The influence of personalisation in political speeches on cynicism

Communicatiewetenschap

Afstudeerproject Politieke Communicatie en Journalistiek

Onderzoeksrapport: The influence of personalisation in political speeches on cynicism

Britt Willemsen (10001841)

Begeleider: Jasper van de Pol Aantal woorden: 5561

Abstract

There is a perception of personalisation in Dutch politics and although there is no hard evidence for this trend, it is still a hot topic in the public sphere.

Personalisation in The Netherlands is often perceived as a negative trend and the general belief is that it increases cynicism. This study looks into the effects of

personalised speeches on cynicism and if political interest increases this effect, using an online experiment with a convenience sample. The results showed no significant relationship between personalised speeches and cynicism, and no moderated effect from personal interest. The results are discussed in the light of the theories and research on personalisation and political cynicism.

1. Introduction

‘Ich bin ein Berliner’, ‘I have a dream’. Two of the most famous quotes in recent history. These speeches contributed to the careers of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King and are still very well known today. There has been a great deal of research into how to give a successful speech. The rhetoric theory of Aristotle is a theory that is used in studies all around the world. Speeches are given to convince and persuade an audience. Therefore, giving successful speeches is one of the most

important skills for a politician (Huys, 2004).

At election time giving speeches is one of the most important tasks a politician has, notably in the US Elections in 2016, where it was visible that the Dutch media were more focused on the personalities and private lives of the candidates. Apparently the Dutch media believe that these parts of politics capture the interest of the Dutch citizen. Although in the USA there is a one party system whereas in Holland we have a multiparty system, it can also be said that the Dutch politicians and media are influenced by the American way of politics and media logic (Van der Lecq, 2016). This results in politicians sharing more private information and adapting to said media logic (Rahat, & Sheafer, 2007). In addition to their commitments to the party,

politicians appear in entertainment shows and talk shows and speak about their personal lives instead of their political ideas. Boukes & Boomgaarden (2015) argue that when politicians show their ‘human’ side in these entertainment shows they attract a different audience and this can lead to more people being interested in politics.

In the last decade several studies have investigated the phenomenon of ‘personalisation’. Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer (2012) noted: “the general belief is that the focus of news coverage has shifted from parties and organizations to candidates and leaders.” However, when looking at studies about personalisation there is no convincing evidence for this personalisation trend (De Swert, 2016). Vliegenthart (2012) researched why people in Holland believe there is a

personalisation trend despite the lack of proof. He concludes that there are more opportunities for the audience to get to know the politician in a personal way, for example in debates or entertainment shows. Furthermore, the Internet gives the

opportunity for individual political communication. Vliegenthart (2012) also mentions the rise of the one-person parties and the fact that there is more attention on individual

power battles within the politics. Garzia (2011) states in his literature review that this perceived personalisation is partly caused by the technological innovations in the media such as the development of television and Youtube. This gives the political leaders more visibility. Furthermore, Garzia suggests that the way followers evaluate their leaders has changed. Followers start to judge leaders as a ‘person’, which eventually leads to a shift from idealized leaders to leaders that have to be able to connect with the public and have positive character traits.

The fact that there is a perception of personalisation in Dutch society makes it an important topic for political communication research. When people believe that the politics in the Netherlands start to personalise there might be a change in their

behaviour. Although we cannot speak for an increase in personalisation, there is much research about the effects. On the one hand personalisation makes politics interesting for an audience that normally would not be interested in politics. But with this positive side there also appears to be a downside; cynicism is a common effect of personalisation of politics (Ariely, 2015; Boukes & Boomgaarden, 2015; De Vreese, 2005; Jebril, Albæk & De Vreese, 2013). When politicians involve their personal lives into politics or focus too much on the individual rather than the party, citizens might feel tricked or gain suspicion. After all, these elements have nothing to do with politics. If citizens realise that, personalisation in politics could feel like a marketing trick and could therefore lead to cynicism.

Much research has been done about personalisation focussing on soft news (Boukes & Boomgaarden, 2015). Speeches are often researched in terms of

persuasive argumentation and rhetoric. However, there is a clear gap in the literature when looking at the effects of personalisation in speeches. Studies done by Campus (2002) and Campus (2010) focused on communication strategies in which speeches and personalisation play an important role. The general conclusion was that the politics in Italy and France have Americanised: “candidates evoke symbolic visions stressing leadership and personal characteristics instead of referring to the ideological and party symbols that dominated the old campaigns” (Campus, 2010). In addition, the political campaigns of Silvio Berlusconi and Nicolas Sarkozy are compared. Sarkozy using his whole family in the political campaign is another example of Americanisation and personalisation in the politics.

Moreover, these studies all focused on Italy or France and due to the different political systems the results cannot be generalized to The Netherlands. In addition, these studies assume that there is a personalisation trend, but as mentioned before there is no evidence for this trend in the Netherlands. This research is designed to fill in this gap between the effects of personalisation in speeches in The Netherlands. In this study the following research question has been designed, figure 1 gives a schematic overview of the variables and conceptual model:

To what extent does personalisation in political speeches lead to cynicism and what is the influence of political interest on this effect?

2. Conceptual Model

Personalisation can be divided into individualisation and privatisation (Van Aelst, Sheafer & Stanyer (2012). Individualisation is defined as individual politicians who are presented and considered more as main actors in politics, whereas

privatisation means to shift the attention for politicians in a public role to their private role. It is interesting to see how both elements have an influence on cynicism, since both elements are used to strengthen a political speech (Campus, 2010). Therefore in this study the overall concept of personalisation will be studied.

As mentioned in the introduction, a possible negative effect of personalisation in speeches is cynicism. A common definition of cynicism is: ‘an individual’s

attitude, consisting of a conviction of the incompetence and immorality of politicians, political institutions and/or the political system as a whole’ (Boukes & Boomgaarden, 2015). Jebril et al. (2013) found that privatisation generates cynicism, regardless of country, education or political interest. However, personalisation in news increased cynicism only for those with a high political interest. De Vreese (2005) found an increase in cynicism due to the use of personalisation as well; his conclusions are in line with Jebril et al. (2013). However, he did not distinguish individualisation from privatisation. Ariely (2015) found evidence that soft news undermines political trust and thus increases cynicism. Like Jebril et al. (2013) and De Vreese (2005) the findings indicate no differences between the 33 researched countries, which make the conclusions of this study generalisable. In addition, Boukes & Boomgaarden (2015) researched soft news and cynicism in The Netherlands specifically. The research

concluded that people who watch relatively more soft news are more cynical than people who watch more hard news. In contrast, Jebril et al. (2013) argued that political interest and knowledge was not a dependent factor.

When looking at theories that focus on personalisation in speeches, it is useful to consider the rhetoric theory of Aristotle, as this was the first theory about giving successful speeches. Even today, the research that focuses on speeches is based on this theory. In the rhetoric theory of Aristotle he argues that there are three key factors that make a persuasive speech (Schuurs & Breij, 2008). Furthermore, it is essential that these elements are in balance. The first one is ethos; the audience has to define the speaker as credible. Second is logos; the speech has to contain logical and rational arguments. And finally, pathos; the speech has to appeal to the emotions of the

audience. Moreover, ethos has to do with the character of the speaker (Huys, 2004). Breat (2007) concluded that in order for a person to have good ethos one has to be credible, professional, experienced and competent. However, too much ethos can lead to mistrust and cynicism. The speaker will be seen as being arrogant and pretentious a big mouth and the audience will feel deceived. Whether personalisation in speeches can contribute to the ethos of the speaker is still in question. Using personal stories or individual traits make the speaker more ‘human’ and therefore contribute to his or her ethos. However, these personalised elements can also be perceived as a persuasion trick. Breat (2007) concludes that personalisation in speeches is often received as too much ethos since the audience experiences it as insincere and thus will result in increased cynicism. That being said he argues that just the right amount of ethos can contribute to the speaker in a positive way. In addition, Breat (2007) mentions that measuring ethos can only be done afterwards and that is has a big influence on the overall image of the politician.

Campus (2010) explains that image management and media attention are very important for politicians. This means politicians will adapt to the media logic. As explained by Mazzoleni and Schulz (1999) political actors have become able to adapt their behaviour and messages to media requirements. Campus (2010) looks into the different political leadership strategies and compares politician Nicolas Sarkozy with Silvio Berlusconi. One important conclusion is that personalisation fits into the media logic. The media have limited capability and budget to cover the complete and full picture of the political world and politicians. Therefore, they prefer messages or items that are spectacular and attract large audiences. Politicians know how the media

works; to get coverage they will offer their message in a way that is consistent with the media logic. Thus they often choose to personalise their message in the hope the media will cover the story. Therefore, personalised speeches are not only written to persuade the audience, also to attract the attention of the media. Campus (2010) even concludes that both Sarkozy and Berlusconi became leaders of their countries with a media strategy in which personalisation played a very big role.

The media malaise theory

In addition, the media malaise theory also predicts that personalisation will lead to cynicism. The media malaise theory is a traditional media theory postulated by Robinson. The original theory states that the coverage of the media has a bad

influence on society (Robinson, 1967). This theory explains that the media focuses on certain aspects of politics, by doing so the citizens do not get a fair impression of politicians. This leads to less trust and thus an increase in cynicism. The media highlights private matters and as a result citizens start to believe that this is the only important thing in politics. Therefore, citizens start to believe that their decisions do not have any influence and they develop an aversion to politics more broadly. Capella and Jamieson (1997) explain that election campaigns are framed in terms of game and focus on personal traits of candidates. They found proof that this causes an increase in political cynicism. In addition, Avery (2009) concludes that most literature supports the media malaise theory and thus the fact that news media increases cynicism, especially on television. Speeches are often broadcasted via television and are part of the political news citizens receive via the media. It could be argued that personalised speeches contribute to this wrong view on politics since these speeches proclaim an unfair view of politics. In conclusion, if the media malaise theory is suitable for speeches it is plausible that personalised speeches increase cynicism among citizens.

The exemplification theory

In line with the media malaise theory the exemplification theory makes similar assumptions and predictions. This theory of Zillmann (2002) states that when people are exposed to an ‘exemplar’ they tend to adjust their perceptions of the topic or person that has been exemplified. This means that seeing an example lets people believe that something is more common than it actually is. Boukes & Boomgaarden (2016) argue in their research that people’s trust in politicians in general is rising

because of some politicians appearing in entertainment shows. But this also works the other way round. Since there is proof in some literature that personalisation in soft news can lead to cynicism (Boukes & Boomgaarden, 2015; Ariely, 2015; Jebril et al., 2013), one can argue that one politician that uses personalisation in a speech will be perceived as an example for all politicians. Following the exemplification theory this means that a personalised speech of one politician leads to an increase of cynicism towards all politicians. Based on these theories and previous literature the following hypothesis can been drawn:

H1. Personalisation in speeches increases cynicism about politics

Virtuous circle Theory

However, the virtuous-circle theory objects to the malaise theory. This theory believes that media exposure leads to greater trust in the government (Avery, 2009). Norris (2000a) states that the process of political communication can be seen as a virtuous circle because the people that are most politically informed have the most trust and are more exposed to media coverage of public issues. Thus, in general people that find themselves more politically interested and engaged will pay more attention to political news and will learn more. This greater knowledge will lead to more political trust, less cynicism and thus a virtuous circle. Since political speeches are often broadcasted via television, it can be said that people who are more

politically interested and engaged will pay more attention to these speeches as well. Furthermore, most political speeches are recorded and can be found on the Internet; logically only people with high political interest will search for and watch these speeches. On the other hand, people that are not interested in political coverage will pay minimal attention and will not be influenced by political news (Norris, 2000a). The virtuous circle theory thus suggests that people with higher political interest will pay more attention to speeches. Since they have more political knowledge they also recognise political marketing and persuasive tricks. When using personalisation in the speeches this can lead to more cynicism in the group of people with political

knowledge and interest. Since a positive effect of personalisation can be attracting a different audience, the people with less political interest and knowledge will probably prefer the personalised speech to the un-personalised version and will not become more cynical.

In her empirical studies Norris (2000a) found evidence for this argument. People in the United States and Great Britain with high news consumption were associated with higher levels of political interest, knowledge, efficacy and social trust. Furthermore, during the elections of 1997 in Great Britain political trust had increased due to the increasing media attention for political news (Norris, 2000b). Jebril et al. (2013) compared personalised media coverage in Great Britain, Denmark and Spain. It appeared that personalised coverage increased cynicism especially for people with high political interest because those people recognised the persuasion trick and considered it insincere.

The Elaboration Likelihood model

One other theory that explains how people perceive and process information such as speeches is The Elaboration Likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion. This is a theory that explains attitude changes. It states that when someone is presented with new information some level of elaboration occurs. This elaboration makes people unconsciously choose a processing route: central or peripheral (Griffin, 2015). The central route is chosen when the message recipient cares about the message and has the motivation and ability to think about the message. Furthermore, the quality of the argument will be evaluated. However, when the recipient uses the peripheral route to process the information, less attention will be paid to the message itself and the quality of the argument. They will rely on other persuasive cues or general

impressions in the message. When listening to a speech the information will also be processed via one of these routes. People with high political interest have the

motivation and ability to process the arguments via the central route. People with low political interest are more likely to choose the peripheral route. Personalisation in speeches can be seen as a persuasive cue, thus the recipients that chooses the

peripheral route can be persuaded by personalisation. However, those who chose the central route will not be persuaded by personalisation and start questioning the reliability of the politician. These people analyse the information on a deeper level and therefore realise that personalised elements have nothing to do with politics. Furthermore they may even consider it as a disturbing factor. This means that

following the ELM a personalised speech can increase cynicism for the recipients that choose the central route and thus have high political interest. Based on the virtuous

circle theory, the elaboration likelihood model and existing literature the following hypothesis can be drawn:

H2. The effects of personalisation in speeches on political cynicism are moderated by political interest; for people with high political interest the effect of personalisation on cynicism will be stronger.

Figure 1. Schematic overview conceptual model

3. Method

Design Since an experiment is the only way to determine a causal relationship, this

method was chosen to collect the data. The research design used to answer the

question was a one by two between subjects design. Furthermore, to reach a sufficient number of participants the experiment was carried out online. In the experiment the participants were exposed to two different stimuli. A total of four researchers used the conducted experiment to collect data. This collaboration was chosen to increase the number of participants in the experiment. All four researchers used their own network to find participants, thus the data is collected via a convenience sample. Over a period of two weeks the participants were repeatedly invited via Facebook and email to participate in the experiment. A total of 367 respondents participated in the experiment. However, 71 of them did not complete the full experiment, which resulted in 296 analysed participants. The average age of the participants was 38,47 (SD=17,10) with a minimum of 18 and a maximum of 85. Gender was well

distributed in this study; 48,8% was female and 51,2% was male. It appeared that the participants where highly educated with a score of 5,12 (SD=1,18) on a 1 till 7 scale.

Both age and education differ from the population, which is harmful for the external validity.

Procedure

Before the experiment started the participants were informed about the purpose of the study, the anonymity and that the data was only used for this study. The experiment started with questions about political knowledge and political trust. Next, the variables of cynicism and political interest were measured. Thirdly, the participants were randomly assigned to the first two conditions and received the first stimulus, this part of the experiment was reported elsewhere. Afterwards the second randomization took place. The experimental group was presented with a clip of a personalised speech; the control group was exposed to a non-personalised speech about issues. The participants were informed about the clip they saw, this was a fragment of the speech Diederik Samsom held at the PVDA party conference in 2013. Furthermore, the participants were instructed to pay close attention while watching the clip. After 60 seconds of watching the participants had seen a sufficient amount of the clip to continue and could click to the next question. It was also possible to watch the full clip. Directly after the participants watched the clip the manipulation check took place. The question: ‘did the clip you just watched focus on personal and private matters?’ was asked. Results of this manipulation check are reported later on. The demographic variables age, gender and education were measured before the second measurement of cynicism and political trust. After the last questions were asked there was an opportunity for participants to leave comments and their email address in case they wanted to receive more information about the study and the outcomes.

Stimuli/manipulation

In the second part of the experiment the participants saw a speech of politician Diederik Samsom. At that time he was the leader of his party and assumed to be a famous politician. When selecting speeches of politicians the aim was to find a typical speech for a politician in the Netherlands. The chosen speech of Diederik Samsom was not very divergent in a positive or negative way, therefore it can be seen as an average speech. Furthermore it was an older speech that did not receive a lot of media attention, which means the participants were probably hearing the speech for the first time. The full speech had a duration of 17.46 minutes. Both the experimental and the

control group saw an edited clip of 2.05 minutes. The clips were edited in such a way that the length, the beginning and the ending were identical. By doing so, we

minimized the chance of external factors interfering in the results and thus improved the internal validity. Figure 2 shows a screenshot of the clip as shown to the

participants. There were two different versions of the middle part of the clip. The experimental condition was exposed to a personalized clip, while the control

condition saw a non-personalised fragment. The participants did not know there were two versions of the clip and could not see in which group they were placed. In the personalised clip Samsom talks about his youth in the city of Leeuwarden. This is the place where this party convention took place. He talks about his bond with the city. Furthermore he talks about his children, how they grew up and what his ideas for the future of his country are. The clip that is not personalised focuses on the general policy and plans that the PVDA has for the future. One important difference between the clips was the form he uses, ‘I’ in the personalised speech and ‘we’ in the other.

Measurements

The dependent variable cynicism was measured using a scale of Jebril et al. (2013). This scale consisted of four different items. The participants answered by using a seven-point Likert scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). One example of an item was: “Ministers and state secretaries are mainly focused on themselves’’, the complete list of items can be found in the appendix. Cynicism was measured at two different moments in the experiment, one pre-test and one post-test both with the same scale. Both scales were found to be reliable, the pre-test

Cronbach’s alfa = 0,71 and the post-test Cronbach’s alfa = 0,76. Thus, all four items were used in computing the new variables.

A seven-point Likert scale measured the political interest of the participants, the scale consisted of 3 items, including: “I am interested in politics”. The complete list of items can be found in the appendix. In addition, Cronbach’s alfa= 0,83 meaning this scale was found to be very reliable and thus all items were used in computing the variable political interest. The question: “Did the speech you just saw focus on personal or private affairs” was asked as manipulation check. The participants could answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, in this way we could check if the participants have processed the stimulus in the right way. It appeared that 66,9% of the participants in the

experimental group noticed that the clip focused on personalised issues, while 73,8% of the control group answered negative to this question. Therefore it can be concluded that the internal validity of the experiment is sufficient.

Analysis

To answer the research question several statistical analyses were conducted with help of the program SPSS. An important factor of the experiment was

randomisation; this was tested by several Independent T-tests to determine if there were statistical differences between the control- and experimental conditions. To test hypothesis 1 a MANOVA was conducted. Since there were two different moments in the experiment that cynicism was measured, in time of cynicism, this analysis can determine if there is an increase in cynicism caused by the personalisation in the speeches. In addition, a multiple regression analysis can determine if the variable political interest caused a possible interaction effect and thus test hypothesis 2. Moreover, other demographic variables gender, age and education were added to the

multiple regression analysis as well, to see if these variables interfered with the effect of personalisation of cynicism.

4. Results

A total of 367 participants participated in our experiment. However some participants did not complete the full experiment. It is crucial for further analysis that the information about which condition the participants were allocated is known. Consequently, all cases in which this was unknown were deleted. This resulted in 296 useful cases for analysis.

An independent t-test was conducted to check the randomisation in the experiment. Table 1 shows that there is no significant difference in gender, age or education between the control group and the experimental group. This means the randomisation on those variables has succeeded.

Table 1.

Independent t-test between gender, age, education and condition

Control group Experimental group

M SD M SD t Significance

Gender 1,53 0,50 1,46 0,50 1,22 0,83

Age 38,7 18,08 38,86 16,14 -0,09 0,68

Education 5,05 1,28 5,18 1,08 -0,92 0,36

Note. M= mean. SD= standard deviation

Using a MANOVA analysis, hypothesis 1: “Personalisation in speeches increases cynicism about politics” was tested. Cynicism was measured before and after the stimulus. Consequently if hypothesis 1 is true there should be a significant increase between the two measurement points in the experimental condition and a lesser increase in the control condition. This was not the case (WilksLambda = 1, F(1,294)=0,56, p=0,46). No significant result means that we cannot reject the null hypothesis and therefore there is no proof for hypothesis 1. There is no relationship between personalisation in speeches and cynicism.

Hypothesis 2 tested if political interest is a moderator in the effect of

personalisation on cynicism. A multiple regression analysis was conducted to test this hypothesis, in this analysis only the post-test scores of cynicism were used. Table 2

shows all the effects in this experiment. The main effect of personalisation on cynicism is not significant, this result is in line with the results of the MANOVA analysis. Furthermore, there appears to be no significant interaction effect. It cannot be concluded that personalisation has a stronger effect on cynicism for people with higher political interest and thus hypothesis two cannot be proven. The only

significant effect found was age. This means we can conclude that an increase in age causes an increase in cynicism. This appeared to be the strongest factor when

measuring cynicism. The increase in cynicism is small per year of age, however the total increase of cynicism over the years of age can be quite proportional.

Table 2.

Multiple regression analysis personalisation on cynicism with interaction effect of political interest

B Std. error Beta t Significance Constant Gender Age Education 3,85 0,06 0,01 0,02 0,44 0,12 0,00 0,05 0,03 0,20 0,02 8,76 0,46 3,14 0,28 0,00 0,65 0,00 0,78 Personalisation 0,04 0,40 0,02 0,10 0,92 Political interest -0,03 0,13 -0,02 -0,20 0,84 Interaction personalisation &

political interest

-0,05 0,19 -0,06 -0,29 0,78

5. Discussion

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether personalisation in speeches leads to cynicism and if political interest influences this effect. Against the expectations, which were based on studies focussing on soft news and cynicism, (Ariely, 2015; Boukes & Boomgaarden, 2015; De Vreese, 2005; Jebril et al., 2013) this research found no significant relationship between personalised speeches and cynicism. Consequently, neither hypotheses in this study can be proven. However, there appears to be an increase in cynicism by age. The older someone is, the more cynical one becomes about politics. The results of this study are not in line with previous studies from Ariely (2015) and De Vreese (2005) because they found that personalisation increases cynicism. Jebril (2013) concluded that personalisation increases cynicism regardless of country, education and political interest. However, Boukes & Boomgaarden (2015) argued that when watching soft news, people with high political knowledge and interest are more cynical. Results from both Jebril (2013) and Boukes & Boomgaarden (2015) cannot be supported by the current study. In conclusion it is safe to say that the effects of soft news and personalisation on cynicism are not applicable to political speeches.

The outcomes of this research suggest that politicians and campaign leaders can use personalisation in their speeches since it does not lead to cynicism. This means it is not harmful to their image. This has an implication for society. However, it has to be mentioned that this research did not focus on the effectiveness of

personalisation in speeches. As mentioned in the introduction there is a clear perception that there is a process of increased personalisation in The Netherlands. Furthermore personalisation is often framed in a negative way. This research suggests that increasing cynicism is not a threat to society. In addition, the discussion about personalisation in the public sphere should be reconsidered. First of all, there is still no proof of an increase of personalisation, and secondly there is no evidence for negative effects that might harm society. It would be interesting for further research to look into the framing of personalisation, why personalisation is often framed in a negative way and how this contributes to the public opinion.

When looking at the existing literature more evidence suggests that older people are more politically cynical (Agger, Goldstein, & Pearl, 1961). Also, the rhetoric theory suggests that personalisation in speeches promotes the positive ethos of the speaker. However, this statement cannot be proven. Ethos is a precise and fragile element of someone’s performance (Huys, 2004). It was expected that the personalisation in speeches in general would be found to be too extravagant and therefore the politician would be seen as less credible and reliable. Clearly this is not always the case. It has to be mentioned that the ethos depends on the speaker. Thus, Diederik Samsom did not harm his ethos by personalising his speech and although the analysed speech is representative of that of Dutch politicians, one has to be careful with generalisation. The ethos of an unknown politician with different political ideas could easily differ from Diederik Samsom. Therefore, further research whould determine the generalisability of these results.

In addition, the media malaise theory, which stated that the media frames politicians in a negative way and thus causes cynicism among citizens, cannot be supported by this study. Therefore, it can be tentatively concluded that the media malaise theory is not applicable to political speeches. This research suggests that citizens do not recognise this negative framing and are not made more cynical as a result. Furthermore, no proof has been found for the exemplification theory

(Zillmann, 2002). Since there was no increase in cynicism, there is no evidence that a personalised speech could damage the image of other politicians.

The virtuous circle theory explains that people who have more political interest watch more political media coverage. This increases political knowledge and eventually political trust (Norris, 2000a). Thus, people who are highly politically interested are less cynical. The elaboration likelihood model explained that people with a higher political interest would choose to use the central route to process the arguments in the speech, which would probably lead to an increase in cynicism. However, the research found no evidence for either theory. This implies that the theories that have been connected to personalisation in the past cannot simply be applied to speeches. Therefore, they should be reconsidered and adjusted to personalisation in speeches specifically.

The presented study had several limitations that have to be pointed out. The primary limitation of this study relates to the sample size. Since many participants did not complete the experiment a small sample size was used for analysis. This could

have resulted in not having enough statistical power to find significant results. However, further research could examine whether a bigger sample gives more

significant results. One suggestion to attract more participants could be to give a small reward to all respondents. Since the experiment was a cooperation of three

researchers, there were problems around the routing of the experiment. Should the experiment have focused on the tested hypothesis in this research only, it could have been more effective and less time consuming. This probably would have ensured that there was more completion.

Also, the manipulation check appeared to be weak. Apparently, the

participants did not completely recognise the personalisation in the speeches. This could have been better, which would have positively impacted the internal validity. Moreover, one could argue that the stimulus used in this research focused too much on the politician Diederik Samsom, and there is a possibility that the results only apply in this case. To strengthen the generalisabilty of this study, further research should focus on this problem by examining different politicians and/or different speeches. Diederik Samson is a very well known politician; he was the leader of a party that has been in the parliament for the last three years. Consequently, a

suggestion for further research would be to use a politician who is less well known.

Political speeches have created some of the most iconic political moments in history. Hopefully they will continue to inspire us in the future!

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Appendix 1

Online Survey

Political interest

 Ik volg verkiezingscampagnes intensief

 Politiek interesseert mij

 Ik stem altijd tijdens de verkiezingen

Note: Participanten gaven antwoord op basis van een zeven-punt Likert-schaal: 1. Helemaal mee oneens 2. Mee oneens 3. Beetje mee oneens 4. Neutraal 5. Beetje mee eens 6. Mee eens 7. Helemaal mee eens

Cynicism

 Het is makkelijker om parlementslid te worden door politieke vrienden dan door eigen competenties en vaardigheden.

 Ministers en staatssecretarissen zijn voornamelijk op zichzelf gefocust.

 Politici beloven meer dan ze waar kunnen maken

 Politici begrijpen niet wat er in de maatschappij aan de hand is.

Note: cynicisme is twee keer gemeten. Participanten gaven antwoord op basis van een

zeven-punt Likert-schaal: 1. Helemaal mee oneens 2. Mee oneens 3. Beetje mee oneens 4. Neutraal 5. Beetje mee eens 6. Mee eens 7. Helemaal mee eens

Manipulation check

Het tweede fragment dat u bekeek (met politicus Diederik Samsom) ging over persoonlijke en prive-aangelegenheden?  Waar  Niet waar Gender Wat is u geslacht?  Man  Vrouw

Age

Wat is uw leeftijd?

Note: respondenten konden hier vrij een getal invullen

Education

Wat is u hoogst afgeronde opleiding?

 Basisschool

 LBO / VBO / VMBO kader- en beroepsgerichte leerweg

 VMBO T(L) of MAVO of eerste 3 jaar HAVO en VWO

 MBO

 HAVO en VWO bovenbouw / WO en HBO propedeuse

 HBO- of WO-bachelor

 WO-doctoraal of master