News Framing and the Applicability of Authoritarian Values: Citizens’ Reasoning on News About Societal Disorder

Abstract

Tensions between liberal and authoritarian values have gained increasing significance within Western democracies. This focus-group study contributes to the research on the dynamics of authoritarianism, providing in-depth analyses of the interactions between audience values and news framing of societal disorder. Contrasting authoritarian and liberal values—and related models of child-rearing—play a pivotal role in shaping divergent reasoning on news about crime and disturbances in schools and public places. Amplified news framing is consequential in making authoritarian values relevant to how people interpret the news. The implications of the news framing are analyzed by focusing on peer-group conversations on news, representing shifts from amplified to nuanced framing across three news issues.