United feelings: The mediating role of emotions in social media campaigns for EU attitudes and behavioral intentions

The mediating role of emotional reactions and their relevance for political attitudes and behavioral intentions has remained an understudied subject, and the extant literature has mostly overlooked the importance of political campaigning on social media in the context of the European Union (EU). Using an experimental design, we test whether political parties’ (1) positive or negative EU-related (2) emotional or non-emotional political messages influence citizens’ emotions toward the EU, whether these emotions affect politically relevant outcomes, and whether the effects differ for citizens with varying political ideologies. We find that positive emotions in particular affect almost all outcome variables above and beyond experimental condition and individuals’ political orientation. We discuss our results in light of political marketing research and recent developments in the EU.