Measuring Emotional Appeals in Israeli Election Campaigns

The use of emotions in political campaigns is known and welldocumented. From its earliest days in the Roman Empire or laterin Crusader times to its extensive use by the Nazi regime, politicalpropaganda attempted to seduce and convince, attract and influencetargeted publics by appealing to their emotions. Appeals tofear, hope, pride, anger, and anxiety are frequent in moderncampaigns too. Yet no attempts appear to have been made to developa methodological tool for the objective and systematic identificationof the use of such appeals. This research is based on the design,testing, and validation of a research instrument intended tomeasure quantitatively and comparatively the use of emotionalappeals in two Israeli election campaigns (1996 and 1999). Italso reports findings from an application of the new measureto test specific hypotheses on the use of emotional appealsacross campaigns and parties.