Media framing and attitudes toward LMBTQ people

Abstract

The results of a survey- and natural experiment Abstract In this paper, we investigate media representation of Budapest Pride and the effect of this representation on attitudes toward LMBTQ people and their rights. In our research, we analysed the reports of television news about Pride and also conducted an online national survey with 1000 respondents using an experimental approach (called survey experiment) to simulate the effect of media framing. It is a unique survey as half of the respondents answered the questionnaire before Budapest Pride (organised 08.08.2017), while the other half filled it in after the event. So, besides the experimental treatments used we also conducted a natural experiment to test whether the Pride event changed people’s attitudes. Our results show only minor effects of news framing. The most significant result is that political framing might modify people’s opinions on public issues. Keywords: survey experiment, media framing, LMBTQ, Budapest Pride