Effects of economic and symbolic threat appeals in right-wing populist advertising on anti-immigrant attitudes: The impact of textual and visual appeals

Right-wing populist parties portray immigrants as economic or symbolic threats in their political advertisements by constructing a moral divide between the good ordinary people and bad immigrants. Yet, it remains unclear how these different threat appeals contribute to the formation of anti-immigrant attitudes among citizens and what role visual elements play in producing these effects. A survey-experiment with a quota sample of 471 participants reveals that, overall, symbolic threat appeals exert stronger effects on anti-immigrant attitudes than economic ones. When presented via text alone, only symbolicnot economicthreat appeals increased anti-immigrant attitudes via the activation of heuristic processing such as the reliance on negative stereotypes or feelings of anxiety, in particular among lower-educated citizens. When visuals were present, both types of threat appeals enhanced anti-immigrant attitudes among citizens across all education levels based on heuristic processing. Additionally, high image-text congruency induced cognitive argument approval resulting in higher anti-immigrant attitudes.