The People’s Voice—The People’s Choice? How Vox Pop Exemplars Shape Audience Judgments as a Function of Populist Attitudes

Abstract

Exemplification research has consistently shown effects of vox pops’ exemplars on audience judgments, whereby people tend to follow the opinion of a few fellow citizens. In this study, we gain some insight into why—and especially for whom—ordinary citizens are such influential “opinion-givers.” Importantly, we look at populist attitudes as a potential moderator for exemplification effects by comparing news reports containing vox pops with purely journalistic news reports providing the same arguments. In a web-based experiment, we show that both perceptual and persuasive effects are moderated by participants’ populist attitudes, and thus, their resonance with the “voice of the people.”