Tom Carlson is a Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor in Political Science at Åbo Akademi University. His primary areas of research focus on election campaigns, political advertising, and visual politics.
What is your role in this project?
I act as a senior advisor and researcher in the first work package that deals with laboratory experimental studies within the project. I participate in designing studies and analyzing experimental data.
What do you find interesting about the research of emotions and/or affective polarization?
My background is in research of visual political communication, in particular how political actors strategically use visual imagery to appeal to emotions of target groups. The project is exciting for me as the controlled laboratory setting provides excellent opportunities to study actual emotional reactions of such stimuli and to explore the interplay of emotions and cognitive processing.
What do you do in your spare time?
I really enjoy reading fiction. At the moment, Knausgård’s latest novel engulfs me. I am obsessed with studying and listening to rock music. I play my precious electric guitar whenever I can.
The research project “EmoAffect” takes on the task of studying how emotional reactions drive affective polarization and focuses on which emotions that are crucial drivers. The project is funded by the Research Council of Finland and carried out at Åbo Akademi University.