My book, Towards a New Paradigm on Post-truth, introduces the concept of desire-based framing. I suggest that desire-based framing is characterised by rhetorical attributes of (i) lack (aspirational desire), (ii) fantasy (approaches to fulfil desire), and (iii) emotionality (emotional tone to accentuate desire).  This paper draws from this concept and investigates the effects of desire-based framing on political attitudes in Belgium. To assess which framing attributes are most credible and persuasive, I designed a vignette survey experiment, combining lack, fantasy, emotion, and factual argument to test their effectiveness on the issue of climate change, and implemented it on a sample of 1831 Flemish respondents. I report two main results: (1) a desire-based framing argument featuring lack, fantasy and emotion, is less credible than a factual argument and a mere emotional argument; (2) a desire-based framing argument featuring lack, fantasy and emotion, is less persuasive than a factual argument and a mere emotional argument. Desire-based framing offers an avenue to investigate how rhetoric can influence political attitudes by varying the attribute of desire.

Speaker

Anam Kuraishi is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Antwerp. Her research is grounded in political communication, focusing on affective rhetoric and political behaviour of parties and citizens, and broadly on democratic backsliding. Her new book Towards a New Paradigm on Post-Truth, reframes the concept of post-truth as political discourse. Dr Kuraishi received her PhD in Political Science from the University of Essex. More info can be found on her website.

Chair

Brenda Van Coppenolle, Sciences Po, CEE

Discussant

Sebastian Thieme, Sciences Po, CEE

*Seminar of the key themes "Strains in democratic representation" and "Cities, borders and mobility"