“It's a war! It's a battle! It's a fight!”: Do militaristic metaphors increase people's threat perceptions and support for COVID‐19 policies?

Abstract

At the beginning of the COVID‐19 pandemic, governments around the world employed militaristic metaphors to draw attention to the dangers of the virus. But, do militaristic metaphors truly affect individuals' perceived threat of the COVID‐19 virus and increase their support for corresponding restrictive policies? This study assessed the effects of fictitious newspaper articles that described COVID‐19 policies using similarly negatively valenced metaphors but with differing militaristic connotations (e.g., “war” vs. “struggle”). Overall, data from three framing experiments ( N = 1114) in Germany and the United States indicate limited evidence on the effectiveness of the tested militaristic metaphors. In the U.S. context, the non‐militaristic concept of struggle was consistently more strongly associated with the desired outcomes than militaristic metaphors were. In Studies 2 and 3, we also tested whether reporting using a narrative or straightforward facts had additional influence on the framing effect. A congruency effect of the use of a narrative and of warfare metaphors was found in the German sample, but not in that of the United States. Results of post‐experimental norming studies ( N = 437) in both countries revealed that the metaphor of war is associated with people ascribing greater responsibility to their governments, whereas the concept of struggle triggers a sense of individual responsibility. These results are discussed in terms of the usefulness and appropriateness of militaristic metaphors in the context of a pandemic.

“Flying over the crisis”: A study on interdisciplinary metaphors of resilience

“…Due to the limited data material, not all metaphors could be categorized into a metaphorical concept, still description of all metaphor source domains is provided for disclosure (see Table 3). Our experts' use of metaphors is in line with public discourses concerning crises, where battle has also been found to be the most frequently used metaphor, lately around the SARS-CoV2-pandemic (Schnepf & Christmann, 2022). (B) The metaphor source domains we found in the interviews predominantly did not refer to only one of the pre-defined target domains of resilience as trait, process or outcome only, but were related to all three target domains, with a small predominance of process.…”

The COVID-19 Framing Dataset: How Secondary Data Can Be Used to Explore Paradoxical Attitudes During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…All data in this dataset is crosssectional and was collected via online questionnaires. Participants of samples 1 and 2 participated in a crosscultural framing experiment in the United States (U.S.) and Germany, which tested the performative effect of the WAR metaphor in contrast to the concept of STRUGGLE on participants' cognitive, emotional, and attitudinal reactions towards the pandemic (see Schnepf & Christmann, 2022). We also assessed the interaction between both frames and the reporting style of the presented vignette, which was either written in a sober, matter-of-fact style or in an emotionalized manner.…”

“…For instance, policymakers around the globe have made use of militaristic metaphors to emphasize the dangers of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and to prompt citizens to behave in a careful fashion (e.g., Heffernan, 2020). In order to test the performative effects of different metaphors about the pandemic, we conducted several cross-cultural framing experiments across different language contexts (see Schnepf & Christmann, 2022). In doing so, we also exploratively collected data on a newly developed scale aiming to quantify people's paradoxical attitudes towards preventive measures.…”

Metaphorical representation of coronavirus in Spanish and Brazilian cartoons

“…About the persuasive power of the WAR metaphor, Charteris-Black argues that references to wartime make people feel like the situation requires a community effort, that "everyone is in it together" (2021: 50). Also, regarding the effects of such metaphors, Schnepf and Christmann (2022) investigated the effects of militaristic metaphors on people's perceived threat of the COVID-19 virus and support for corresponding policies in the United States and Germany and identified that the metaphor of WAR is associated with people ascribing greater responsibility to their governments, whereas concept of struggle triggers a sense of individual responsibility.…”