Different Politics, Different Realities? The Structure of Partisan Sensemaking About COVID-19

Shannon Cruz; Xun Zhu; Rachel Smith; James Dillard; Lijiang Shen; Xi Tian

Different Politics, Different Realities? The Structure of Partisan Sensemaking About COVID-19

Shannon Cruz, Xun Zhu, Rachel Smith, James Dillard, Lijiang Shen, Xi Tian

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a source of conflict between liberals and conservatives in the U.S.,with many politicized debates focusing on college students and universities. To understand this partisan conflict and how it might be mitigated, one useful approach is to examine how collective sensemaking about the virus and virus response, as reflected in language use, has differed between different political groups. Using semantic network analysis of a corpus of college students’ descriptions of their worries about COVID-19, we found that there were many similarities in sensemaking across the political spectrum, but also important differences between ideological groups. In particular, collective sensemaking for conservatives (more so than for liberals and moderates) was organized around words related to anxiety and close personal relationships.These results have implications for addressing partisan intergroup conflictabout COVID-19.

Original language	American English
Journal	Negotiation and Conflict Management Research
State	Published - Oct 19 2023

Keywords

collective sensemaking
semantic network analysis
political ideolo
intergroup conflict
COVID-19
intergroup communication

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https://ncmr.lps.library.cmu.edu/article/id/668/

Cite this

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title = "Different Politics, Different Realities? The Structure of Partisan Sensemaking About COVID-19",

abstract = "The COVID-19 pandemic has been a source of conflict between liberals and conservatives in the U.S.,with many politicized debates focusing on college students and universities. To understand this partisan conflict and how it might be mitigated, one useful approach is to examine how collective sensemaking about the virus and virus response, as reflected in language use, has differed between different political groups. Using semantic network analysis of a corpus of college students{\textquoteright} descriptions of their worries about COVID-19, we found that there were many similarities in sensemaking across the political spectrum, but also important differences between ideological groups. In particular, collective sensemaking for conservatives (more so than for liberals and moderates) was organized around words related to anxiety and close personal relationships.These results have implications for addressing partisan intergroup conflictabout COVID-19.",

keywords = "collective sensemaking, semantic network analysis, political ideolo, intergroup conflict, COVID-19, intergroup communication",

author = "Shannon Cruz and Xun Zhu and Rachel Smith and James Dillard and Lijiang Shen and Xi Tian",

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T1 - Different Politics, Different Realities? The Structure of Partisan Sensemaking About COVID-19

AU - Cruz, Shannon

AU - Zhu, Xun

AU - Smith, Rachel

AU - Dillard, James

AU - Shen, Lijiang

AU - Tian, Xi

PY - 2023/10/19

Y1 - 2023/10/19

N2 - The COVID-19 pandemic has been a source of conflict between liberals and conservatives in the U.S.,with many politicized debates focusing on college students and universities. To understand this partisan conflict and how it might be mitigated, one useful approach is to examine how collective sensemaking about the virus and virus response, as reflected in language use, has differed between different political groups. Using semantic network analysis of a corpus of college students’ descriptions of their worries about COVID-19, we found that there were many similarities in sensemaking across the political spectrum, but also important differences between ideological groups. In particular, collective sensemaking for conservatives (more so than for liberals and moderates) was organized around words related to anxiety and close personal relationships.These results have implications for addressing partisan intergroup conflictabout COVID-19.

AB - The COVID-19 pandemic has been a source of conflict between liberals and conservatives in the U.S.,with many politicized debates focusing on college students and universities. To understand this partisan conflict and how it might be mitigated, one useful approach is to examine how collective sensemaking about the virus and virus response, as reflected in language use, has differed between different political groups. Using semantic network analysis of a corpus of college students’ descriptions of their worries about COVID-19, we found that there were many similarities in sensemaking across the political spectrum, but also important differences between ideological groups. In particular, collective sensemaking for conservatives (more so than for liberals and moderates) was organized around words related to anxiety and close personal relationships.These results have implications for addressing partisan intergroup conflictabout COVID-19.

KW - collective sensemaking

KW - semantic network analysis

KW - political ideolo

KW - intergroup conflict

KW - COVID-19

KW - intergroup communication

M3 - Article

SN - 1750-4708

JO - Negotiation and Conflict Management Research

JF - Negotiation and Conflict Management Research

ER -

Different Politics, Different Realities? The Structure of Partisan Sensemaking About COVID-19

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Keywords

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