Kalmoe, N. P. (2014). Fueling the Fire: Violent Metaphors, Trait Aggression, and Support for Political Violence. Political Communication, 31(4), 545–563.
Kalmoe raises the important question of what effects do language have on the mass public. He demonstrates that violent rhetoric moderated by aggressive personality traits increases one’s support for political violence. These results are found through a series of experiments. Treatment was exposure to a political ad using violent language. Mild language was still used, though, so effects are muted. Kalmoe’s study provides a good starting point for studying the effects of language, but should be pushed beyond the experimental setting which limits how much outside noise can dampen the effects of the specific treatment language. Real cultural and discursive environments may be too noisey for specific language to have meaningful effects.
