Showing their true colors? How EU flag display affects perceptions of party elites’ European attachment

Dumitrescu, Delia and Popa, Sebastian Adrian (2016) Showing their true colors? How EU flag display affects perceptions of party elites’ European attachment. American Behavioral Scientist, 60 (14). 1698–1718. ISSN 0002-7642

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Abstract

Evidence suggests that incidental national flag exposure activates nationalistic feelings and that incidental exposure to the EU flag can affect citizen attachments to Europe. However, we know little about what inferences citizens make based on the EU flag when they see it displayed by parties in an electoral context. To test the expectation that this display affects citizens’ evaluations of party elites’ EU attachment, we conducted a large-scale experiment embedded in a Swedish survey in which respondents were exposed to communications from one of the two main Swedish parties, containing or not containing the image of the flag. We find that simple visual display does little to move perceptions. However, if citizens perceive that a particular party displayed the flag, then they are more likely to evaluate its party elites as more attached to Europe.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	eu flag,eu attachment,party elites,visual display,political perceptions,national identity
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Cultural Politics, Communications & Media Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Political, Social and International Studies
Related URLs:	http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	10 Jan 2017 00:01
Last Modified:	21 Jul 2023 09:44
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/61974
DOI:	10.1177/0002764216676248

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