Abstract

The present study is aimed at analyzing how militants of the main Italian parties vary the level of language abstraction of their messages as a function of the audience's characteristics and the issue discussed in the message. Findings demonstrated that political militants encode messages at a higher level of language abstraction when the audience is politically similar to them, than when the audience is composed of members with heterogeneous political attitudes. Furthermore, the degree of language abstraction varies as a function of audience similarity only when the topic discussed is relevant for militants' political ideology.