Analysing emotional discourse among allies and opponents in the news media

Abstract

The sociology of emotions reveals how emotion contributes to and helps inform social and political issues. This study contributes to the literature by examining how competing advocacy coalitions ascribe emotions to their allies and opponents in the politically contentious issue of siting a gas pipeline project in the US. It analyses the emotional and belief expressions of people engaged in the debate in approximately 370 newspaper articles. Using the Advocacy Coalition Framework as a theoretical guide, people’s position on the pipeline and assignment to one of two advocacy coalitions coincides with similar emotional expressions. Moreover, allies tend to attribute more positive than negative emotions to other allies and more negative than positive emotions to opponents. This study concludes with a research agenda for furthering the empirical study of emotions in political and social life to understand the use of emotions in contentious politics.