Who’s afraid of conflict? How conflict framing in campaign news mobilizes voters

It is commonly acknowledged that the news media can both mobilize and demobilize voters, depending on the exact content of media coverage. Unfortunately, research on these effects has mostly focused on either the one or the other effect in isolation. In this article we test, simultaneously, for both the demobilizing effect of strategy framing as well as for the mobilizing effect of conflict framing within the context of the 2009 European Parliamentary elections. In a unique multi-method and comparative cross-national study design we combine a media content analysis (N=52,009) with data from a two-wave panel survey conducted in 21 countries (N=32,411). Consistent with expectations, conflict framing in campaign news coverage mobilized voters to turn out to vote, whereas strategy framing or mere exposure to news did not have any impact. The effect of conflict news was moderated by the degree of general EU favorability at the contextual level, i.e. conflict framing was more mobilizing in countries in which the EU is evaluated more positively.