Download Keynote Speech - Center for Politics and Communication

Keynote Speech
Workshop “Dealing with Feelings: The Role of Emotions in Political
Communication”
April 17, 2009, 12.00-13.00
OMHP D0. 09
by Kimberly Gross (Associate Professor; School of Media and Public Affairs;
George Washington University)
Thus far, the field of political communication research has been focusing mainly on
cognitive effects of the media. In this lecture, Dr. Kimberly Gross will talk about the
impact emotions can have on political behavior and attitudes and argue for the
importance of emotion in the study of political communication. She will discuss the
“Affective Intelligence Model” of Marcus, Neuman and MacKuen which helped to
spark increased attention to the role of emotion in decision making and information
seeking.
In this lecture, Dr. Gross will discuss previous work based on the affective
intelligence model and show how communication matters in this context. She will also
discuss recent work that has established important distinctions between certain
emotions, for example between “anger” or “anxiety”, and their impact on subsequent
behavior. To make such conceptual distinctions is very important for political
communication scholars, because it suggests that different types of emotions in
response to a message can have very different consequences.
Finally, Dr. Gross will introduce some of her own work in this field and allude to
challenges and issues of special relevance for the future study of emotions in political
communication research.