Research

Research

In its research and teaching, the Department of Government primarily focuses on comparative and Austrian politics. Its research is concerned with political behaviour, political actors, such as political parties and politicians, political institutions, the processes governed by these institutions, as well as their outcomes. It includes work on political participation, voting behaviour, parties and party competition, coalition politics and Austrian politics in general and is mostly based on rationalist and behavioural approaches.

Our goal is to conduct high-level, internationally competitive research in the area of Comparative Politics with the collaboration of international project partners and research networks. At the Faculty of Social Sciences the department is mainly engaged in the key research area ''Political Competition and Communication: Democratic Representation in Changing Societies'.

The department’s approach places it in the discipline’s empirical-analytical core and is mostly based on quantitative social science methods. To map empirical phenomena accurately, researcher in the department focus on the continuous development of survey design, as well as on the analysis of empirical data by applying the best suited statistical model. The department aims to achieve the best work on Austrian politics and to make important contributions to the international academic literature on Comparative Government and Politics.

An overview of current publications and activities at the department can be found below and on the personal websites of our team.

Publications

Don’t Throw the Frame Out With the Bathwater

Author(s)
Ming Manuel Boyer, Sophie Lecheler, Loes Aaldering
Abstract

Framing research has predominantly revealed detrimental effects of episodic news frames, including individualist blame attributions and political cynicism. However, such frames may also discourage group biases and impede motivated reasoning regarding identity politics. In two experiments (N = 815; N = 1,019), we test the effect of episodic frames on group-consonant attitudes through identity-motivated reasoning. The two studies produce mixed results. Episodic frames might decrease gender-motivated reasoning for women with weaker gender identities when news threatens their identity, but not for men or for women with stronger gender identities. The implications for journalism and democracy are discussed.

Organisation(s)
Department of Government, Department of Communication
External organisation(s)
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Journal
Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
Volume
101
Pages
933-954
No. of pages
22
ISSN
1077-6990
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/10776990221097057
Publication date
06-2022
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
508020 Political communication
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Communication
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/0af6948d-97c7-4c90-a568-c28131519f7e