Emotions, Public Opinion and U.S. Presidential Approval Rates: A 5 Year Analysis of Online Political Discussions

Human Communication Research, Forthcoming

40 Pages Posted: 25 Nov 2011

See all articles by Sandra González-Bailón

Sandra González-Bailón

University of Pennsylvania - Annenberg School for Communication

Rafael E. Banchs

Institute for Infocomm Research

Andreas Kaltenbrunner

Barcelona Media

Date Written: November 25, 2011

Abstract

This paper examines how emotional reactions to political events shape public opinion. We analyze political discussions in which people voluntarily engage online to approximate the public agenda: online discussions offer a natural approach to the salience of political issues and the means to analyze emotional reactions as political events take place in real time. We measure shifts in the emotions of the public over a period that includes two U.S. presidential elections, the attacks of September 11, and the start of military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our findings show that emotional reactions to political events help explain approval rates for the same period, which casts novel light on the mechanisms that mediate the association between agenda setting and political evaluations. Our contribution is twofold: we show that online discussions contain information that is representative of public opinion trends; and we provide evidence that emotions can be used as consistent indicators of political attitudes on a societal scale.

Keywords: agenda setting, priming, public opinion, emotions, political discussions, online interactions, sentiment analysis, approval rates

Suggested Citation

González-Bailón, Sandra and Banchs, Rafael E. and Kaltenbrunner, Andreas, Emotions, Public Opinion and U.S. Presidential Approval Rates: A 5 Year Analysis of Online Political Discussions (November 25, 2011). Human Communication Research, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1964623

Sandra González-Bailón (Contact Author)

University of Pennsylvania - Annenberg School for Communication ( email )

Philadelphia, PA
United States

HOME PAGE: http://https://dimenet.asc.upenn.edu/people/sgonzalezbailon/

Rafael E. Banchs

Institute for Infocomm Research ( email )

1 Fusionopolis Way, #21-01
Connexis South
Singapore, 138632
Singapore
(65)64082802 (Phone)
(65)67761378 (Fax)

Andreas Kaltenbrunner

Barcelona Media ( email )

Av. Diagonal, 177, planta 9
Barcelona, Barcelona 08018
Spain

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