Language, media framing and public opinion: a neurocognitive reading
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51247/pdlc.v7i4.1024Keywords:
public opinion, mass media, language, psycholinguistics, digital communicationAbstract
Objective: to examine how the language used by news media and digital platforms participates in the formation of public opinion, connecting the sociological theory of discourse with neurocognitive evidence on meaning processing. Methodology: critical narrative review of theoretical and empirical literature retrieved from Scopus, Web of Science, SciELO and Dialnet, with a main window from 2010 to 2026, complemented by foundational works in social theory and cognitive psychology. Main findings: lexical and syntactic resources, neologisms, adjectivisation and agent deletion, operate as framing devices that guide the attribution of responsibility; negativity bias and moral-emotional content increase news consumption and diffusion; effects attributed to algorithmic curation are heterogeneous and smaller than commonly assumed; and simplified hormonal explanations lack consistent experimental support. Applications: political communication, media literacy, journalism training and information policy design. Originality: the paper integrates sociological discourse analysis with recent semantic neuroscience and delimits, on evidential grounds, which neurocognitive claims about public opinion are warranted and which are not.
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