Do metaphors really matter politically? On the role of political knowledge on the framing effect of metaphors

The political impact of metaphors has often been taken for granted from metaphor analysis in political discourse. Indeed, the framing function of metaphors, known as their ability to “select some aspects of a perceived reality and make it more salient in a communicating context” (Entman, 1993: 52) has often been established on the basis of the production of metaphors in particular kind of political discourse, but has not been directly studied from the perspective of their impact on citizens’ representations and political preferences until recently (Perrez & Reuchamps 2015).
Recent research on the subject however points to contradicting results. Whereas Thibodeau and Boroditsky (2011, 2013, 2015) observed that different metaphorical frames related to the target domain of crime led the citizens to opt for different policies, Steen and colleagues (2014, 2015) could not find similar evidence in a series of replication studies. This led them to suggest that the impact of metaphors on (political) reasoning was not automatic, but could be influenced by other parameters, such as extendedness, aptness or deliberateness (Steen et al 2015). A more recent study conducted by Author (2016) on the impact of a Tetris metaphor on the perception of Belgian federalism also suggested that the potential impact of metaphors on reasoning could interact with the level of political knowledge of the citizens. More specifically, the citizens with a lower level of political knowledge appeared to be more likely to be influenced by the metaphor, than the citizens with a higher level of political knowledge.
Bearing on these different insights, this paper aims at studying under which circumstances metaphors can influence citizens’ political reasoning, by more specifically looking into the exact role played by the level of political knowledge. To do so, we conducted two experiments among approx. 1200 first year bachelor students focusing on their perception of and preferences towards the concept of basic income. More specifically, we designed three different versions of an input text, each based on a different metaphorical frame (respectively a foundation frame, a pocket money frame and a springboard frame). The participants were distributed into different experimental conditions (2 control conditions and 3 metaphorical conditions) according to the type of input they had been exposed to, and were subsequently asked to perform a free description task and to fill in a questionnaire measuring different dimensions of their level of political knowledge on the one hand and their preferences regarding the introduction of a system of basic income on the other hand.
This experimental design should allow us to determine the influence of the different metaphorical frames on the citizens preferences, but also to determine to what extent this potential influence of metaphors interact with the level of political knowledge of the participants.
The results are currently under analysis and will be presented in detail at the conference.