Fight or flight: Affective news framing effects

This dissertation investigates how emotions shape and are shaped by news framing and how this interplay leads to a number of affective news framing effects. My work reveals that emotions do not only function as mechanisms but also as channels strengthening or weakening framing effects. In addition, I show that issue characteristics and the selected news frame can determine whether and how emotions are elicited. Further, I provide evidence that affective news framing effects can arise as the result of an emotional cascade. Also, throughout this dissertation I demonstrate repeatedly that affective news framing effects rarely occur in a vacuum. Rather, various individual and contextual factors function as boundary conditions for affective news framing effects. Finally, I find out that framed misinformation remains persistent regardless of emotional arousal or time. These findings help consolidate the role of emotions in research on news framing effects as well as promote the work on a comprehensive theory of affective news framing effects.