Imagine All the Forces: The Impact of Threatening News Coverage on the Willingness to Militarily Engage in the Resurgence of the East Versus West Conflict

Abstract

A world divided into East versus West: The so-called Ukraine crisis has once more summoned outdated patterns of political thinking. Simultaneously, media discourses have flared up debating diplomatic and military solutions as possible policy responses. A majority of Germans, however, have remained hesitant to advocate any escalation of military conflict. We were interested in how far reputable journalism concerning the Ukraine crisis might activate a disposition toward military engagement. To evaluate the supposed impact of actual news coverage, we used explicit existential threats (mortality salience; MS) as a comparative measure. Typical effects of MS were derived from terror management theory (TMT), which predicts that the awareness of existential threats amplifies the efforts to defend one’s own culture, even by military means. We used a 2 × 2 factorial design (N = 112) with the factors article (original bellicose vs. neutral, nonmilitant depiction) and salience condition (MS vs. control). Results revealed a strong impact of the original, bellicose article, with increased willingness to deploy German forces at the Russian border, independently of the salience condition. Additional existential threats did not add further effects, as values for willingness were already very high. Classic effects regarding TMT were observed when people had read the Non-Militant article. Here, the willingness to deploy forces only increased after a confrontation with existential threats. We conclude that threatening news coverage on the Ukraine crisis has the ability to alter willingness for first-step military action at the Russian border by inducing effects that are – at least in their outcome – comparable to explicit existential threats.