Foundedness

Marc Jungblut, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, Germany
marc.jungblut@ifkw.lmu.de

Opinions can be differentiated on the basis of a variety of qualities which describe how they are embedded or justified by the opinion holders. While there is no existing umbrella term for these qualities, we refer to them as the ‘foundedness’ of an opinion. The foundedness of an opinion describes why people believe something to be true and how certain they are that something is true. Common types of foundedness are the epistemological status of an opinion, the affective status of an opinion, sources that support an opinion, or provided evidence in support of an opinion.

The concept of foundedness of opinions is crucial for researching opinion discourses, as it aims to analyse how individuals justify their positions and attempt to persuade others. Research, for instance, is interested in unraveling how communicators use evidence to support their claims or how propagandists can use affective language to mobilise sympathisers.

Similarly, the concept of foundedness of opinions is also of interest in research on the effects of opinionated statements, as it strives to uncover how statements with different types of foundedness vary in their impact. For instance, this research is interested in unraveling how information supported by evidence differs in impact from information without evidence, or how the persuasiveness of opinions with different epistemological statuses—such as the certainty of claims or the reliability of a prognosis—might shape audience reactions.

Keywords: foundedness of opinions, epistemological status, affective status, sources, evidence

Related Entries: Epistemic/Truth, Epistemic Community, Evidence

References:
Meyer, C. O. (2016). INFOCORE definitions: “Evidential claims and beliefs”. https://www.infocore.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/def_evidential-beliefs.pdf
Neuberger, C., Bartsch, A., Fröhlich, R., Hanitzsch, T., Reinemann, C., & Schindler, J. (2023). The digital transformation of knowledge order: A model for the analysis of the epistemic crisis. Annals of the International Communication Association, 47(2), 180-201. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2023.2169950
Van Dijk, T. A., & Kintsch, W. (1983). Strategies of discourse comprehension. Academic Press.