Suchergebnisse

Ein Skandal wird durch die von ihm ausgelöste öffentliche Empörung bestimmt. Die Theorie des politischen Skandals behauptet, dass es ohne intensive Entrüstung keinen richtigen Skandal geben kann. Auf die Natur dieser für den Skandal grundlegenden Emotion wird jedoch kaum eingegangen. Darin scheint die Empörung eine automatische Reaktion der BürgerInnen auf den Normverstoß zu sein. Diese Auffassung des Ärgers steht aber im klaren Widerspruch zu der von der Theorie des politischen Skandals selber vertretenen Idee, dass der politische Skandal ein durch Medien definiertes und vermitteltes Ereignis ist, was klar darauf hinweist, dass die genannte Empörung nicht (nur) als eine spontane Reaktion auf das skandalöse Ereignis aufzufassen ist, sondern (auch) als eine lenkbare Größe, die im Skandal nicht immer von Anfang an präsent ist, sondern die es hervorzurufen, zu intensivieren und zu legitimieren gilt. Dieser Beitrag versucht, mit der Hilfe der Emotionstheorie die Rolle der Emotionen im politischen Skandal zu präzisieren.

In this paper, we explore how the public sphere in Europe changed in the COVID-19 pandemic, i.e., under conditions of extensive social isolation and limited physical contact opportunities. Using data from the Eurobarometer from 2020 and 2021, we show what role digital and social media in particular played in the pandemic. In doing so, we pursue the question of what significance these media had for attitudes towards issues of pandemic control and thus also for emerging social conflicts in the context of the pandemic.

In diesem Beitrag gehen wir der Frage nach, wie sich Öffentlichkeit in der Corona-Pandemie in Europa verändert hat. Auf der Grundlage von Eurobarometer-Daten zeigen wir, welche Rolle insbesondere digitalen Medien in der Pandemie zugekommen ist und wie diese die Einstellungen zu ergriffenen Corona-Maßnahmen beeinflusst haben. Die Daten zeigen deutlich, dass ungeachtet der großen medialen Aufmerksamkeit, die den Anti-Corona-Protesten zukam, die Unterstützung für die ergriffenen nationalen Corona-Maßnahmen und die damit verbundenen individuellen Freiheitseinschränkungen in den EU-Mitgliedstaaten hoch war, wenn auch in den nord- und westeuropäischen Ländern höher als in den ost- und südeuropäischen Ländern. Dabei ist die Art und Weise, wie Menschen die ergriffenen Corona-Maßnahmen wahrnehmen, abhängig von ihren Informationsquellen. Die verstärkte Nutzung sozialer Medien während der Pandemien geht mit einer geringeren Unterstützung der Corona-Maßnahmen einher. Dennoch können wir auf der Grundlage von Eurobarometerdaten der letzten zwei Jahre zeigen, dass die Corona-Krise in keinem der EU-Mitgliedstaaten die gesellschaftliche Polarisierung nachhaltig verstärkt hat.

In times of major change, people reassess what is a valuable and, therefore, prideful achievement in the context of a new societal structure and culture. Our article challenges the traditional view of achievements and pride as purely individual experiences, arguing that pride has social and cultural sources and modes of articulation, which may shift dramatically during radical change. We find that people express pride in their achievements when they align with social structures of worth and when societal feeling rules confirm that pride is appropriate and justified. We demonstrate this by analysing four biographical interviews from two research projects with a similar methodology on the post-socialist transformation in Lithuania and in East Germany. By examining how people construe accounts of pride, we find that they express this emotion in recurrent narratives of hard work, notions of resourcefulness and agility, images of restructuring corporate structures, and constructions of ethnic belonging. Our findings reveal that while achievements often lead to pride, not all achievements are narrated with a sense of pride. Our contribution offers a novel, context-sensitive approach to this emotion by bringing together frameworks from cultural sociology and the sociology of emotions.

Although research on populism has gained traction as an established field of inquiry, its affective underpinnings remain a puzzle. A relatively underexplored area of study, now garnering attention, is the intricate relationship between populism and emotions. This Triple Special Issue focuses on the demand side of populist politics, delving into populist attitudes and the role emotions play in their activation. Articles in this collection address three overarching research questions, which we explore in this Introduction: What are the primary emotional drivers of populist attitudes? Which emotions are evoked in audiences by populist communication and framing? What is the significance of exploring complex emotions and moving beyond "thin ideology" in the study of emotions and populism? In this Introduction, we assess the current state of the art and highlight the contributions of our collection to ongoing theoretical and empirical debates.

The main objective of the article is to attempt to provide a more sociological explanation of why some people attack and insult others online, i.e., considering not only their personality structure but also social and situational factors. The main theoretical dichotomy we built on is between powerful high‐status and low‐on‐empathy "bullies" trolling others for their own entertainment, and people who are socially isolated, disempowered, or politically involved, therefore feel attacked by others' beliefs and opinions expressed online, and troll defensively or reactively instead of primarily maliciously. With an MTurk sample of over 1,000 adult respondents from the US, we tested these assumptions. We could confirm that there are two categories and motivations for trolling: for fun and more defensive/reactive. Further, we checked how strongly precarious working conditions, low social status, social isolation, and political as well as religious affiliation of the person increase or decrease the probability of trolling as well as enjoyment levels from this activity. We controlled for personality traits, social media use and patterns, as well as sociodemographic factors. We could confirm that political identities and religiosity increase the likelihood of, but not the enjoyment of trolling; however, socio‐economic factors do not have the same differentiating effect.

In this introduction to the special issue, we explore the political salience of emotions in times of large-scale social change, emphasizing the role of personal narratives in understanding and framing these transformations. We introduce the concept of 'deep transformations' to analyse radical shifts in various aspects of life and their emotional and cultural implications. Focusing on cases from the post-socialist world and one contribution from post-2008 Spain, the issue provides novel insights into the interplay between emotions, signification, and social change. We present our contributions as addressing three distinct levels, each underscoring the importance for integrating the sociology of emotions with cultural sociology more closely: remembering change, adapting to change, and imagining change.

AbstractIn times of multiple crises and a looming partial breakup of the European Union, the question of what binds Europeans together appears more relevant than ever. This article proposes transnational attachment as a novel indicator of sense of community in Europe, arguing that this hitherto neglected dimension is substantially and structurally different from alternative ones such as cross‐border trust and identification. Combining Eurobarometer 73.3 data on ties between all EU‐27 countries with further dyadic data, it is shown empirically that the European network of transnational attachment has an asymmetric core‐periphery structure centred on five extremely popular countries (the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain). In line with transactionalist theory, cross‐border mobility and communication are strongly related to transnational attachment. Furthermore, the article demonstrates that the network of transnational attachment is much denser among those with a higher level of education than among those with a lower level. The results suggest that offering European citizens incentives to travel to peripheral countries may help counterbalance the current asymmetric structure of transnational attachment, thereby increasing Europe's social cohesion.

The progress achieved in women's rights and gender equality has become the target of a backlash driven by "anti-gender" activists and right-wing populists across EU member states. To a large extent, this conflict takes place in the digital and social media spheres, illustrating the new mediatized logic of value contestation. Therefore, we ask to what extent are the debates about gender equality on Twitter similar in three European countries, and how do users engage in these debates? We examine these questions by collecting Twitter data around the 2021 International Women's Day in Germany, Italy, and Poland. First, we show that the debate remains nationally segmented and is predominantly supportive of gender equality. While citizens engage with the gender equality value online, they do so in a prevailingly acclamatory fashion. In contrast, political and societal actors show higher levels of engagement with the value and receive more interactions on Twitter. Our study highlights the relevance of national contexts to the analysis of (transnational) social media debates and the limited political engagement of citizens on Twitter across Europe. We also critically discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a cross-country social media comparison.

Das ValCon-Projekt untersucht, ob und wie digitale und soziale Medien die zunehmende gesellschaftliche Wertepolarisierung und den Aufstieg des Populismus in Europa fördern. Die Studie wurde von Ipsos Public Affairs durchgeführt. Im Erhebungszeitraum April bis Mai 2021 wurden Personen zwischen 18 und 65 Jahren mit Internetzugang in 6 europäischen Ländern (Deutschland, Frankreich, Irland, Italien, Polen, Spanien) in Onlineinterviews (CAWI) zu folgenden Themen befragt: Soziale Medien, demokratische Werte, politische Partizipation und Ausrichtung. Die Auswahl der Befragten erfolgte durch eine Quotenstichprobe aus dem Ipsos Online-Access-Panel mit folgenden Quotenmerkmalen: Alter, Geschlecht, Region, Bildung.