Resonance

Christian Baden , The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
c.baden@mail.huji.ac.il

Resonance is commonly used as a conceptual metaphor to describe the process by which verbalised opinions (including related notions such as factual claims, frames, and interpretations) come to be accepted and adopted by other members of a public. Among the available explanations of persuasiveness, resonance distinctly focuses on the adoption of opinions owing to their fit within a context of socialised cultural norms, experiences, and beliefs, foregrounding socio-cognitive, shared heuristics – notably, relevance, plausibility, appropriateness. Resonance is primarily reflected in others’ self-directed, common re-use of the same or similar opinion statements; however, wider usages have also considered lesser responses (e.g., clicking Like), or even no response at all, as capable of expressing resonance, so long as it can be inferred that the proposed ideas have been widely adopted. Resonance is used to describe two somewhat distinct meanings: On the one hand, resonance describes the seamless adoption of ideas into people’s existing ways of thinking, emphasising their so-perceived plausibility and appropriateness. On the other hand, resonance also describes the frequent re-use of ideas primarily that are perceived as plausible and relevant, but raise normative conflicts, raising wide-spread controversial engagement with these ideas (e.g., eliciting large amounts of responses). Critics have pointed out that resonance remains an under-theorised construct, with few underlying mechanisms adequately established, which is therefore too commonly used in a vague, metaphorical sense only.

Keywords: appropriateness, plausibility, relevance

Related Entries: Belief, Public Opinion, Opinion Expression

References:
Baden, C., & David, Y. (2018). On resonance: A study of culture-dependent reinterpretations of extremist violence in Israeli media discourse. Media, Culture & Society 40(4), 514–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437177344
Ferree, M. M. (2003). Resonance and radicalism: Feminist framing in the abortion debates of the United States and Germany. American Journal of Sociology, 109(2), 304–344. https://doi.org/10.1086/378343