Morality on the ballot: strategic issue salience and affective moral intuitions in the 2020 US presidential election
Journal of Communication Management
ISSN: 1363-254X
Article publication date: 9 October 2023
Issue publication date: 23 October 2023
Abstract
Purpose
While morality is ever-present in elections, scholars have yet to merge political public relations and Moral Foundations Theory. It is crucial to assess the complex morality present not only in social deduction, but also in political strategic communication. The current work aims to analyze the issue agendas and their relationships in the 2020 presidential campaign and assesses their moral strategy.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a computer-assisted content analysis (N = 7,888) with each moral intuition coded from the Moral Foundations Dictionary. Datapoints included campaign tweets, Facebook posts, debate performances, remarks, news releases and nomination acceptance speeches. Coverage included articles from including The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN and Fox News to assess both liberal and conservative media.
Findings
Candidates' issue and moral agendas were correlated with each other and with the media's agenda. Comparatively, the Biden campaign has stronger correlations when it came to connecting with issues, stakeholders and moral intuitions in the media agenda than the Trump campaign. For issues, the Biden campaign prioritized COVID-19 and the economy, while the Trump campaign prioritized the economy and crime. The candidates also had similar moral strategies.
Practical implications
This study suggests effectively leveraging organizational communications in democracies can support the transfer of object salience, moral attributes and networks to media coverage, public discourse and opponent messaging. It can also help achieve organizational goals by managing public image, reputation and expectations.
Originality/value
This work expands the literature by taking a pluralist moral psychology approach in assessing the salience and correlation of five moral intuitions: harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect and purity/sanctity. This study serves as a springboard for examining morality's impact on political public relations.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to recognize Lilliana Clark, Amanda Hernandez, Taylor Proctor, and Gabrielle Thaw for their work as undergraduate research assistants in Spring 2022.
Citation
Shaughnessy, B., Albishri, O., Arceneaux, P., Dagher, N. and Kiousis, S. (2023), "Morality on the ballot: strategic issue salience and affective moral intuitions in the 2020 US presidential election", Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 27 No. 4, pp. 582-600. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCOM-01-2023-0006
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited