Lecture 12 Flashcards
Artikel Populism in Online Election Coverage: Analyzing populist statements by politicians,
journalists, and readers in three countries.
Ø Article investigates the extent to which populist key messages are distributed via online news articles and reader comments, as well as how media actors, political actors, and readers employ populist online communication during election periods RQ: How do the online news media moderate populist messages by political speakers?
Populism
= thin ideology, and 4 dimensions of populist communication are distinguished:
- People-centrim
- Anti-elitism
- Popular sovereignty
- Exclusion
1.People-centrism:
A populist actor can demonstrate his closeness to the people, stress their virtues, praise their achievements, or describe them as a monolithic group.
- Anti-elitism:
Populist actors discredit or blame the elite and detach the elite from the people
- Popular sovereignty:
On the one hand, populist actors may demand the people’s sovereignty. On the other hand, populist actors can also establish a negative and conflictive approach by denying the sovereignty of the elite.
- Exclusion:
Just as they blame the elite, populist actors may discredit or blame specific social groups or exclude them from the people
Core of populism:
differentiation between two groups: the first is the “corrupt elite,” who are out of touch with the second group, “the pure people
Populists may exclude specific segments of the population from the group of “true people” and see them as a threat or a burden to society
Groups who do not share the people’s “good” characteristics, values, or opinions are perceived as out-groups or as “dangerous ‘others’”
Perspectives on Populism and the Media
Populism by the media: refers to media organizations actively engaging in their own kind of populism
Populism through the media: focused on the dissemination and strengthening of populist messages by politicians and other actors
Populist citizen journalism: occurs when media organizations open the gates to populist messages by audience members—usually in the form of reader comments on their websites
Online News Media as Platforms for Populist Communication
Online media provide political as well as media actors with more direct connections to the people, which is consistent with populists’ claims to represent, advocate, and speak on behalf of the people
The attention economy of the internet: there is compatibility between media logic and populist communication logic
Commercialized media
3 aspects of media logic that are especially favorable to the dissemination of populism:
A conflict framing,
B strategic framing, and
c personalization.
Findings & conclusion:
Comment sections are more populist than online news articles
The majority of populist key messages in online news articles originate from politicians, not from journalists
Opinion-oriented stories are more prone to conveying populist key messages from media actors, whereas straight news favours populism by political actors.
Populism is a attack of the rule of law
Many think ‘rechtsstaat’ (rule of law) does not protect them
Political mobilisation of discontent
Populist mobilisation: less educated, the blue-collar workers, the unemployed, the politically dissatisfied, and those with negative attitudes toward immigrant.
Populist as de- mobilisers
Negative tone triggers distrust toward politics, parties, politicians and democracy. This discourages (young) voters.
Mudde:
populism is a symptom of a democratic deficit, not the cause:
Key problem: many people still support central idea of liberal democracy, but no longer support/ trust established liberal democratic parties and politicians.
Minimal definition populism:
populism as a thin-centred ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated in two homogeneous and antagonists groups, the pure people, vs the corrupt elite, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volontee generale (general will) of the people.
Artikel populism versus democracy (Abts, Rummens
core aspects:
The leader
The elite/ establishment
The people
The outsider
2 homologies:
2 homogenous groups (morele categorien): elite vs the people Effect: 4 antagonisms:
- Anti-elite mobilisation
- Betrayal of the people
- Outgroup derogation
- The people versus the other (outsider)
- Homogeneous people
The way in which populist actors define who belongs to the people versus the elite
Charismatic leader: not rule of law, but rule of man:
è Singular, personal authority
Singular leader with unique capacity to understand and represent the homogeneous people
Populists claim to personally embody the direct expression of the popular will, thereby negating societal and political plurality of interests.
Populists reject representative democracy and its intermediary institutions (trade unions and interest groups) and detest mechanisms for interest mediation, negotiation consensus-building and compromise, expert advice, legal and bureaucratic procedures and the traditional press. They all distort and obstruct the true, direct and uncorrupted expression of the will of the people by the leader.
Two opposites of populism:
Pluralism
Pluralism assumes that societies are composed of several social groups with different ideas and interests. For this reason, pluralists favor the proliferation of many centers of powers and maintain that politics should reflect the preferences of as many groups as possible through compromise and consensus.
Elitism
Elitists believe that the people are dishonest and vulgar, while the elite are superior in cultural, intellectual and moral items. (…) Democracy easily degenerates into rule by the mob…
- Traditional elite defends the rule of law and minority rights: anti- elite mobilisation
For populists, traditional elites protect ‘outsiders’ (minorities) at the expense of the native, majority population by emphasising constitutional guarantees of equality before the law, universal rights and freedoms and due process.
This ideology of equality undermines the safety, well-being and perhaps even survival of the real people as they insufficiently protect the majority homogeneous people against underserving and predatory outsiders or intruders.
Like the people, also outsiders and the elite are all represented as homogeneous group.
This “rule of man” instead of the rule of law creates a conflict between legitimacy (the claim of populists to represent the people) and legality (the claim of the elites that populists violate constitutional and other legal norms and rules).
The ‘dark side’ of the notion of the people
Popular sovereignty vs. liberal constitutionalism
Antagonisms: people and populist leader vs. elite
Mudde: “All manifestations of populism are based on the moral distinction between ‘the pure people’and ‘the corrupt elite’.
Anti-establishment
Anti-establishment sentiments and opinions are core element of populism and extremism
Typically, high levels of confidence in one’s own understanding of political issues (e.g.
belief superiority)
BUT: illusion of explanatory depth, particularly high among extremists
Kruger-Dunning effect: practically people who are incompetent overestimated their own ability, because they are insufficiently competent to realize their incompetence.
Populist versus elite
Populism in its core an anti-establishment movement: a rejection of the entire economic establishment, cultural elite, academia and ‘political class’.
For populists, the entire establishment is recruited through the same corrupt mechanisms and they are all part of one corrupt system that betrays the will of the people.
- Betrayal of the people
False attempts at division of the homogeneous people
For populist, the entire elite is corrupt elite. There is no difference between government and opposition, between bankers, entrepreneurs, academics and journalists.
The entire ‘ruling class’ works in unison against ‘the people’
Populists do not attack the political establishment based on policy disagreement, but on their morality. Populism is a moral (not ideological) conceptualization of politics. - For populists there is only one correct interpretation and use power: that is when political power (and resources) are used in the interest of the homogenous, native people. - Denial of political and social pluralism: populists accuse the elite of ‘creating’ societal discord and cleavages that do not really exist, merely to keep their job and to keep the party cartel running.
The establishment representatives do not represent the people, but only themselves. The populist is the only political actor that can protect the people against this elite conspiracy.
Representative democracy itself is corrupted,as it allowes the ruling class to betray the people by hijacking democratic institutions and procedures to enrich and empower themselves.
-> Simple solutions for complex societal problems?
- The people vs the other (outsider)
The other/ outsider/ enemy of the people
Adversarial relationship between homogeneous (native) people and (ethically and religiously different) newcomers/immigrants
Strangers are ‘outsiders’ and their ‘otherness’ justifies exclusion from the majority population
Otherness and cultural distance mostly results from religious or ethnic characteristics of immigrants groups that have been part of society for a shorter period and have roots in other countries
Favouritism of own group VS out-group derogation
Othering = creating cultural distance between groups
