Hostname: page-component-76d6cb85b7-pn7tm Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-07-17T10:01:43.337Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Will I Get COVID-19? Partisanship, Social Media Frames, and Perceptions of Health Risk in Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2020

Ernesto Calvo Open the ORCID record for Ernesto Calvo [Opens in a new window]  and
Tiago Ventura Open the ORCID record for Tiago Ventura [Opens in a new window]
Ernesto Calvo
Affiliation:
Ernesto Calvo is a professor of government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. ecalvo@umd.edu.
Tiago Ventura
Affiliation:
Tiago Ventura is a Ph.D. candidate in government and politics at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. venturat@umd.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In these polarized and challenging times, not even perceptions of personal risk are immune to partisanship. This article introduces results from a new survey with an embedded social media experiment conducted during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil. Descriptive results show that progovernment and opposition partisans report very different expectations of health and job risks. Job and health policy have become wedge issues that elicit partisan responses. The analysis exploits random variation in the survey recruitment to show the effects of the president’s first speech on national television on the perceived risk and the moderating effect of partisanship. The article presents a framing experiment that models key cognitive mechanisms driving partisan differences in perceptions of health risks and job security during the COVID-19 crisis.

Keywords

PartisanshipCOVID-19social media frameshealth risk

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 63 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
© The Authors, 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the University of Miami

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

Conflict of interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

References

Adida, Claire L., Kim Yi, Dionne, and Platas, Melina R.. 2018. Ebola, Elections, and Immigration: How Politicizing an Epidemic Can Shape Public Attitudes. Politics, Groups, and Identities 8, 3: 1-27.Google Scholar
Ajzenman, Nicolas, Cavalcanti, Tiago, and Da Mata, Daniel. 2020. More than Words: Leaders’ Speech and Risky Behavior During a Pandemic. Working Paper. Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Getúlio Vargas.Google Scholar
Allcott, Hunt, Boxell, Levi, Conway, Jacob, Gentzkow, Matthew, Thaler, Michael, and Yang, David. 2020. Polarization and Public Health: Partisan Differences in Social Distancing During the Coronavirus Pandemic. NBER Working Paper w26946. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Ames, Barry. 2001. The Deadlock of Democracy in Brazil. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arceneaux, Kevin. 2008. Can Partisan Cues Diminish Democratic Accountability? Political Behavior 30, 2: 139-60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arceneaux, Kevin, and Nickerson, David W.. 2010. Comparing Negative and Positive Campaign Messages: Evidence from Two Field Experiments. American Politics Research 38, 1: 54-83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aruguete, Natalia, and Calvo, Ernesto. 2018. Time to #Protest: Selective Exposure, Cascading Activation, and Framing in Social Media. Journal of Communication 68, 3: 480-502. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqy007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baker, Andy, Sokhey, Anand E., Ames, Barry, and Renno, Lucio R.. 2016. The Dynamics of Partisan Identification when Party Brands Change: The Case of the Workers Party in Brazil. Journal of Politics 78, 1: 197-213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banks, Antoine, Calvo, Ernesto, Karol, David, and Telhami, Shibley. 2020. #PolarizedFeeds: Three Experiments on Polarization, Framing, and Social Media. International Journal of Press/Politics, 1940161220940964.Google Scholar
Barrios, John M., and Hochberg, Yael. 2020. Risk Perception Through the Lens of Politics in the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Paper no. w27008. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Bullock, John G., Gerber, Alan S., Hill, Seth J., and Huber, Gregory A.. 2015. Partisan Bias in Factual Beliefs About Politics. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 10, 4: 519-78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Entman, Robert M. 1993. Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm. Journal of Communication 43, 4: 51-58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Geoffrey, and Andersen, Robert. 2006. The Political Conditioning of Economic Perceptions. Journal of Politics 68, 1: 194-207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gadarian, Shana Kushner, Goodman, Sara Wallace, and Pepinsky, Thomas B.. 2020. Partisanship, Health Behavior, and Policy Attitudes in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic. SSRN, March 27.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P., Bradley, Palmquist, and Schickler, Eric. 2004. Partisan Hearts and Minds: Political Parties and the Social Identities of Voters. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto. 1990. Framing Responsibility for Political Issues: The Case of Poverty. Political Behavior 12, 1: 19-40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, and Westwood, Sean J.. 2015. Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines: New Evidence on Group Polarization. American Journal of Political Science 59, 3: 690-707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Iyengar, Shanto, Sood, Gaurav, and Lelkes, Yphtach. 2012. Affect, Not Ideology. Public Opinion Quarterly 76, 3: 405-31.Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.Google Scholar
Kahneman, Daniel, and Tversky, Amos. 1982. The Psychology of Preferences. Scientific American 246, 1: 160–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraft, Patrick W., Milton, Lodge, and Taber, Charles S.. 2015. Why People “Don’t Trust the Evidence”: Motivated Reasoning and Scientific Beliefs. ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 658, 1: 121–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, Yu-Ru, Keegan, Brian, Margolin, Drew, and Lazer, David. 2014. Rising Tides or Rising Stars? Dynamics of Shared Attention on Twitter During Media Events. PLoS ONE 9, 5: e94093. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0094093.Google ScholarPubMed
Mainwaring, Scott. 1991. Politicians, Parties, and Electoral Systems: Brazil in Comparative Perspective. Comparative Politics 24, 1: 21—43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott. 1999. Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott, and Scully, Timothy. 1995. Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin America. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Mariani, Lucas, Gagete-Miranda, Jessica, and Retti, Paula. 2020. Words Can Hurt: How Political Communication Can Change the Pace of an Epidemic. Washington, DC: Center for Economic Policy Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mason, Lilliana. 2016. A Cross-Cutting Calm: How Social Sorting Drives Affective Polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly 80, S1: 351–77.Google Scholar
Merrill, Samuel, Grofman, Bernie, and Adams, James. 2003. Assimilation and Contrast Effects in Voter Projections of Party Locations: Evidence from Norway, France, and the USA. European Journal of Political Research 40, 2: 199–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nisbet, Erik C., Cooper, Kathryn E., and Kelly Garrett, R.. 2015. The Partisan Brain: How Dissonant Science Messages Lead Conservatives and Liberals to (Dis)Trust Science. ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 658, 1: 36–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tom, Phillips. 2020. Bolsonaro Says He “Wouldn’t Feel Anything” If Infected with Covid-19 and Attacks State Lockdowns. The Guardian, March 24. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/25/bolsonaro-brazil-wouldnt-feel-anything-covid-19-attack-state-lockdowns Google Scholar
Power, Timothy J., and Rodrigues-Silveira, Rodrigo. 2019. The Political Right and Party Politics. In Routledge Handbook of Brazilian Politics, ed. Ames, Barry. New York: Routledge. 251–68.Google Scholar
Samuels, David. 2003. Ambition, Federalism, and Legislative Politics in Brazil. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuels, David J., and Cesar Zucco. 2018. Partisans, Antipartisans, and Nonpartisans: Voting Behavior in Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slothuus, Rune, and De Vreese, Claes H.. 2010. Political Parties, Motivated Reasoning, and Issue Framing Effects. Journal of Politics 72, 3: 630-45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, Richard H., Amos, Tversky, Daniel, Kahneman, and Schwartz, Alan. 1997. The Effect of Myopia and Loss Aversion on Risk Taking: An Experimental Test. Quarterly Journal of Economics 112, 2: 647-61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaller, John. 1992. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Calvo and Ventura Dataset

Dataset

https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/laps
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Calvo and Ventura supplementary material

Calvo and Ventura supplementary material

Download Calvo and Ventura supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 930.3 KB