Privacy or/and Security? A Survey Experiment about Framing Effects on the Acceptance of Surveillance Policies in Germany

People often ignore the details and implications of new policies. Thus, one might argue that the acceptance of new policies largely depends on the framing of the issue presented to the public. This might particularly apply to surveillance policies as they often involve a degree of uncertainty about their consequences for ordinary citizens. Our survey experiment focuses on the acceptance of measures of data retention in Germany. A new law commits telecommunication providers to retain data about the users’ telephone calls, emails, and Internet history. The paper experimentally tests how framing effects influence opinion about this policy – with a particular focus on value frames (privacy, security), and on frames highlighting possible goals of the policy (effective prevention from crime and terrorism). Relying on recent work about framing in competitive contexts and on argument strength (e.g. Chong/Druckman 2007; Zhao et al. 2011), we vary the direction of the frames and differentiate between strong and weak frames (e.g. Druckman et al. 2013). Respondents are randomly assigned to treatments with single frames or with different pairs of frames. Additionally, we theoretically discuss and empirically test the interplay between value priorities, policy-specific knowledge, and the individuals’ susceptibility to framing effects. With regard to the experiment’s generalizability, special attention is paid to a critical discussion on how the frames that might be relevant to the public are identified in different steps preceding the survey experiment (content analysis, pretest survey etc.). For our empirical analyses, we use data from a telephone survey of a random sample of adults living in Germany. The survey will be conducted in spring 2016.