Emotions have long been neglected in media research, although their role is a vital ingredient in shaping our shared stories and the ways we engage with them. But emotions, as they circulate through the media, can also be divisive and exclusionary. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen makes the case for researching the role of emotions in mediated politics. Drawing on a series of studies, she explores the complex relationship between emotions, politics and media. The book includes analyses of how Facebook structures emotional reactions; the anger of Donald Trump; the use of personal storytelling in feminist Twitter hashtags; the role of emotionality in award-winning journalism; and the communities created by political fandoms. Essential reading for scholars and students, this important volume opens up new ways of thinking about and researching emotions, media and politics.

In times of a worldwide pandemic, the election of a new US president, "MeToo," and "Fridays for Future," to name but a few examples, one thing becomes palpable: the emotional impact of media on individuals and society cannot be underestimated. The relations between media, people, and society are to a great extent based on human emotions. Emotions are essential in understanding how media messages are processed and how media affect individual and social behavior as well as public social life. Adopting a thoroughly interdisciplinary approach to the study of emotions in the context of media, the second, entirely revised and updated, edition of Routledge International Handbook of Emotions and Media comprises areas such as evolutionary psychology, media psychology, media sociology, cultural studies, media entertainment, and political and digital communication. Leading experts from across the globe explore cutting-edge research on the role of emotion in selecting and processing media contents, the emotional consequences of media use, politics and public emotion, emotions in political communication and persuasion, as well as emotions in digital, interactive, and virtual encounters. This compelling and authoritative Handbook is an essential reference tool for scholars and students of media, communication science, media psychology, emotion, cognitive and social psychology, cultural studies, media sociology, and related fields.

"This interdisciplinary, international collection examines how sophisticated digital practices and technologies exploit and capitalize on emotions, with particular focus on how social media are used to exacerbate social conflicts surrounding racism, misogyny and nationalism. Radically expanding the study of media and political communications, this book bridges humanities and social sciences to explore affective information economies: how emotions are being weaponized within mediatized political landscapes. The chapters cover a wide range of topics: how clickbait, "fake news," and right-wing actors deploy and weaponize emotion; new theoretical directions for understanding affect, algorithms, and public spheres; and how the wedding of big data and behavioral science enable new frontiers of propaganda, as seen in the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook scandal. The collection includes original interviews with luminary media scholars and journalists. The book features contributions from established and emerging scholars of communications, media studies, affect theory, journalism, policy studies, gender studies, and critical race studies, to address questions of concern to scholars, journalists, and students in these fields and beyond"--

Emotions have long been neglected in media research, although their role is a vital ingredient in shaping our shared stories and the ways we engage with them. But emotions, as they circulate through the media, can also be divisive and exclusionary. Karin Wahl-Jorgensen makes the case for researching the role of emotions in mediated politics. Drawing on a series of studies, she explores the complex relationship between emotions, politics and media. The book includes analyses of how Facebook structures emotional reactions; the anger of Donald Trump; the use of personal storytelling in feminist Twitter hashtags; the role of emotionality in award-winning journalism; and the communities created by political fandoms. Essential reading for scholars and students, this important volume opens up new ways of thinking about and researching emotions, media and politics.

Offering a uniquely 'psycho-cultural' take on the emotional dynamics of UK political culture this book uses theories and research in psychoanalysis, cultural and media studies and political sociology. It explores the cultural and emotional processes that shape our relationship to politics in a media age, referencing Joanna Lumley to Nigel Farage.

Fifteen thought-provoking essays engage in an innovative dialogue between cultural studies of affect, feelings and emotions, and digital cultures, new media and technology. The volume provides a fascinating dialogue that cuts across disciplines, media platforms and geographic and linguistic boundaries.

This lucid and original work argues for a new style of political leadership, one which pays deliberate and sophisticated attention to the emotional dynamics of the public. In exploring this basic idea of 'emotional governance', Barry Richards also examines the often unhelpful contributions of the news media to the 'emotional public sphere'. A case study of terrorism, as a highly emotional topic and as a key political issue in many liberal democracies, grounds the book's ideas in today's political landscape.

Prompted by the 'affective turn' within the entire spectrum of the social sciences, this books brings together the twin disciplines of political psychology and the political sociology of emotions to explore the complex relationship between politics and emotion at both the mass and individual level with special focus on cases of political tension.

This book takes an innovative fan studies approach to investigating one of the most pressing issues of contemporary times: polarization. Drawing on three years of observational data from Facebook political discussions, as well as interviews and survey responses from those heavily engaged in online political debate, Barnes argues a fan-like investment in a political perspective initiates and drives polarization. She calls on us to move beyond the traditional Habermasian approach to political discussion, which privileges the rational and deliberative, and instead focus on how we perform the self. How we behave in these online debates is part of a performance, a performance of self, in which an affective investment in a particular political perspective drives a need to contribute, refute and ‘other’ those opposing. Because this performance stems from an emotional basis, judgments and contributions are often not rational or factual, but rather a form of establishing and defending an identity.

Anchored in the idea that political campaigns matter to electoral outcomes, The Politics of Emotions, Candidates and Choices analyzes the dynamics of emotional voting and decision-making over the course of three presidential elections between 2004 and 2012. Each presidential campaign reflects a unique tone and mood, which influences voters’ perceptions of choices and candidate image. Accounting for the idiosyncratic nature of a campaign environment and a candidate’s message, this analysis isolates specific emotional dimensions that were influential on voters’ appraisals of specific campaign issues. Relying on the Affective Intelligence theory and the Transfer-of-Affect thesis to narrate the causal relationships between voters’ emotional responses and issue appraisals, this book illustrates the specific electoral contexts when voters’ emotions are trusted as political knowledge and transferred to their beliefs about certain policies.