make the subject look foolish, inept, hypocritical, deceitful, or dangerous.”

Please count calling a person a ‘liar’ or its synonyms as a “YES” to this code (Papacharissi, 2004). The label, however, must be directly linked to an individual’s stable personality. Saying that a person is lying, rather than being a “liar” in all situations, about a given situation or misrepresenting the health care bill, etc., rather would count as Misinformation/Exaggeration (code #9).

• Different from partisan extremity (code #11 below) because there isn’t a clear group membership implied by the language

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• The language must be explicit – you should be able to point to the specific word or phrase • Also include mentions of name-calling, personal attacks, and other words/phrases that relate to insults and name-calling

2. Stereotyping: article “associate[s] a person with a group by using labels … (such as) faggot’” (p. 274). Look for derogatory labels that stereotype a person or group. There must be a clear negative connection to a group of people, often based on race, class, sex/gender, religion, etc.

• If there is no, or a very vague, connection to a specific group of people, code as “YES” to #1(Insulting/name-calling) and “NO” to #10. (so, “terrorists” count as #1, but not for #10, since people from any type of ethnicity, gender, race, religion, etc. can be a terrorist) • The term for the group should be clearly negative (ex., "women" alone isn't enough to stereotype, but “feminazis” would count as stereotyping) • Alternatively, the article could directly call a person/group out for stereotyping (that is, calling someone sexist, racist, classist, etc.) or for offending an entire group of people.

**Note. I will combine 1 & 2 into an “Insulting/Stereotyping” variable

3. Obscene Language/Vulgarity: The article includes “obscene language in reference to a person, group of people, branch of the government, political party, or other organization (or their behaviors, planned behaviors, policies, or views). … If the obscene language is used concretely to name-call, this falls under the “name-calling” category.”

• Broadly: hell & damn count; symbols standing in for curse words count; crap; heck • Also count if the article mentions vulgarity specifically, since most news stories cannot use swear words in their stories. For instance, “obscene protest signs”

4. Emotional Language (Sobieraj & Berry, 2011): The article mentions emotions (anger, frustration, etc.) of a person/group, involved in the political conflict.

5. Emotional Displays: Article mentions behaviors that arise from intense emotion, such as raised voices, yelling, interruptions, screaming, ranting, or otherwise “loud” citizens/groups/politicians. “Emotional display is about the form of expression. See “emotional language” for emotional content, although the two will often present concurrently” (Sobieraj & Berry, 2011).

• These behaviors should be clearly stated in the story/transcripts, not implied

**Note. I will combine 4 & 5 into an “Emotion” variable

6. Compromise/bipartisanship (I will combine this two codes, so please capture any mention of compromise, partisanship, political maneuvers, etc. in one of the following two codes) a. Lack of compromise or cooperation: the article mentions the presence of gridlock in legislatures and/or government, lack of bipartisanship/working together, or

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breaking legislative norms in ways that slow down the legislative process, like filibustering, reconciliation, adding unrelated amendments to legislation, etc. b. Presence of compromise: the article mentions that people are trying to work together, bridge party lines, come to a consensus

7. Misinformation/Exaggeration: article mentions that people/politician/groups are lying, exaggerating, distorting the debate in a way that “misrepresents or obscures the truth.”

• If a person/group is directly called a liar, hypocrite, etc., rather than spreading misinformation, lying in relation to a specific issue, etc., count as “YES” for code #1 (Insulting Language/Name-calling) and “NO” for #9 because the article is characterizing a person as being a bad person to the core rather than participating in misleading other people in a specific instance. • Do NOT code whether arguments themselves seem like lies, only whether the article mentions exaggeration, rumors, distorting facts, etc. For instance, DO NOT code a mention of “death panels” as “YES” unless the article or a person in the article directly states that people talking about death panels are misrepresenting the bill.

8. Ideological Extremity: article makes a reference to the extreme views of particular groups. “The reference here is to extremist language used to critically describe a person, group of people, branch of the government, political party, or other organization or their behaviors, planned behaviors, policies, or views. Usually the descriptive language will be used as an implicit slur rather than as simple description.”

• This is different than name-calling/insulting language above because it must be calling a group or political party an extremist group. That is, this is less about calling a group crazy and more about generalizing that all members of a group are extreme in their beliefs. • Should be able to orient on left/right spectrum. If this exists, don’t code the same thing as name-calling or stereotyping. • Also could be a mention of extremism or ideologues explicitly

9. Pulling the strings: article mentions the influence of big money, big business, political groups in the health care town halls/2010 election/OWS/debt ceiling debate. This includes mentions of astroturf campaigning AND the influence of money in election/legislation. Note that a “YES” code should be more than a mention of campaign spending or campaign finance; the article should make clear that powerful groups and/or money is being used to influence the outcome citizens, elections, politicians.

Section 2: Characterization of conflict (small cues) For the codes in this section, please look for how the health care town halls/OWS protests/debt ceiling debate/2010 congressional/gubernatorial elections are characterized. That is, are they described as acceptable or unacceptable behaviors?

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Unless otherwise noted, please code each word/phrase as “YES” in no more than ONE of the codes between #10 and #11 below, though each news story/paragraph/sentence may contain multiple of the codes below.

This section is distinct from Section 1 above. Unless otherwise mentioned, if a word/phrase was coded as “YES” to one of the categories above (codes 1 through 10), it may also (but not always) be coded as “YES” to one of the codes between #10 and #11 below.

10. Uncivil Characterization: the article characterizes the health care town halls, OWS, 2010 election campaign/candidates, or politicians involved in the debt ceiling debates in a negative light/as unacceptable behaviors. The examples below offer some terms to watch out for:

10a. Disrespect/Crossing the Line: The article characterizes the health care town halls, OWS, 2010 election campaign/candidates, or politicians involved in the debt ceiling debates by using terms related to incivility, disrespect, or crossing an invisible line of acceptability. • such as “over the line,” “uncivil,” “cheap shot,” “offensive,” “dirty,” “ugly,” “bad taste,” “appalling,” “vile,” “rude,” “indecorous,” “disrespectful,” “extreme”

10b. Dysfunctional Process/Dysfunctional Debate: article characterizes the health care town halls, OWS, 2010 election campaign/candidates, or politicians involved in the debt ceiling debates by using terms signaling that the political process or political debate/discourse is dysfunctional and not working • Such as “dysfunctional,” “stalemate,” “messy,” “deadlock,” “contentious,” “confrontational,” “squabbles,” “circus,” “spectacle,” “divisive,” “chaos”

10c. Threats to government: the article characterizes the health care town halls, OWS, 2010 election campaign/candidates, or politicians involved in the debt ceiling debates by claiming that people/group are treasonous, threatening to overthrow the government, bringing down United States democracy, unduly influencing elections, threatening the governments of friendly nations. • Terms such as “dangerous,” “un-American,” threatening a “revolution”

10d. Any other uncivil characterization: Any other mention that the behavior is uncivil/unacceptable not captured in the examples above. For instance: • the words used to describe the behaviors themselves may have a negative connotation, as long as the context around the terms does not contradict a negative connotation (ex. shouting, anger) • The article uses negative terms that do not fit cleanly into the above categories (ex. “lowering of the rhetoric,” “toxic,” “torrid,” “negative,” “raucous,” “crisis,” “mean-spiritedness,” “showdown)

11. Civil Characterization: the article characterizes the health care town halls, OWS, 2010 election campaign/candidates, or politicians involved in the debt ceiling debates in a positive light/as acceptable behaviors. The examples below offer some terms to watch out for:

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11a. Respectful: article characterizes the health care town halls, OWS, 2010 election campaign/candidates, or politicians involved in the debt ceiling debates by mentioning that the conflict is respectful • Terms such as “respectful” or “civil” of “friendly” or “good manners” • Note that these terms should be used to characterize what the conflict is, NOT to say that the conflict “should be civil” or that people are “calling for respectful discourse” (these would count as “YES” for #10 above)

11b. Passionate debate: article characterizes the health care town halls, OWS, 2010 election campaign/candidates, or politicians involved in the debt ceiling debates as passionate, substantive debate, even if not particularly respectful • Terms such as “speaking out,” “passions/passionate,” “legitimate,” “substantive,” “dialogue,” “justifiable,” or emphasizing “freedom of speech”

11c. Displaying Patriotism/Good Citizen: article characterizes a person/group for mentioning their “patriotism,” being “real Americans,” being a “good citizen”

11d. Any other civil characterization: Any other mention that a behavior is civil/acceptable not captured in the examples above. For instance: • The words used to describe the behaviors themselves may have a positive connotation, as long as the context around the terms does not contradict a positive connotation (ex., debate, conversation)

Section 4: How are elites framing the conflicts? In Section 4, please look for statements that describe the conflicts (as coded in sections 1 & 2) and code them based on who made the comments (or who a host/journalists said made the comment). The definitions of Democrats/Liberals and Republicans/Liberals are as follows:

Democrats/liberals include clearly partisan pundits (Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann), newspaper Op-Ed writers (if they are listed and have a clear political lean to the left), politicians like Obama and Pelosi, spokespeople from the Democratic Party/DCCC/DNC, spokespeople from political interest groups that traditionally lean liberal (labor unions, MoveOn.org), and explicit mentions of “liberals” or “Democrats” or “the left” in the article, etc. Please do not code statements clearly made by citizens.

Republicans/conservatives include clearly partisan pundits like Rush Limbaugh and Hannity and O’Reilly, newspaper Op-Ed writers (if they are listed and have a clear political lean to the right), politicians like John Boehner and Sarah Palin, spokespeople from the Republican Party/NRCC/DNC, spokespeople from political interest groups that traditionally lean conservative (religious right, American Policy Center), and explicit mentions of “conservatives,” “Republicans,” “the right” or members of the “Tea Party" in the article, etc. Please do not code statements clearly made by citizens.

12. Based on what you noted in codes 1 through 16, did any Democrat/Liberal…

12a. at least one time, discuss as uncivil/criticize/insult the citizen participants of the [health care town hall protests/citizens participating in the campaign/citizens critiquing the debt ceiling deal/citizens participating in the OWS protests] at least one time.

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12b. at least one time, discuss as civil/support/praise the citizen participants of the [health care town hall protests/citizens participating in the campaign/citizens critiquing the debt ceiling debate/citizens participating in the OWS protests] at least one time.

12c. at least one time, discuss as uncivil /criticize/insult any Republican/s in relation to the [health care town hall protests/OWS protests/their behavior in the 2010 campaign/their behavior in the debt ceiling deal]

12d. at least one time, discuss as civil /support/praise any Republican/s in relation to the [health care town hall protests/OWS protests/their behavior in the 2010 campaign/their behavior in the debt ceiling deal]

12e. at least one time, discuss as uncivil /criticize/insult any Democrat/s in relation to the [health care town hall protests/OWS protests/their behavior in the 2010 campaign/their behavior in the debt ceiling deal]

12f. at least one time, discuss as civil /support/praise any Democrat/s in relation to the health care town hall protests [OWS protests/their behavior in the 2010 campaign/their behavior in the debt ceiling deal]

13. Based on what you noted in codes 1 through 16, did any Republican/Conservative…

13a. at least one time, discuss as uncivil/criticize/insult the citizen participants of the [health care town hall protests/citizens participating in the campaign/citizens critiquing the debt ceiling deal/citizens participating in the OWS protests] at least one time.

13b. at least one time, discuss as civil/support/praise the citizen participants of the [health care town hall protests/citizens participating in the campaign/citizens critiquing the debt ceiling debate/citizens participating in the OWS protests] at least one time.

13c. at least one time, discuss as uncivil /criticize/insult any Republican/s in relation to the [health care town hall protests/OWS protests/their behavior in the 2010 campaign/their behavior in the debt ceiling deal]

13d. at least one time, discuss as civil /support/praise any Republican/s in relation to the [health care town hall protests/OWS protests/their behavior in the 2010 campaign/their behavior in the debt ceiling deal]

13e. at least one time, discuss as uncivil /criticize/insult any Democrat/s in relation to the [health care town hall protests/OWS protests/their behavior in the 2010 campaign/their behavior in the debt ceiling deal]

13f. at least one time, discuss as civil /support/praise any Democrat/s in relation to the health care town hall protests [OWS protests/their behavior in the 2010 campaign/their behavior in the debt ceiling deal]

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Appendix B: Codebook for Content Analysis of News Photos

The purpose of this content analysis is to analyze media coverage of political conflict as portrayed in images.

Overall Directions

a) Please note that any article may contain ALL or NONE of the codes below, or anywhere in between b) Please look at both the image and captions of a photo (don’t worry about the headline because it is the same for every photo in a gallery) c) Unless otherwise noted, please code each category as follows: 0=No, code not present 1=Yes, code present

Type of Conflict Portrayed

1. Insulting Language/Name Calling/Stereotyping: Photo or caption includes clear insults/attacking terms used “in reference to a person, group of people, branch of the government, political party, or other organization, or their behaviors, planned behaviors, policies, or views. Affectionate, light-hearted teasing is not included. Rather, name-calling language is characterized by words … that make the subject look foolish, inept, hypocritical, deceitful, or dangerous.”

Also includes stereotyping language and terms such as “racist,” “sexist,” etc.

Please count calling a person a ‘liar’ or its synonyms as a “YES” to this code (Papacharissi, 2004). The label, however, must be directly linked to an individual’s stable personality. Saying that a person is “lying,” rather than being a “liar” in all situations, about a given situation or misrepresenting the health care bill, etc., rather would count as Misinformation/Exaggeration (code #9).

Note. This may often be present in protest signs or the caption

Example: Protest sign that reads “Not being against capitalism is racist”

2. Unclean/Dirty: Photo or caption mentions/shows trash, cluttered tent cities, sanitation crews, or other suggestions that people are dirty/unclean.

3. Obscene Language/Vulgarity: The photo or caption includes “obscene language in reference to a person, group of people, branch of the government, political party, or other organization (or their behaviors, planned behaviors, policies, or views). … If the obscene language is used concretely to name-call, this falls under the “name-calling” category.”

Broadly: hell & damn count; symbols standing in for curse words count; crap; heck

Note. This may be present in protest signs or the caption

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4. Emotional Language (Sobieraj & Berry, 2011): The image/caption mentions the emotions of a person/group, involved in the political conflict.

Terms such as “anger,” “frustration,” “heated,” “upset” used in protest signs or in the caption

5. No Compromise/Bipartisanship: Image depicts/caption mentions people of opposing political parties disagreeing, not working together, yelling at each other, etc.

6. Misinformation/Exaggeration: Image or caption includes mentions that people/politician/groups are lying, exaggerating, distorting the debate in a way that “misrepresents or obscures the truth.”

If a person/group is directly labeled a “liar,” “hypocrite,” etc., rather than spreading misinformation, lying in relation to a specific issue, etc., count as “YES” for code #4 (Insulting Language/Name-calling) and “NO” for #14 because the article is characterizing a person as being a bad person to the core rather than participating in misleading other people in a specific instance.

Example: a sign reads “They are lying to us!”

7. Ideological Extremity: Image/caption characterizes certain groups as extreme. Should be able to orient on left/right spectrum. If this exists, don’t code the same thing as name-calling or stereotyping. Also could be a mention of extremism or ideologues explicitly

Examples: right-wing, left-wing, liberal or conservative (meant in demeaning way), Socialist, Fascist, Communist, ideologues

Note. This could be on protest signs or in caption

8. Threatening Rights: Image or caption claims that someone is threatening a person’s rights/the Constitution/ democracy/ etc.

Example: caption reads “You are trampling on our Constitution!”

Characterization of Conflict

9. Patriotic: Image includes American flag, red/white/blue, Uncle Sam, other “American” symbols OR the caption/signs mention free speech, citizenship, civil rights, equal rights

10. Positive Emotional Displays: The image includes people smiling, kissing, laughing or another clear emotion that signals enjoyment, clapping counts

11. Other Supportive/Civil Cue: Signs or captions explicitly characterize the conflict as positive, helpful; NOT just a positive image, has to be a positive term/sign/caption

Example: a sign that says “The 99 percent is a beautiful thing”

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12. Revolution/Threats to Government: Image/caption includes claims that people/group are treasonous, threatening to overthrow the government, bringing down United States democracy, unduly influencing elections, threatening the governments of friendly nations. This includes mentions of “Revolution”

13. Shadows/Masked People: Image shows people in masks, has sharp shadows, makes people look threatening

14. Negative Emotional Displays: The image includes people that are displaying strong emotional behaviors - such as raised voices, yelling, screaming, or otherwise “loud” citizens/groups/politicians. “Emotional display is about the form of expression. See “emotional language” for emotional content, although the two will often present concurrently” (Sobieraj & Berry, 2011).

Note that a person may look like s/he is talking or singing, but may be yelling, or his/her mouth is open wide. Please still count this as emotional displays

15. Other Uncivil Cue: Signs or captions explicitly characterize the conflict as negative, dangerous

NOT just a negative image, has to be a negative term/sign/caption (ex. disruptive, disorganized, etc.)

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Appendix C: Statistical Tests from Chapter 3

This appendix includes the cross-tabulation tables used for the χ2 analyses presented in Chapter 3. The figures presented in Chapter 3 were produced using these tables.

Table C.1. Percentage of texts with (or without) conflict frames that include (or do not include) small cues. No Conflict Interpersonal-Level Public-Level Both Conflict Frame Conflict Frame Conflict Frame Frames Total 70%a 28%b 22%b 2%c 14% No Small Cue (19) (11) (4) (3) (37) 26%a 28%a 8%a 32%a 32% Incivility Small Cues (7) (11) (8) (56) (82) 4%a 44%b 33%b 66%c 54% Both Small Cues (1) (17) (6) (114) (138) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Total (27) (39) (18) (173) (257) Notes. N in parentheses. Matching lowercase letters across the conflict frames groups indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at the p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(6, n = 257) = 104.82, p < .001.

Table C.2. Percentage of texts for each political event with (or without) conflict frames. Town Halls Occupy Wall Street 2010 Campaign Debt Ceiling Total 3%a 17%b 3%a 19%b 11% No Conflict Frame (2) (12) (2) (13) (29) Interpersonal-Level 3%a 43%b 16%c 6%a,c 17% Conflict Frame (2) (30) (11) (4) (47) Public-Level 3%a 4%a 6%a,b 16%b 7% Conflict Frame (2) (3) (4) (11) (20) Both Conflict 90%a 36%b 76%c 60%d 65% Frames (55) (25) (53) (42) (175) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Total (61) (70) (70) (70) (257) Notes. N in parentheses. Matching lowercase letters within each type of conflict frame indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at a p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(9, n = 271) = 78.66, p < .001.

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Table C.3. Percentage of texts for each political event with (or without) small cues. Occupy Wall Town Halls Street 2010 Campaign Debt Ceiling Total 5%a 33%b 9%a 12%a 14% No Small Cue (3) (20) (6) (8) (37) 13%a 10%a 54%b 46%b 32% Incivility Small Cues (8) (6) (37) (31) (82) 82%a 57%b 37%c 43%b,c 54% Both Small Cues (50) (34) (25) (29) (138) 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Total (61) (60) (68) (68) (257) Notes. N in parentheses. Matching lowercase letters within each type of small cue indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at a p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(6, n = 257) = 65.46, p < .001.

Table C.4. Percentage of texts for media format with (or without) conflict frames. Print Television Total 17%a 2%b 11% No Conflict Frame (27) (2) (29) Interpersonal-Level Conflict 23%a 10%b 17% Frame (36) (11) (47) 10%a 3%b 7% Public-Level Conflict Frame (16) (4) (20) 49%a 85%b 65% Both Conflict Frames (76) (99) (175) 100% 100% 100% Total (155) (116) (271) Notes. N in parentheses. Matching lowercase letters within each type of conflict frame indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at a p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(3, n = 271) = 40.29, p < .001.

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Table C.5. Percentage of texts for each media format with (or without) small cues. Print Television Total 5%a 33%b 14% No Small Cue (3) (20) (37) 13%a 10%b 32% Incivility Small Cues (8) (6) (82) 82%a 57%b 54% Both Small Cues (50) (34) (138) 100% 100% 100% Total (61) (60) (257) Notes. N in parentheses. Matching lowercase letters within each type of small cue indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at a p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(2, n = 257) = 35.073, p < .001.

Table C.6. Percentage of images for different events with (or without) conflict frames. Politician- Citizen- Focused Event Focused Event Total 82%a 33%b 53% No Conflict Frame (22) (13) (35) Interpersonal-Level Conflict 19%a 41%b 32% Frame (5) (16) (21) 0%a 26%b 15% Both Conflict Frames (0) (10) (10) 100% 100% 100% Total (27) (39) (66) Notes. N in parentheses. Matching lowercase letters within each type of conflict indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at a p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(2, n = 66) = 16.44, p < .001.

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Table C.7. Percentage of images for different events with (or without) small cues. Politician- Citizen- Focused Event Focused Event Total 19%a 17%a 17% No Small Cue (5) (7) (12) 59%a 31%b 42% Incivility Small Cues (16) (13) (29) 15%a 21%a 19% Civility Small Cues (4) (9) (13) 7%a 31%b 22% Incivility and Civility Small Cues (27) (13) (15) 100% 100% 100% Total (27) (42) (69) Notes. N in parentheses. Matching lowercase letters within each type of conflict indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at a p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(3, n = 69) = 7.74, p < .10.

Table C.8. Percentage of texts for opinionated or non-opinionated news with (or without) conflict frames. Non-Opinionated Opinionated News News Total 16%a 3%b 11% No Conflict Frame (26) (2) (29) Interpersonal-Level Conflict 27%a 3%b 17% Frame (44) (3) (47) 10%a 4%a 7% Public-Level Conflict Frame (16) (4) (20) 48%a 91%b 65% Both Conflict Frames (80) (95) (175) 100% 100% 100% Total (166) (105) (271) Notes. N in parentheses. Matching lowercase letters within each type of conflict frame indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at a p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(3, n = 271) = 51.37, p < .001.

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Table C.9. Percentage of texts for opinionated or non-opinionated news with (or without) small cues. Non-Opinionated Opinionated News News Total 20%a 6%b 14% No Small Cue (31) (6) (37) 43%a 16%b 32% Incivility Small Cues (66) (16) (82) 37%a 78%b 54% Incivility and Civility Small Cues (58) (80) (138) 100% 100% 100% Total (155) (102) (257) Notes. N in parentheses. Matching lowercase letters within each type of small cue indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at a p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(2, n = 257) = 41.73, p < .001.

Table C.10. Percentage of partisan news texts with (or without) partisans framing the conflicts. Non-Opinionated Left-Leaning Right-Leaning News News News Total 51%a 20%b 10%b 37% No Partisan Framing (85) (11) (5) (101) Only Left-Leaning Partisans 15%a,b 23%b 8%a 16% Framing (25) (13) (4) (42) Only Right-Leaning Partisans 8%a 4%a 14%a 9% Framing (14) (2) (7) (23) Both Left-and Right-Leaning 25%a 54%b 67%b 39% Partisans Framing (42) (30) (33) (105) 100% 100% 100% 100% Total (166) (56) (49) (271) Notes. N in parentheses. Matching lowercase letters within each type of partisan framing indicate that there is no significant difference between the groups at a p < .05 level. Pearson χ2(6, n = 271) = 51.63, p < .001. 2 cells (16.7%) have an expected count less than 5.

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Appendix D: Stimuli for “Judging Political Behaviors” Experiment

Nonpartisan (For Nonpartisan Condition) Interpersonal-Level Conflict 1. Partisan criticism of new Congressional legislation has been getting louder and more inflammatory. 2. A politician said that lawmakers of the opposing party are delusional. 3. During a recent episode of a cable news show, the host shouted down his guest from the opposing political party and interrupted him many times. 4. The host of a partisan political news show recently said, "damn the political opposition." 5. An advisor to a political candidate said that it would be embarrassing to the state if his opponent became a U.S. senator. 6. Politicians started a heated exchange with members of the opposing party on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. 7. Several members of Congress from one political party say their opponents are wrong on most political issues. 8. A Senate candidate ran a negative campaign against his opponent. 9. On her television program, a partisan cable news pundit had a polite exchange with her guest from the opposing political party. 10. Members of Congress from one political party had a respectful discussion about new policies with Congress members from the opposing political party. 11. During an official campaign debate, a House of Representatives candidate asked her opponent a number of questions.

Both Interpersonal-Level and Public-Level Conflict 12. A partisan news host compared politicians from the opposing political party to Hitler and the Nazis. 13. A partisan television show host said that extremism from members of the opposing political party has taken over the U.S. Congress.

Public-Level Conflict 14. Interest groups, super PACs and other powerful political groups have sponsored a sophisticated, shadowy campaign against a recent Congressional legislative effort led by their opponents. 15. A candidate’s Senate campaign aired phony television ads using paid out-of-state actors to spread rumors about his political opponent. 16. Members of the House of Representatives don’t believe they need to compromise with members of the political party they oppose.

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17. Many members of Congress will not pass a bill that is supported by their opponents, leading to deadlock in the House of Representatives. 18. A partisan host for a cable news program is encouraging likeminded politicians in Congress to go at it alone and pass legislation supported only by members of their own political party. 19. A fact-checking segment on a political news program found that ads produced by a recent political campaign were misleading. 20. A U.S. Senator said that there are some reasonable, moderate politicians from the opposing party in Congress. 21. A fact-checking organization found that an advertisement from a recent political campaign provided truthful information. 22. Most likely, a new bill will pass because members of both political parties are working together to draft a compromise that could gain bipartisan support. 23. Partisan political groups that support one political party are accepting money from unknown foreign investors. 24. According to a recent news report, the politicians in Congress have shown their extreme ideological purity by voting along party lines.

Liberal/Democratic (For Likeminded / Counter-Attitudinal Conditions) Interpersonal-Level Conflict 1. Democratic criticism of new Republican legislation has been getting louder and more inflammatory. 2. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democratic politician from Florida, said that the Republicans are delusional. 3. During a recent episode of The Ed Schultz Show on MSNBC, the liberal host shouted down his Republican guest and interrupted him many times. 4. Lawrence O’Donnell from MSNBC recently said, "damn the Republicans." 5. An advisor to Sherrod Brown (D-OH) said that it would be embarrassing to the state if his Republican opponent became a U.S. senator. 6. Democratic politicians started a heated exchange with Republicans on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. 7. U.S. Representative Shelia Jackson Lee (D-TX) and her Democratic colleagues say that Republicans are wrong on most political issues. 8. Dick Durbin, a Democratic Senate candidate from Illinois, ran a negative campaign against his Republican opponent. 9. On her television program, liberal pundit Rachel Maddow had a polite exchange with her Republican guest. 10. Democrats had a respectful discussion about new policies with Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) and other Republicans. 11. During an official campaign debate, Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) asked her Republican opponent a number of questions. 273

Both Interpersonal-Level and Public-Level Conflict 12. MSNBC talk show host Ed Schultz compared John Boehner and the Republicans to Hitler and the Nazis. 13. MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow said that right-wing extremism has taken over the U.S. Congress.

Public-Level Conflict 14. Unions, progressive super PACs, and other powerful Democratic groups have sponsored a sophisticated, shadowy campaign against a recent Republican legislative effort. 15. Sherrod Brown’s (D-OH) Senate campaign aired phony television ads using paid out-of-state actors to spread rumors about his Republican opponent. 16. Shelia Jackson Lee (D-TX) and other Democrats in the House of Representatives don’t believe they need to compromise with Republicans. 17. Democrats will not pass a bill that is supported by Republicans, leading to deadlock in the House of Representatives. 18. Lawrence O’Donnell, a liberal talk show host on MNSBC, is encouraging Democrats to go at it alone and pass Democrats-only legislation. 19. A fact-checking segment on a political news program found that ads produced by Democrat Tammy Duckworth’s political campaign were misleading. 20. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said that there are some reasonable, moderate Republicans in Congress. 21. A fact-checking organization found that an advertisement from Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s political campaign provided truthful information. 22. Most likely, a new bill will pass in the Senate because a group of Democrats is working with Republicans to draft a compromise that could gain bipartisan support. 23. Democracy for America and other partisan political groups that support the Democratic Party are accepting money from unknown foreign investors. 24. According to a recent news report, the Democrats in Congress have shown their extreme ideological purity by voting along party lines.

Conservative/Republican (For Likeminded / Counter-Attitudinal Conditions) Interpersonal-Level Conflict 1. Republican criticism of new Democratic legislation has been getting louder and more inflammatory. 2. Nikki Haley, a Republican politician from South Carolina, said that Democrats are delusional. 274

3. During a recent episode of The Sean Hannity Show on Fox News, the conservative host shouted down his Democratic guest and interrupted him many times. 4. Bill O’Reilly from Fox News recently said, "damn the Democrats." 5. An advisor to Rob Portman (R-OH) said that it would be embarrassing to the state if his Democratic opponent became a U.S. senator. 6. Republican politicians started a heated exchange with Democrats on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. 7. U.S. Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and her Republican colleagues say that Democrats are wrong on most political issues. 8. Mark Kirk, a Republican Senate candidate from Illinois, ran a negative campaign against his Democratic opponent. 9. On her television program, conservative pundit Greta Van Susteren had a polite exchange with her Democratic guest. 10. Republicans had a respectful discussion about new policies with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and other Democrats. 11. During an official campaign debate, Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) asked her Democratic opponent a number of questions.

Both Interpersonal-Level and Public-Level Conflict 12. Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity compared Harry Reid and the Democrats to Hitler and the Nazis. 13. Fox News talk show host Greta Van Susteren said that left-wing extremism has taken over the U.S. Congress.

Public-Level Conflict 14. The Chamber of Commerce, conservative super PACs, and other powerful Republican groups have sponsored a sophisticated, shadowy campaign against a recent Democratic legislative effort. 15. Rob Portman’s (R-OH) Senate campaign aired phony television ads using paid out- of-state actors to spread rumors about his Democratic opponent. 16. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and other Republicans in the House of Representatives don’t believe they need to compromise with Democrats. 17. Republicans will not pass a bill that is supported by Democrats, leading to deadlock in the House of Representatives. 18. Bill O’Reilly, a conservative talk show host on Fox News, is encouraging Republicans to go at it alone and pass Republicans-only legislation. 19. A fact-checking segment on a political news program found that ads produced by Republican Lisa Murkowski’s political campaign were misleading. 20. Republican Senator Mark Kirk said that there are some reasonable, moderate Democrats in Congress.

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21. A fact-checking organization found that an advertisement from Republican Nikki Haley’s political campaign provided truthful information. 22. Most likely, a new bill will pass because a group of Republicans is working with Democrats to draft a compromise that could gain bipartisan support. 23. American Crossroads and other partisan political groups that support the Republican Party are accepting money from unknown foreign investors. 24. According to a recent news report, the Republicans in Congress have shown their extreme ideological purity by voting along political party lines.

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Appendix E: Statistical Tests from Chapter 4

This appendix includes additional details about the statistical analyses from Chapter 4. I, first, provide more detail about the factor analysis, second, detail information about the tests examining incivility and acceptability, third, present tables for the latitudes of acceptance and rejection tests, and finally present tables for the statistics run on data collected in the “Incivility and Partisan News” experiment.

DETAILS FOR FACTOR ANALYSIS

The data were appropriate for an exploratory factor analysis to examine how citizens structure their thoughts about incivility for a number of reasons. Two hundred and forty participants responded to all 24 of the incivility statements, which met the recommendation that there should be between 5 and 10 participants for each variable included in a factor model (Field, 2005). The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value of .90 also indicated that the sample was adequate for a factor analysis, and the KMO measure for each item in the analysis ranged from .70 to a very strong .95. Only two of the 24 items were not correlated at a .3 level with at least one other item, and there was no evidence of multicollinearity. The Bartlett’s Test of

Sphericity was significant [χ2(n=276) = 1936.76, p < .001], signaling that there were relationships in the data that could be explained using a factor analysis. As noted in Chapter 4, the data were skewed. Thus a mlm factor analysis procedure was used. I followed the suggested factor analysis steps outlined by Costello and Osborne (2005) – examine the scree plot, run multiple analyses to compare different numbers of factors, and choose the number of factors that allow for the clearest interpretation out of the acceptable. Since multiple studies have found that

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the common method of choosing the number of factors based on minimum eigenvalues greater than one often leads to incorrect factor interpretations (Costello & Osborne, 2005; Hayton, Allen, & Scarpello, 2004), I did not use this as a criterion for choosing the best factor model. For the first step, I examined the scree plot, which graphs the eigenvalues – statistics that show the variance in the data accounted for by each factor (Field, 2005). I looked for the inflection point of the scree plot – that is, the point at which the plot changes from a steep slope to a flat slope. The scree plot leveled off sharply after two factors and leveled of a second time, at a slower rate, after three factors, suggesting that either two or three factors would best fit the data. After looking at the scree plot, I ran a parallel analysis to see whether a two- or-three factor model would best explain the variance in the data. Although parallel analysis is not the most prevalent method scholars use to extract factors, multiple studies have found that it is among the best techniques for making decisions about the number of factors to include in a model (Costello & Osborne, 2005; Dinno, 2009; Fabrigar et al., , 1999; Hayton, Allen, & Scarpello, 2004; Horn, 1965). Essentially, a parallel analysis is a comparison of eigenvalues produced by the sample data to eigenvalues produced by random data. It involves running a series of factor analyses on randomly generated data, taking the 95 percentile of the eigenvalues generated by each of these factor analyses, and comparing these eigenvalues from the random data factor analyses to the eigenvalues produced by the factor analysis of the sample dataset. When an eigenvalue for a factor from the sample data was greater than the averaged eigenvalue for a factor from the random data, the results signaled that the factor was significant to the model (Hayton, et al., 2004; O’Conner, 2000). I used O’Conner’s (2000) RawPar program to run the parallel analysis in

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SPSS.53 I ran the analysis on 1000 parallel datasets using his common factor analysis model. Since the sample data were not normally distributed, the randomly generated datasets were created based on the raw data in my sample to approximate the sample distribution rather than a normal distribution. The sample and parallel dataset eigenvalues are presented in Table E.1. As the table shows, the eigenvalues from the first three sample data factors were greater than the eigenvalues generated in from the randomly generated data samples. This suggested that a three-factor model best fit the sample data.

Table E.1. Parallel Analysis. Sample Data Random Data # Factors Eigenvalues Eigenvalues 1 6.45 0.85 2 2.15 0.71 3 0.63 0.62 4 0.44 0.54 5 0.37 0.47 6 0.25 0.41 7 0.23 0.36 8 0.18 0.30 9 0.14 0.26 10 0.08 0.21 11 0.04 0.16 12 0.02 0.12 Note. Bolded and italicized numbers indicate the last eigenvalue in which the sample value analysis was greater than the random data analysis.

53Since the data were not normally distributed, the final factor analysis was run using mlm analysis, rather than a factor analysis in SPSS that required normally distributed data. However, because the results were the same when the data were run using ml analysis and because O’Conner’s (2000) program could account for the non-normality in the data by generating random numbers from the non-normally distributed dataset, this approach to factor extraction was appropriate. Further, other methods of determining factor fit, including comparison of RMSEA values produced through the mlm models, the results of the Parallel Analysis. 279

Since the eigenvalue for the third factor in the sample analysis was greater by only

0.01, I examined the factor loadings – that is, the correlations between each item and the factor on which it loads – generated by the mlm factor analysis to ensure that the three- factor model best fit the sample. In a strong factor model, the factor loadings need to be adequate for the majority of the variables (Costello & Osborne, 2005). That is, a strong model is one in which all of the items load significantly onto a factor. Given the sample size of 240 participants, an item significantly loaded onto a factor if the loading were at .35 or above (see, for details on critical values, Stevens, 2002). In the two-factor model, one of the items did not load on either of the factors at a .35 level. In the three-factor model, however, each of the items loaded on only one factor at a .35 level or higher. Thus, the scree plot,

Parallel Analysis, and factor loadings all indicated that the three-factor model presented in

Chapter 4 best fit the data.

IS INCIVILITY UNACCEPTABLE?

I also include in this appendix the correlations between participants’ perceptions of incivility and perceptions of objectionable behavior for each statement, as well as the unconditional means model for the HLM analyses presented in the main text. Table E.2. Correlation between Uncivil and Objectionable Ratings for each Statement. Statement Pearson’s r (n) A partisan news host compared politicians from the opposing political party .69** to Hitler and the Nazis. (249)

Interest groups, super PACs and other powerful political groups have sponsored a sophisticated, shadowy campaign against a recent .64** Congressional legislative effort led by their opponents. (249)

A partisan host for a cable news program is encouraging likeminded politicians in Congress to go at it alone and pass legislation supported only .62** by members of their own political party. (247)

Note. **p < .01; The statements listed above are from the “Nonpartisan” condition, but the statistics presented are from all conditions

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Table E.2, continued. Correlation between Uncivil and Objectionable Ratings for each Statement. A candidate’s Senate campaign aired phony television ads using paid out-of- .58** state actors to spread rumors about his political opponent. (246)

An advisor to a political candidate said that it would be embarrassing to the .55** state if his opponent became a U.S. senator. (248)

Most likely, a new bill will pass because members of both political parties are .54** working together to draft a compromise that could gain bipartisan support. (248)

The host of a partisan political news show recently said, "damn the political .53** opposition." (249) Partisan political groups that support one political party are accepting .53** money from unknown foreign investors. (248)

Several members of Congress from one political party say their opponents .52** are wrong on most political issues. (247)

Many members of Congress will not pass a bill that is supported by their .52** opponents, leading to deadlock in the House of Representatives. (248)

During a recent episode of a cable news show, the host shouted down his .51** guest from the opposing political party and interrupted him many times. (247)

Partisan criticism of new Congressional legislation has been getting louder .50** and more inflammatory. (248)

Members of the House of Representatives don’t believe they need to .49** compromise with members of the political party they oppose. (248)

A U.S. Senator said that there are some reasonable, moderate politicians .48** from the opposing party in Congress. (247)

Politicians started a heated exchange with members of the opposing party .47** on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. (250)

A politician said that lawmakers of the opposing party are delusional. .46** (248) According to a recent news report, the politicians in Congress have shown .45** their extreme ideological purity by voting along party lines. (246)

A Senate candidate ran a negative campaign against his opponent. .40** (249) A fact-checking organization found that an advertisement from a recent .37** political campaign provided truthful information. (248)

Note. **p < .01; The statements listed above are from the “Nonpartisan” condition, but the statistics

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presented are from all conditions

Table E.2, continued. Correlation between Uncivil and Objectionable Ratings for each Statement. On her television program, a partisan cable news pundit had a polite .35** exchange with her guest from the opposing political party. (247) Members of Congress from one political party had a respectful discussion about new policies with Congress members from the opposing political .334** party. (249)

During an official campaign debate, a House of Representatives candidate .329** asked her opponent a number of questions. (247)

A fact-checking segment on a political news program found that ads .314** produced by a recent political campaign were misleading. (248)

Note. **p < .01; The statements listed above are from the “Nonpartisan” condition, but the statistics presented are from all conditions.

Beyond looking at the correlations between perception of incivility and perception of uncivil behaviors, I also tested multi-level effects. I first built an unconditional means model to serve as a baseline for a model examining whether perceptions of incivility predict perceptions that a behavior is objectionable (see Table E.3, Model 1). Unconditional means models measure the amount of variance present in the dependent variable – in this case, perceptions that a behavior was objectionable – that can be explained by adding other variables to the model. The results of this model indicated that there was significant between-participant variance to be explained by adding control and experimental variables to the model

54 (r0 = 0.18, p < .001). The intra-class correlation (ICC) showed that 18 percent of the variability in individuals’ perceptions of objectionable behavior was due to individual-level, rather than statement-level, differences. Given that the ICC was above 5 percent, a multilevel model was necessary to account for the differences

54 As explained in Hayes (2006), the ICC estimates “the degree of non-independence in the outcome variable across level-1 units” (p. 394). Since typical OLS and ANOVA models have an assumption of independence across groups, higher ICCs indicate that multi-level models are necessary for an analysis. 282

among individuals as they answered a series of repeated measures questions (Hayes, 2006; Nir, 2012). Overall, the unconditional means model showed there was substantial variance in the model that needed to be explained, and that a multi- level model was the best approach to examining this variance.

Table E.3. Multi-level unconditional means models predicting perceptions of objectionable behavior. Model 1 Coefficient (SE) Statement-Level (Level-1) 3.10*** Intercept (0.04) Perceptions of Incivility Random Effects Variance Component

(SD) 0.18*** Person-Level Variance (Level-2), r 0 (0.42) 1.81 Statement-Level Variance (Level-1), e a 0 (1.34) Deviance 10774.83 N of level one units 4440 N of level two units 185 Notes. +p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001, aThe HLM program does not generate significance tests for the level-1 (in this case, the statement-level) variance.55 I also built unconditional means models to serve as baseline models for the HLMs predicting the difference between objectionable perceptions and incivility perceptions. I constructed unconditional means models for each of the four outcome variables: differences in objectionable/uncivil perceptions in all factors,

55Since the partisan conditions were included in HLM models in this section, nonpartisan participants (n = 52) were not included. Since participants who did not report support for either Democrats or Republicans could not be randomly assigned to either the counter-attitudinal or likeminded partisan condition, nonpartisans were cut from the nonpartisan political actor condition as well. I also ran the models without including the partisan actor experimental condition to see whether the effect of the control variables and political conflict changed when nonpartisans were included. The results were the same as those that did not include nonpartisans. 283

the interpersonal-level conflict factor, public-level conflict factor, and civility factor (see Table E.4). The ICCs once again were higher than a recommended maximum level of 5 percent (Nir, 2012), indicating that there was too much level-2 variance between participants to use typical OLS regression models to test the data. In every model, the variance remaining was significant, meaning that there were differences in how people perceived incivility and acceptability after reading the same statement about a political behavior.

Table E.4. Unconditional Means Models for Objectionable/Uncivil Difference. Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 All Political Interpersonal- Public-level Civility Conflict Factors level Conflict Conflict Parameter Coefficient (SE) Coefficient (SE) Coefficient (SE) Coefficient (SE) Fixed Effects -0.14*** -.15*** -0.10*** -0.15 Intercept (0.03) (0.03) (0.04) (0.03) Random Effects Variance Variance Variance Variance Component Component Component Component (S.D.) (S.D.) (S.D.) (S.D.) *** *** Person-Level Variance 0.09 *** *** 0.09 0.09 (0.31) 0.11 (0.33) (Level-2), r0 (0.30) (0.30) Statement-Level Variance 0.78 0.69 a 0.77 (0.88) 0.86 (0.92) (Level-1), e0 (0.88) (0.83) Deviance 11685.49 5876.08 3075.15 2832.81 Intra-Class Correlation .10 .10 .11 .12 N of level one units 4440 2220 1110 1110 N of level two units 185 185 185 185 +p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .00 aThe HLM program does not generate significance tests for the level-1 (in this case, the statement-level) variance. Since the partisan conditions were included in models in this section, nonpartisan participants (n = 52) who could not be randomly assigned to a likeminded or opposing partisan actor condition were not included.56

56I also ran the models without including the partisan actor experimental condition to see whether the effect of the control variables and political conflict factors changed when nonpartisans were included. The results were the same as those that did not include nonpartisans. 284

PREDICTING LOAS AND LORS The next tables were used to created the figures in Chapter 4 that examined influences on individuals’ LORs and LOAS.

Table E.5. ANCOVA Predicting Average Width of LOA across Political Conflict Factors. Sum of Mean Squares df Square F Between-Subjects

Covariates Intercept 0.51 1 0.51 8.99** Age 0.43 1 0.43 7.66** Female 0.01 1 0.01 0.13 Partisan Strength 0.35 1 0.35 6.15* Conflict Avoidance 0.01 1 0.01 2.34 Civility Not Important 0.14 1 0.14 2.48 to Democracy Error 12.34 218 0.06 Within-Group Conflict Factor 2.50 1.32 1.89 40.85*** Error 13.35 288.36 0.05 Note. ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05

Table E.6. Average Width of LOA Predicted by Political Conflict Factor. 95% Confidence

Interval (I) (J) Mean Std. Lower Upper Conflict Factor Conflict Factor Diff (I-J) Error Bound Bound Interpersonal Conflict Factor Public-Level Conflict Factor -0.05*** 0.01 -0.07 -0.02 Civility Factor -0.76*** 0.02 -0.80 -0.71 Public-Level Conflict Factor Interpersonal Conflict Factor 0.05*** 0.01 0.02 0.07 Civility Factor -0.71*** 0.02 -0.76 -0.66 Civility Factor Interpersonal Conflict Factor 0.76*** 0.02 0.71 0.80 Public-Level Conflict Factor 0.71*** 0.02 0.66 0.76 Notes. Post-hoc tests of differences across groups predicted using Bonferroni correction.***p < .001

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Table E.7. ANCOVA Predicting Average Width of LOR across Political Conflict Factors. Sum of Mean Squares df Square F Between-Subjects

Covariates Intercept 2.67 1 2.67 34.92*** Age 0.03 1 0.03 0.41 Female 0.12 1 0.12 1.52 Partisan Strength 0.001 1 0.001 0.002 Conflict Avoidance 0.02 1 0.02 0.30 Civility Not Important to Democracy 0.13 1 0.13 1.73 Error 16.69 218 0.08 Within-Group Conflict Factor 1.22 1.88 0.65 16.65*** Error 15.95 436 0.04 Note. ***p < .001

Table E.8. Average Width of LOR Predicted by Political Conflict Factor. 95% Confidence

Interval (I) (J) Mean Std. Lower Upper Conflict Factor Conflict Factor Diff (I-J) Error Bound Bound Interpersonal Conflict Factor Public-Level Conflict Factor .226*** 0.02 0.19 0.27 Civility Factor .602*** 0.02 0.56 0.64 Public-Level Conflict Factor Interpersonal Conflict Factor -.226*** 0.02 -0.27 -0.19 Civility Factor .376*** 0.02 0.33 0.43 Civility Factor Interpersonal Conflict Factor -.602*** 0.02 -0.64 -0.56 Public-Level Conflict Factor -.376*** 0.02 -0.43 -0.33 Notes. Post-hoc tests of differences across groups predicted using Bonferroni correction.***p < .001

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Table E.9. ANCOVA Predicting Average Width of LOA across Partisan Condition. Sum of Mean Squares df Square F Between-Subjects

Covariates Intercept 0.06 1 0.06 3.34*** Age 0.11 1 0.11 6.15+ Female 0.0001 1 0.001 0.02* Partisan Strength 0.02 1 0.02 1.24 Conflict Avoidance 0.004 1 0.004 0.22 Civility Not Important to Democracy 0.05 1 0.05 3.06+ Partisan Condition 0.31 2 0.16 8.90*** Error 3.13 177 0.02 Note. ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05; +p < .10

Table E.10. Average Width of LOA Predicted by Partisan Condition. 95% Confidence

Interval (I) (J) Mean Std. Lower Upper Partisan Condition Partisan Condition Diff (I-J) Error Bound Bound Nonpartisan Condition Likeminded Condition -.07** 0.02 -0.13 -0.01 Counter-attitudinal Condition 0.03 0.02 -0.03 0.08 Likeminded Condition Nonpartisan Condition .07** 0.02 0.01 0.13 Counter-attitudinal Condition .10*** 0.02 0.04 0.16 Counter-attitudinal Condition Likeminded Condition -0.03 0.02 -0.08 0.03 Nonpartisan Condition -.10*** 0.02 -0.16 -0.04 Notes. Post-hoc tests of differences across groups predicted using Bonferroni correction, **p < .01; ***p < .001

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Table E.11. ANCOVA Predicting Average Width of LOR across Partisan Condition. Sum of Mean Squares df Square F Between-Subjects

Covariates Intercept 0.93 1 0.93 37.27*** Age 0.001 1 0.001 0.00 Female 0.05 1 0.05 2.11 Partisan Strength 0.01 1 0.01 0.20 Conflict Avoidance 0.001 1 0.001 0.03 Civility Not Important to Democracy 0.05 1 0.05 1.94 Partisan Condition 1.18 2 0.59 23.75*** Error 4.39 177 0.03 Note. ***p < .001

Table E.12. Average Width of LOR Predicted by Partisan Condition. 95% Confidence

Interval (I) (J) Mean Std. Lower Upper Partisan Condition Partisan Condition Diff (I-J) Error Bound Bound Nonpartisan Condition Likeminded Condition .16*** 0.03 0.09 0.23 Counter-attitudinal Condition -0.03 0.03 -0.10 0.04 Likeminded Condition Nonpartisan Condition -.16*** 0.03 -0.23 -0.09 Counter-attitudinal Condition -.18*** 0.03 -0.25 -0.11 Counter-attitudinal Condition Likeminded Condition 0.03 0.03 -0.04 0.10 Nonpartisan Condition .18*** 0.03 0.11 0.25 Notes. Post-hoc tests of differences across groups predicted using Bonferroni correction, **p < .01; ***p < .00

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Table E.13. ANCOVA Predicting Average Width of LOA. Sum of Mean Squares df Square F Between-Subjects Intercept 0.40 1 0.40 6.91** Age 0.40 1 0.40 6.98 Female 0.001 1 0.001 0.01 Partisan Strength 0.08 1 0.08 1.36 Conflict Avoidance 0.01 1 0.01 0.13 Civility Not Important to Democracy 0.13 1 0.13 2.18 Partisan Condition 0.77 2 0.39 6.65** Error 10.25 177 0.06 Within-Group Conflict Factor 1.71 1.40 1.22 29.55*** Conflict Factor * Partisan Condition 0.542 2.807 0.193 4.68** Error 10.26 248.43 0.04 Note. ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05

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Table E.14. Average Width of LOA Predicted by Partisan Condition and Political Conflict Factor. 95% Confidence

Interval (I) (J) Mean Std. Lower Upper Partisan Condition Partisan Condition Diff (I-J) Error Bound Bound Interpersonal-Level Conflict Factor Nonpartisan Condition Likeminded Condition -.11*** 0.03 -0.18 -0.05 Counter-attitudinal Condition 0.01 0.03 -0.06 0.07 Likeminded Condition Nonpartisan Condition .13*** 0.03 0.05 0.18 Counter-attitudinal Condition .12*** 0.03 0.06 0.19 Counter-attitudinal Condition Likeminded Condition -0.01 0.03 -0.07 0.06 Nonpartisan Condition -.12*** 0.03 -0.19 -0.06 Public-Level Conflict Factor Nonpartisan Condition Likeminded Condition -.11** 0.04 -0.20 -0.03 Counter-attitudinal Condition 0.03 0.04 -0.06 0.11 Likeminded Condition Nonpartisan Condition .11** 0.04 0.03 0.20 Counter-attitudinal Condition .14*** 0.04 0.05 0.22 Counter-attitudinal Condition Likeminded Condition -0.03 0.04 -0.11 0.06 Nonpartisan Condition -.14*** 0.04 -0.22 -0.05 Civility Factor Nonpartisan Condition Likeminded Condition 0.05 0.04 -0.06 0.15 Counter-attitudinal Condition 0.06 0.04 -0.05 0.16 Likeminded Condition Nonpartisan Condition -0.05 0.04 -0.15 0.06 Counter-attitudinal Condition 0.01 0.04 -0.09 0.11 Counter-attitudinal Condition Likeminded Condition -0.06 0.04 -0.16 0.05 Nonpartisan Condition -0.01 0.04 -0.11 0.09 Notes. Post-hoc tests of differences across groups predicted using Bonferroni correction, ***p < .001; **p < .00

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Table E.15. ANCOVA Predicting Average Width of LOR. Sum of Mean Squares df Square F Between-Subjects Intercept 2.04 1 2.04 32.39*** Age 0.004 1 0.00 0.06 Female 0.13 1 0.13 2.08 Partisan Strength 0.004 1 0.00 0.07 Conflict Avoidance 0.0001 1 0.00 0.01 Civility Not Important to Democracy 0.12 1 0.12 1.97 Partisan Condition 2.84 2 1.42 22.55*** Error 10.25 177 0.06 Within-Group Conflict Factor 1.71 1.40 1.22 29.55*** Conflict Factor * Partisan Condition 0.55 3.81 0.41 11.56*** Error 10.26 248.43 0.04 Note. ***p < .001; **p < .01; *p < .05

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Table E.16. Average Width of LOR Predicted by Partisan Condition and Political Conflict Factor. 95% Confidence

Interval (I) (J) Mean Std. Lower Upper Partisan Condition Partisan Condition Diff (I-J) Error Bound Bound Interpersonal-Level Conflict Factor Nonpartisan Condition Likeminded Condition .23*** 0.04 0.13 0.33 Counter-attitudinal Condition 0.00 0.04 -0.10 0.10 Likeminded Condition Nonpartisan Condition -.23*** 0.04 -0.33 -0.13 Counter-attitudinal Condition -.23*** 0.04 -0.33 -0.13 Counter-attitudinal Condition Likeminded Condition 0.00 0.04 -0.10 0.10 Nonpartisan Condition .23*** 0.04 0.13 0.33 Public-Level Conflict Factor Nonpartisan Condition Likeminded Condition .18** 0.05 0.05 0.30 Counter-attitudinal Condition -0.09 0.05 -0.22 0.03 Likeminded Condition Nonpartisan Condition -.18** 0.05 -0.30 -0.05 Counter-attitudinal Condition -.27*** 0.05 -0.39 -0.15 Counter-attitudinal Condition Likeminded Condition 0.09 0.05 -0.03 0.22 Nonpartisan Condition .27*** 0.05 0.15 0.39 Civility Factor Nonpartisan Condition Likeminded Condition -0.01 0.01 -0.03 0.01 Counter-attitudinal Condition -0.01 0.01 -0.03 0.01 Likeminded Condition Nonpartisan Condition 0.01 0.01 -0.01 0.03 Counter-attitudinal Condition 0.00 0.01 -0.02 0.02 Counter-attitudinal Condition Likeminded Condition 0.01 0.01 -0.01 0.03 Nonpartisan Condition 0.00 0.01 -0.02 0.02 Notes. Post-hoc tests of differences across groups predicted using Bonferroni correction, ***p < .001; **p < .001

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STATISTICAL TESTS FOR INCIVILITY AND PARTISAN NEWS

The final tables in this appendix are related to the “Incivility and Partisan

News” experiment presented in the main text of Chapter 4. The tables were used to create the figures in the last section of the chapter.

Table E.17. ANCOVA Predicting Perceptions Incivility by Political Conflict Condition. Sum of Mean Squares Df Square F Between-Subjects

Covariates Intercept 209.96 1 209.96 327.95*** Age 1.26 1 1.26 1.97 Female 0.85 1 0.85 1.32 Partisan Strength 0.32 1 0.32 0.49 Type of Political Conflict 5.56 3 1.85 2.89* Error 173.50 271 0.64 Note. ***p < .001; *p < .05

Table E.18. Perceptions of Incivility Predicted by Political Conflict Condition. 95% Confidence

Interval (I) (J) Mean Std. Lower Upper Political Conflict Condition Political Conflict Condition Diff (I-J) Error Bound Bound Civility Condition Interpersonal Conflict Condition -.39* 0.14 -0.75 -0.02 Public-Level Conflict Condition -0.13 0.14 -0.50 0.23 Mixed Conflict Condition -0.26 0.14 -0.63 0.11 Interpersonal Conflict Condition Civility Condition .39* 0.14 0.02 0.75 Public-Level Conflict Condition 0.25 0.14 -0.11 0.61 Mixed Conflict Condition 0.12 0.14 -0.24 0.48 Public-Level Conflict Condition Civility Condition 0.13 0.14 -0.23 0.50 Interpersonal Conflict Condition -0.25 0.14 -0.61 0.11 Mixed Conflict Condition -0.13 0.14 -0.49 0.24 Mixed Conflict Condition Civility Condition 0.26 0.14 -0.11 0.63 Public-Level Conflict Condition -0.12 0.14 -0.48 0.24 Mixed Conflict Condition 0.13 0.14 -0.24 0.49 Notes. Post-hoc tests of differences across groups predicted using Bonferroni correction.***p < .001 293

Table E.19. ANCOVA Predicting Perceptions of Incivility by Partisan Condition. Sum of Mean Squares df Square F Between-Subjects

Covariates Intercept 205.73 1 205.73 370.54*** Age 2.50 1 2.50 4.49* Female 0.01 1 0.01 0.02 Partisan Strength 0.92 1 0.92 1.66 Partisan Condition 27.48 1 27.48 49.50*** Error 151.58 273 0.56 Note. ***p < .001; *p < .05

294

Appendix F: Stimuli for “Incivility and Partisan News” Experiment

Public-Level Conflict Frame, Democratic-Leaning

OPINION: Democrats, Obama Celebrate Health Care Victory

WASHINGTON – In a victory for President Obama, the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance, the central part of Obama's signature health care law.

The ruling, by a 5-4 vote, energized Democrats and health care reform supporters for the fall political campaign against the law’s Republican opponents – and against next year's congressional effort to repeal the law.

Democrats in Congress will work to keep the law safe as Republicans challenge to the decision. “The Democratic Party’s goal is to stand its ground. We will make no compromises that threaten health care reform,” said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

The ruling presents a problem for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “Democrats are excited with the decision. We will not work with Republicans like Romney who want to water down the law,” said Vice President Joe Biden. “This law will help Americans and stop the increasing costs of health care. We can’t compromise our principles to satisfy the Republicans.”

Romney’s vice presidential selection, Representative Paul Ryan (WI-R), will not help Romney address health care. Rep. Ryan demands conservative policies. Democrats will stick to their own beliefs, not compromise with his. He proposed a budget that would limit the reach of Medicare. In 2011, he led Tea Party Republicans in their opposition to raising the debt ceiling.

Health reform supporters rejoiced outside the Court after the ruling. “Democrats’ protests and marches in D.C. for equal access to health care have finally paid off,” said Dean Collins, an accountant from Wisconsin.

Democrats have many reasons to celebrate. Later this summer, nearly 13 million Americans will receive $1.1 billion in rebates from insurance companies because of the law's requirement that the majority of premiums paid by consumers must go toward medical care.

Americans are showing their support for the ruling by donating to campaigns. A committee tasked with electing Democrats to the Senate raised $2.5 million in the three days following the Court's ruling on the law.

295

Public-Level Conflict Frame, Republican-Leaning

OPINION: Republicans Oppose Court’s Health Care Decision

WASHINGTON – America's health care overhaul narrowly survived a battle at the Supreme Court with the improbable help of conservative Chief Justice Roberts who called the insurance a new tax.

The ruling, by a 5-4 vote, energized Republicans and health care reform opponents for the fall campaign against the bill’s champion, President Obama – and for next year's congressional effort to repeal the law.

Republicans want Congress to challenge the Supreme Court’s decision. Congressman, and Tea Party member, Rand Paul (R-KY) claimed, “Obama is a socialist and the Democrats are part of a left-wing party, pure and simple, Obamacare proves it. Republicans have to repeal this law.”

The ruling presents an opportunity for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “Republicans are angry with the decision, and Democrats are just plain foolish,” argued Romney. “Do people think they will have free healthcare now that the Supreme Court approved this extreme law? They are unbelievably wrong because costs will increase. The decision is a disaster, but it’s not over.”

Romney’s vice presidential selection, Representative Paul Ryan (WI-R), will help Romney address the health care issue. Rep. Ryan has a record in Congress of opposing liberal tax-and-spend policies. He recently proposed a federal budget that will fix the bloated government-run Medicare program. In 2011, he also led Tea Party Republicans in their opposition to raising the debt-ceiling.

Health reform opponents showed resolve after the ruling. “This is horrible. The fascists in the Democratic Party are controlling health care decisions that should be mine,” said Dean Collins, an accountant from Wisconsin.

Republicans have many reasons for alarm. The law will cost taxpayers up to $4.83 billion over the next 10 years. It takes decision-making away from consumers, doctors, and the American people and concentrates it in the hands of federal workers.

Americans are showing their opposition to the ruling by donating to campaigns. The Romney campaign raised $4.6 million from 47,000 contributors in the three days following the Supreme Court’s ruling on the health care law.

296

Interpersonal-Level Conflict Frame, Democratic-Leaning

OPINION: Democrats, Obama Celebrate Health Care Victory

WASHINGTON – In a victory for President Obama, the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance, the central part of Obama's signature health care law.

Democrats in Congress will work to keep the law safe as Republicans challenge to the decision. Democrats call opponents delusional. “Republicans can’t repeal this bill. They don’t have the support. Basically, they’re living on another planet,” said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

The ruling presents a problem for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “Romney is a flip- flopper and not honest,” said Vice President Joe Biden. “He supported the same mandate when he was governor of Massachusetts, but now he is against it. He has no honor if he campaigns against the law since it’s shrinking costs in his home state.”

Romney’s vice presidential selection, Representative Paul Ryan (WI-R), will not help Romney address the health care issue. Rep. Ryan has a record as a right-wing zealot. He proposed an extreme and risky budget that would destroy Medicare as Americans know it. In 2011, he also led Tea Party Republicans in their opposition to raising the debt ceiling.

Health reform supporters rejoiced outside the Court after the ruling. “This is a great decision. Now the fascists in the Republican Party can’t take away my healthcare,” said Dean Collins, an accountant from Wisconsin.

297

Interpersonal-Level Conflict Frame, Republican-Leaning

OPINION: Republicans Oppose Court’s Health Care Decision

WASHINGTON – America's health care overhaul narrowly survived a battle at the Supreme Court with the improbable help of conservative Chief Justice Roberts who called the insurance a new tax.

298

Interpersonal-and Public-Level Conflict Frame, Democratic-Leaning

OPINION: Democrats, Obama Celebrate Health Care Victory

WASHINGTON – In a victory for President Obama, the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance, the central part of Obama's signature health care law.

The ruling presents a problem for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “Romney is a flip- flopper. He is not honest,” said Vice President Joe Biden. “He supported the same mandate when he was governor of Massachusetts. Now he is against it. He has no honor if he campaigns against the law since it is shrinking costs in his home state.”

299

Interpersonal-and Public-Level Conflict Frame, Republican-Leaning

OPINION: Republicans Oppose Court’s Health Care Decision

WASHINGTON – America's health care overhaul narrowly survived a battle at the Supreme Court with the improbable help of conservative Chief Justice Roberts who called the insurance a new tax.

Republicans want Congress to challenge the Supreme Court’s decision. Congressman, and Tea Party member, Rand Paul (R-KY) claimed, “The Republican Party’s goal has been to make sure Obama is a one-term president. Then we can repeal this law. We can’t work with him.”

Health reform opponents showed resolve after the ruling. “Republicans will protest at town hall meetings and will not let Congress rest until this law is repealed,” said Dean Collins, an accountant from Wisconsin.

300

Civil Conflict Frame, Democratic-Leaning

OPINION: Democrats, Obama Celebrate Health Care Victory

WASHINGTON – In a victory for President Obama, the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate requiring Americans to buy health insurance, the central part of Obama's signature health care law.

Democrats in Congress will work to keep the law safe as Republicans challenge to the decision. Opponents have a tough road ahead. “It will be difficult to scale back this law. Republicans don’t have enough support,” said House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (CA-D).

The ruling presents a problem for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “Romney supported an individual mandate when he was governor of Massachusetts, but now he’s against it,” Vice President Joe Biden explained. “He will have a difficult time campaigning against the law since it is decreasing health care costs in his home state. He’s in a tough spot.”

Romney’s vice presidential selection, Representative Paul Ryan (WI-R), will not help Romney address the health care issue. Rep. Ryan has a reputation of following the party line. He proposed a budget that would limit the reach of the popular Medicare program. In 2011, he also led Tea Party Republicans in their opposition to raising the debt ceiling.

Health reform supporters rejoiced outside the Court after the ruling. “I very am glad the judges upheld the law. It’s a great day and a great decision,” said Dean Collins, an accountant from Wisconsin.

301

Civil Conflict Frame, Republican-Leaning

OPINION: Republicans Oppose Court’s Health Care Decision

WASHINGTON – America's health care overhaul narrowly survived a battle at the Supreme Court with the improbable help of conservative Chief Justice Roberts who called the insurance a new tax.

Republicans in Congress say they will challenge the Court’s decision. Congressman, and Tea Party member, Rand Paul (R-KY) claimed, “I disagree with the decision. President Obama and the Democrats got what they wanted, but Congress needs to work to scale back the law.”

The ruling presents an opportunity for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. “This law will not work nationally. Supporters think healthcare costs will decrease now that the Supreme Court has sanctioned the bill. They are mistaken,” said Romney. “The Court’s decision has been made, but Republicans will keep working to bring the most cost efficient health care to Americans.”

Romney’s vice presidential selection, Representative Paul Ryan (WI-R), will help Romney attend to the health care issue. Rep. Ryan has a reputation as a policy-wonk. He proposed a federal budget that would limit the reach of the government run health care program Medicare. In 2011, he also led Tea Party Republicans in their opposition to raising the debt-ceiling.

Health reform opponents showed resolve after the ruling. “I respect the Court’s authority and decision. This may be constitutional, but it’s very negative for the country,” said Dean Collins, an accountant from Wisconsin.

302

Appendix G: Stimuli for “Incivility and Immigration Reform” Experiment

Control Group

UPDATES ON IMMIGRATION REFORM --Political Beat Staff

WASHINGTON – Immigration reform talks have been going on for weeks, with politicians discussing the issue in bipartisan committee meetings. But we are not even at the end of the beginning.

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives are trying to write a bill that could pass the House while satisfying the Senate’s objectives. This has proven difficult.

Nancy Jacobson, founder of the nonpartisan group No Labels, says Congress needs to address immigration reform. “Politicians must come up with a plan,” she said.

Alan M. Kraut, a fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute calls immigration the next big problem for the United States. “Lawmakers cannot ignore immigrants,” he said.

Democrats are considering bills that have been voted on in the Senate and that may eventually come to the House of Representatives. Republicans in the House are writing their own legislation.

The debate has touched on essential issues like health care and gay rights.

Republicans and Democrats are discussing their disagreements. Representatives particularly disagree on immigrant health coverage. House Republicans want to require immigrants to purchase health coverage or risk deportation. Democrats oppose this provision.

Democratic spokespeople said the Republicans are “misguided, but are listening to our concerns.” Top Democrats believe that undocumented immigrants would be forced to undergo health care procedures that could bankrupt them.

“Anyone who has been in the United States for years, who has paid taxes, who has stayed out of trouble, should to be able to get an American citizenship immediately,” said Anna Garcia from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. “And should receive exemplary health care.”

303

Groups like the conservative Heritage Foundation say that any reform allowing individuals who are here illegally to remain in the U.S. and receive health care is unfair to people who obey the law.

Members of both parties have questioned proposed laws.

Republicans disagree with a number of Democratic provisions, as well. They claim that they have only begun to discuss their ideas about immigration. Conservatives especially oppose an amendment that allows gay Americans the right to sponsor foreign-born partners for green cards, as heterosexuals can do.

“Even without allowing gay partners into the country, we may have another 150 million people moving here by the year 2025,” conservative activist Jim Gilchrist said. “We cannot handle that many people coming into the U.S., but we are trying to work something out with the Democrats.”

Liberal group Immigration Equality contends that federal law has stopped the government from giving immigration benefits to between 35,000 to 40,000 gay and lesbian couples in which one partner is a U.S. citizen. This, they say, is unfair.

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said that the House of Representatives will vote on immigration legislation by the end of the summer. Perhaps the debate will be over by August.

304

Interpersonal-Level Conflict, No Incivility/Civility Small Cue

LOUD IMMIGRATION DEBATE --Political Beat Staff

WASHINGTON - The immigration debate has been going on for weeks now, with politicians calling proposed laws embarrassing and their opponents delusional. But we are not even at the end of the beginning.

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives are trying to write legislation that has a chance to pass the House while satisfying the Senate’s objectives. This has proven challenging.

Nancy Jacobson, a founder of the nonpartisan group No Labels, says Congress needs to address immigration reform. “Politicians must come up with a plan,” she said.

Alan M. Kraut, a fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute calls immigration the next big problem for the United States. “Lawmakers can’t ignore immigrants,” he said.

Democrats are considering bills that have been voted on in the Senate and that may eventually come to the House of Representatives. Republicans in the House are writing their own legislation.

The debate has touched on essential issues like health care and gay rights.

Disagreements have led to heated exchanges on the House floor. Representatives especially disagree on immigrant health coverage. House Republicans want to require immigrants to purchase health coverage or risk deportation. Democrats oppose this provision.

Democratic spokespeople argued the Republicans hold “embarrassing positions on immigration and health care.” Top Democrats contend that undocumented immigrants would be forced to undergo procedures that could bankrupt them.

“Anyone who has been in this country for years, who's paid taxes, who has stayed out of trouble, should to be able to get an American citizenship immediately,” said Anna Garcia from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. “And should receive quality health care.”

Groups like the conservative Heritage Foundation say that any reform that allows individuals who are here illegally to remain in the U.S. and receive health care is unfair to people who obey the law.

305

Members of both parties have questioned proposed laws.

For instance, Republicans’ criticism has gotten louder and more inflammatory. They claim that they have only begun to discuss their ideas about immigration. Conservatives particularly oppose an amendment that allows gay Americans the right to sponsor foreign- born partners for green cards, as heterosexuals can do.

“Even without allowing gay partners into the country, we may have another 150 million people moving here by the year 2025,” conservative activist Jim Gilchrist argued. “Democrats are delusional if they think we can handle that many people coming into the U.S.”

Liberal group Immigration Equality contends that federal law has prevented the government from giving immigration benefits to between 35,000 to 40,000 gay and lesbian couples in which one partner is a United States citizen. This, they say, is unfair.

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said that the House will vote on immigration legislation by the end of the summer. Perhaps the debate will be over by August.

306

Interpersonal-Level Conflict, Incivility Small Cues

LOUD, CHAOTIC IMMIGRATION DEBATE --Political Beat Staff

WASHINGTON - The chaotic immigration debate has been going on for weeks, with politicians calling proposed laws embarrassing and their opponents delusional. But we are not even at the end of the beginning.

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives are trying to write a bill that has a chance to pass the House while satisfying the Senate’s objectives. This has proven difficult.

Nancy Jacobson, founder of the nonpartisan group No Labels, describes the immigration debate as nasty and uncivil. “Politicians must remember to respect each other,” she said.

Alan M. Kraut, a fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, describes immigration as the next big problem for the United States. “Lawmakers can’t ignore immigrants,” he said.

Democrats are considering bills that have been voted on in the Senate and may eventually come to the House of Representatives. Republicans are writing their own legislation.

The unruly debate has touched on major issues like health care and gay rights.

Groups like the conservative Heritage Foundation say that any reform that allows individuals who are here illegally to remain in the U.S. and receive health care is unfair to those who obey the law.

Members of both parties have added to this messy debate. 307

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said that the House will vote on immigration legislation by the end of the summer. Perhaps the contentious debate will be over by August.

308

Interpersonal-Level Conflict, Both Incivility and Civility Small Cues

SERIOUS DEBATE OR CHAOS? LOUD IMMIGRATION DEBATE --Political Beat Staff

WASHINGTON - The chaotic, but substantive, immigration debate has been going on for weeks, with politicians calling proposed laws embarrassing and their opponents delusional. But we are not even at the end of the beginning.

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives are trying to write a bill that has a chance to pass the House while satisfying the Senate’s objectives. This has proven difficult.

Nancy Jacobson, a founder of the nonpartisan group No Labels, describes the immigration debate as nasty and uncivil. “Politicians must remember to respect each other,” she said.

Others applaud the debate. Alan M. Kraut, a fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute calls the debate serious and passionate. “Lawmakers are having legitimate discussions about immigration,” he said.

Democrats are studying bills that have been voted on in the Senate and may eventually come to the House of Representatives. Republicans are writing their own legislation.

The necessary, but unruly, debate has touched on issues like health care and gay rights.

Disagreements have led to heated exchanges on the House floor. Representatives especially disagree on immigrant health coverage. Republicans want to require immigrants to purchase health coverage or risk deportation. Democrats oppose this provision.

“Anyone who has been in this country for years, who has paid taxes, who has avoided trouble, should to be able to get American citizenship immediately,” said Anna Garcia from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. “And should receive quality health care.”

Groups like the conservative Heritage Foundation say that any reform that allows individuals who are here illegally to remain in the U.S. and receive health care is unfair to those who obey the law.

309

Members of both parties have added to this informative and messy debate.

For instance, Republicans’ criticism has gotten louder and more inflammatory. They claim they have only begun to discuss their ideas. Conservatives particularly oppose an amendment that allows gay Americans the right to sponsor foreign-born partners for green cards, as heterosexuals can do.

Liberal group Immigration Equality contends that federal law has stopped the government from giving benefits to between 35,000 to 40,000 gay and lesbian couples in which one partner is a U.S. citizen. This, they say, is unfair.

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said they will vote on immigration legislation by the end of the summer. Perhaps the justifiably contentious debate will be over by August.

310

Public-Level Conflict, No Incivility/Civility Small Cue

DEADLOCKED IMMIGRATION DEBATE --Political Beat Staff

WASHINGTON - The immigration debate has been going on for weeks now, with the House of Representatives facing deadlock and politicians struggling to compromise. But we’re not even at the end of the beginning.

Lawmakers in the House are trying to write legislation that has a chance to pass the House while satisfying the Senate’s objectives. This has proven challenging.

Nancy Jacobson, founder of the nonpartisan group No Labels, says Congress needs to address immigration reform. “Politicians must come up with a plan,” she said.

Alan M. Kraut, a fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute calls immigration the next big problem for the United States. “Lawmakers can’t ignore immigrants,” he said.

Democrats will not pass a bill that is supported by Republicans, which is leading to deadlock. Republicans, however, have the ideological purity to vote along party lines and eventually pass a bill without any Democratic votes.

The debate has touched on essential issues like health care and gay rights.

Disagreements have led to debate on the House floor. Democrats do not believe they need to compromise with Republicans. House Republicans want to require immigrants to purchase health coverage or risk deportation. Democrats oppose this provision.

Democratic spokespeople argued the Republicans are “just finding another way to oppose health care reform.” Top Democrats contend that undocumented immigrants would be forced to undergo procedures that could bankrupt them.

“Anyone who has been in this country for years, who's paid taxes, who has stayed out of trouble, should to be able to get American citizenship immediately,” said Anna Garcia from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. “And should receive quality health care.”

Groups like the conservative Heritage Foundation say that any reform that allows individuals who are here illegally to remain in the U.S. and receive health care is unfair to people who obey the law.

311

Members of both parties have questioned proposed legislation.

Republicans are criticizing the Democrats as well. They claim that, without Democratic cooperation, they will go at immigration alone and pass Republicans-only legislation. Conservatives particularly oppose an amendment that allows gay Americans the right to sponsor foreign-born partners for green cards, as heterosexuals can do.

“Even without allowing gay partners into the country, we may have another 150 million people moving here by the year 2025,” conservative activist Jim Gilchrist argued. “Democrats know that we cannot handle that many people coming into the U.S.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said that they will vote on immigration legislation by the end of the summer. Perhaps the debate will be over by August.

312

Public-Level Conflict, Incivility Small Cues

DEADLOCKED, CHAOTIC IMMIGRATION DEBATE --Political Beat Staff

WASHINGTON - The chaotic immigration debate has been going on for weeks, with the House of Representatives facing deadlock and politicians struggling to compromise. But we are not even at the end of the beginning.

Lawmakers in the House are trying to write a bill that could pass the House while satisfying the Senate’s objectives. This has proven difficult.

Nancy Jacobson, founder of the nonpartisan group No Labels, describes the debate as nasty and uncivil. “Politicians must remember to respect each other,” she said.

Alan M. Kraut, a fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, calls immigration the next big problem for the United States. “Lawmakers can’t ignore immigrants,” he said.

Democrats won’t pass a bill that is supported by Republicans, which is leading to deadlock. Republicans, however, have the ideological purity to vote along party lines and eventually pass a bill without any Democratic votes.

The unruly debate has hit on major issues like health care and gay rights.

Groups like the conservative Heritage Foundation say that any reform allowing individuals who are here illegally to remain in the U.S. and receive health care is unfair to those who obey the law.

313

Members of both parties have added to this messy debate.

“Even without allowing gay partners into the country, we may have another 150 million people moving here by the year 2025,” conservative activist Jim Gilchrist argued. “Democrats know that we cannot handle that many people coming into the U.S.”

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said that they will vote on immigration legislation by the end of the summer. Perhaps the contentious debate will be over by August.

314

Public-Level Conflict, Both Incivility and Civility Small Cues

SERIOUS DEBATE OR CHAOS? DEADLOCKED IMMIGRATION DEBATE --Political Beat Staff

WASHINGTON - The chaotic, but substantive, immigration debate has been going on for weeks, with the House of Representatives facing deadlock and politicians struggling to compromise. But we’re not even at the end of the beginning.

Lawmakers in the House are trying to write a bill that could pass the House while satisfying the Senate’s objectives. This has proven difficult.

Nancy Jacobson, founder of the nonpartisan group No Labels, describes the immigration debate as nasty and uncivil. “Politicians must remember to respect each other,” she said.

Others applaud the debate. Alan M. Kraut, a fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute calls the debate serious and passionate. “Lawmakers are having a legitimate discussion about immigration,” he said.

Democrats won’t pass a bill supported by Republicans, which is leading to deadlock. Republicans, however, have the ideological purity to vote along party lines and eventually pass a bill without any Democratic votes.

The necessary, but unruly, debate has touched on issues like health care and gay rights.

Lawmakers have been debating disagreements on the House floor. Democrats do not believe they need to compromise with Republicans. Republicans want to require immigrants to purchase health coverage or risk deportation. Democrats oppose this provision.

Democratic spokespeople argued that Republicans are “finding another way to oppose health care reform.” Top Democrats contend that undocumented immigrants would be forced to undergo procedures that could bankrupt them.

315

Groups like the conservative Heritage Foundation say that any reform that allows individuals who are here illegally to remain in the U.S. and receive health care is unfair to those who obey the law.

Members of both parties have added to this informative and messy debate.

Democrats have been criticized by Republicans as well. Republicans claim that, without Democratic cooperation, they will go at immigration alone and pass Republicans-only legislation. Conservatives particularly oppose an amendment that allows gay Americans to sponsor foreign-born partners for green cards, as heterosexuals can do.

“Even without allowing gay partners into the country, we may have another 150 million people moving here by the year 2025,” conservative activist Jim Gilchrist argued. “Democrats know that we cannot handle that many people coming into the U.S.”

Liberal group Immigration Equality contends that 35,000 to 40,000 gay and lesbian couples in which one partner is a U.S. citizen have not received benefits because of federal law. This, they say, is unfair.

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said they will vote on legislation by the end of summer. Perhaps the justifiably contentious debate will be over by August.

316

Interpersonal-Level and Public-Level Conflict, No Incivility/Civility Small Cue

STALLED, HEATED IMMIGRATION DEBATE --Political Beat Staff

WASHINGTON - The immigration debate has been going on for weeks. Politicians face deadlock as they struggle to compromise, often calling proposed laws embarrassing and their opponents delusional. But we are not even at the end of the beginning.

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives are writing legislation that could pass the House while satisfying the Senate’s objectives. This has proven challenging.

Nancy Jacobson, a founder of the nonpartisan group No Labels, says Congress should address immigration reform. “Politicians must come up with a plan,” she said.

Alan M. Kraut, fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute calls immigration the next big problem for the United States. “Lawmakers can’t ignore immigrants,” he said.

The debate has touched on essential issues like health care and gay rights.

Disagreements have led to heated exchanges on the House floor. Democrats do not believe that they need to compromise with Republicans. Republicans want to require immigrants to purchase health coverage or risk deportation. Democrats oppose this provision.

“Anyone who has been in this country for years, who's paid taxes, who’s stayed out of trouble, should to be able to get American citizenship immediately,” said Anna Garcia from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. “And should receive quality health care.”

Groups like the conservative Heritage Foundation say that reform that allows individuals who are here illegally to remain in the U.S. and receive health care is unfair to those who obey the law.

317

Members of both parties have questioned proposed laws.

For instance, Republicans’ criticism has gotten louder and more inflammatory. They claim that, without Democratic cooperation, they will go at immigration alone and pass Republicans-only legislation. Conservatives particularly oppose an amendment that allows gay Americans to sponsor foreign-born partners for green cards, as heterosexuals can do.

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said that they will vote on legislation by the end of the summer. Perhaps the debate will be over by August.

318

Interpersonal-Level and Public-Level Conflict, Incivility Small Cues

STALLED AND HEATED; CHAOS IN THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE --Political Beat Staff

WASHINGTON - The chaotic immigration debate has been going on for weeks. Politicians face deadlock as they struggle to compromise, often calling proposed laws embarrassing and their opponents delusional. But we are not even at the end of the beginning.

Lawmakers in the House of Representatives are writing a bill that could pass the House while satisfying the Senate’s objectives. This has proven difficult.

Nancy Jacobson, founder of the nonpartisan group No Labels, describes the debate as nasty and uncivil. “Politicians must remember to respect each other,” she said.

Alan M. Kraut, a fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, calls immigration the next big problem for the United States. “Lawmakers can’t ignore immigrants,” he said.

The unruly debate has included issues like health care and gay rights.

Disagreements have led to heated exchanges on the House floor. Democrats do not believe they need to compromise with Republicans. Republicans want to require immigrants to purchase health coverage or risk deportation. Democrats oppose this provision.

“Anyone who has been in this country for years, who's paid taxes, who’s stayed out of trouble, should to get American citizenship now,” said Anna Garcia from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. “And should receive quality health care.”

Groups like the conservative Heritage Foundation say that reform allowing individuals who are here illegally to remain in the U.S. and receive health care is unfair to those who obey the law.

Members of both parties have added to this messy debate. 319

Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) said they will vote on a bill by the end of the summer. Perhaps the contentious debate will be over by August.

320

Public-Level Conflict, Both Incivility and Civility Small Cues

SERIOUS DEBATE OR CHAOS? STALLED, HEATED IMMIGRATION DEBATE --Political Beat Staff

WASHINGTON - The chaotic, but substantive, immigration debate has been going on for weeks. Politicians face deadlock as they struggle to compromise, often calling proposed laws embarrassing and their opponents delusional. But we are not even at the end of the beginning.

Lawmakers are writing a bill that could pass the House of Representatives while satisfying the Senate’s objectives. This has proven tough.

Nancy Jacobson, a founder of nonpartisan group No Labels, describes the debate as nasty and uncivil. “Politicians must remember to respect each other,” she said.

Democrats will not pass a bill supported by Republicans, which is leading to deadlock. Republicans, however, have the ideological purity to vote along party lines and eventually pass a bill without any Democratic votes.

The necessary, but unruly, debate has included issues like health care and gay rights.

Disagreements have led to heated exchanges in the House. Democrats do not believe that they need to compromise with Republicans. Republicans want immigrants to purchase health coverage or risk deportation. Democrats oppose this provision.

Democratic spokespeople argued that the Republicans hold “embarrassing positions on immigration and health care.” Top Democrats contend that undocumented immigrants would be forced to undergo procedures that could bankrupt them.

“Anyone who has been here for years, who's paid taxes, who’s stayed out of trouble, should get American citizenship now,” said Anna Garcia from the liberal think tank Center for American Progress. “And should receive quality health care.”

Groups like the conservative Heritage Foundation say that reform allowing people who are here illegally to remain in the U.S. and receive health care is unfair to those who obey the law. 321

Members of both parties have added to the informative and messy debate.

For instance, Republicans’ criticism has gotten louder and more inflammatory. They claim that, without Democratic cooperation, they will go at the issue alone and pass Republicans- only legislation. Conservatives especially oppose a revision allowing gay Americans to sponsor foreign-born partners for green cards, as heterosexuals can do.

Liberal group Immigration Equality says that federal law has stopped the government from giving benefits to between 35,000 to 40,000 gay and lesbian couples in which one partner is a U.S. citizen. This, they say, is unfair.

According to Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), a bill will be voted at the end of summer; perhaps the justifiably contentious debate will be over by August.

322

Appendix H: Statistical Tests from Chapter 5

In this appendix, I provide the statistical charts for the marginally significant ANOVA predicting the effect of small cue condition on counter-attitudinal legitimacy. The remainder of the statistical analyses are presented in the main text.

Table H.1. ANOVAs Predicting Perceived Legitimacy of Likeminded and Counter-attitudinal Arguments by Small Cue Condition Sum of Mean Squares df Square F Legitimacy of Likeminded Arguments Intercept 9220.01 1 9220.01 4616.98*** Between Small Cue Articles 0.94 2 0.47 0.23 Within Groups 754.86 378 2.00 Total 9993 381 Legitimacy of Counter-Attitudinal Arguments Intercept 6398.54 1 6398.54 2257.00*** Between Small Cue Articles 15.19 2 7.60 2.94+ Within Groups 975.56 378 2.58 Total 7382.25 381 Note. +p < .10

Table H.2. Counter-attitudinal Argument Legitimacy by Small Cue Condition. 95% Confidence

Interval (I) (J) Mean Std. Lower Upper Small Cues Article Small Cues Article Diff (I-J) Error Bound Bound No Cues Article Uncivil Cues Article 0.29 0.20 -0.19 0.77 Both Cues Article -0.20 0.20 -0.69 0.29 Uncivil Cues Article No Cues Article -0.29 0.20 -0.77 0.19 Both Cues Article -0.49* 0.20 -0.98 0.00 Mixed Cues Article No Cues Article 0.20 0.20 -0.29 0.69 Uncivil Cues Article .49* 0.20 0.00 0.98 Notes. Post-hoc tests of differences across groups predicted using Bonferroni corrections. *p < .05

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