Dillion Danica, Puryear Curtis, Li Longjiao, Chiquito Andre, Gray Kurt
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514, USA.
Department of Management and Organizations, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA.
PNAS Nexus. 2024 Sep 17;3(9):pgae345. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae345. eCollection 2024 Sep.
Politics and the media in the United States are increasingly nationalized, and this changes how we talk about politics. Instead of reading the local news and discussing local events, people are more often consuming national media and discussing national issues. Unlike local politics, which can rely on shared concrete knowledge about the region, national politics must coordinate large groups of people with little in common. To provide this coordination, we find that national-level political discussions rely upon different themes than local-level discussions, using more abstract, moralized, and power-centric language. The higher prevalence of abstract, moralized, and power-centric language in national vs. local politics was found in political speeches, politician Tweets, and Reddit discussions. These national-level linguistic features lead to broader engagement with political messages, but they also foster more anger and negativity. These findings suggest that the nationalization of politics and the media may contribute to rising partisan animosity.
美国的政治和媒体日益国有化，这改变了我们谈论政治的方式。人们不再阅读本地新闻并讨论本地事件，而是更多地消费全国性媒体并讨论全国性问题。与可以依赖关于该地区的共享具体知识的地方政治不同，全国性政治必须协调几乎没有共同之处的大量人群。为了实现这种协调，我们发现全国层面的政治讨论依赖于与地方层面讨论不同的主题，使用更抽象、道德化和以权力为中心的语言。在政治演讲、政治家推文和Reddit讨论中发现，全国层面政治中抽象、道德化和以权力为中心的语言比地方层面更为普遍。这些全国层面的语言特征导致对政治信息的更广泛参与，但也滋生了更多的愤怒和消极情绪。这些发现表明，政治和媒体的国有化可能导致党派敌意的上升。
