Researching Emotional Experiences as Discursive Elements – A Suggested Qualitative Method

Authors

Magnus Danielson, Stockholm University SwedenFollow

Abstract

As scholars in the fields of political science, media research, and social psychology endeavor to understand crucial aspects of emotionality in the media, there is a growing need to methodologically address the communicative and discursive aspects of affective constructions in media texts. This article argues that by breaking down mediated emotional experiences represented through language in a set of identifiable elements, such as subject, emotion type, valence, intensity, proposed action, and object, those experiences could be used as workable and potent units of analysis when studying discursive and ideological media constructs of emotionality. By connecting insights from emotion science, the sociology of emotions, and media sociology, the qualitative method outlined, Emotional Experience Profiling (EEP), provides a flexible research tool conducive to an understanding of how emotional experiences represented through language in media texts are constructed and how they shape political discourse, identity, and emotional cultures. To demonstrate and illustrate the application of the method, the article provides examples from a pilot study which explores the research question: How do emotional experiences featured in Swedish far-right alternative news media construct and articulate political discourse?

Keywords

emotions, emotional expressions, media, qualitative methods, emotional communities, media discourse

Author Bio(s)

Magnus Danielson (https://www.su.se/english/profiles/joda1431-1.190409; Orcid-ID: 0000-0003-4846-4851) is an assistant professor at the Department of Media Studies at Stockholm University. He has been Director of Studies at that same department (2016-2018), and Head of Department at Linneaus University (2019-2023). As a researcher he has published articles in Journalism Studies, Journalistica, Continuum, and several other journals. He has also authored book chapters in anthologies on media representations of neurodivergence and investigative journalism. His current research interests are journalism and power - popular culture and societal development. At present he is engaged in research projects on news and emotions, depictions of neurodiversity in popular culture and the use of hidden cameras in investigative journalism. Please direct correspondence to magnus.danielson@lnu.se

Acknowledgements

This research is funded by The Olle Engqvist Foundation, Grant no. 200-0701

Publication Date

5-12-2024

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7223

Recommended APA Citation

Danielson, M. (2024). Researching Emotional Experiences as Discursive Elements – A Suggested Qualitative Method. The Qualitative Report, 29(5), 1346-1362. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2024.7223

ORCID ID

0000-0003-4846-4851