“They Did It”: The Effects of Emotionalized Blame Attribution in Populist Communication

Abstract

How can we explain the persuasiveness of populist messages, and who are most susceptible to their effects? These questions remain largely unanswered in extant research. This study argues that populist messages are characterized by assigning blame to elites in an emotionalized way. As previous research pointed at the guiding influence of blame attributions and emotions on political attitudes, these message characteristics may explain populism's persuasiveness. An experiment using a national sample (N = 721) was conducted to provide insights into the effects of and mechanisms underlying populist blame attribution with regard to the European and national levels of governance. The results show that emotionalized blame attributions influence both blame perceptions and populist attitudes. Identity attachment moderates these effects: Emotionalized blame attributions have the strongest effects for citizens with weaker identity attachments. These insights allow us to understand how populist messages affect which citizens.

Framing blame: toward a better understanding of the effects of populist communication on populist party preferences

“…Following populism's rationale, the European Union can be perceived as a bureaucratic, corrupt enemy that threatens the well-being of the people belonging to the nation. Populist ideas construct the European Union as a threat to national identity (Hameleers, Bos, and de Vreese 2017). Therefore, we expect that the effects of blame exposure are also strongest at lower levels of European identity attachment (H3b).…”

“…By means of populist framing, the media can emphasize a specific causal interpretation by shifting blame from the people to causally responsible others (Entman 1993). We, therefore, define the populist master frame as "causal interpretations that attribute blame to the corrupt elites who are not representing the 'blameless' people and their will" (also see Hameleers, Bos, and de Vreese 2017).…”

“…In this experiment, we manipulated the populist core idea of the opposition between the blameless people and the culprit elites by framing blame; either as causal responsibility attributed to the political elites in the EU and the national government or by attributing no blame (also see Hameleers, Bos, and de Vreese 2017). The results indicate that populist messages lead to stronger preferences for the populist Freedom Party.…”

The Ideational Approach to Populism

“…It requires looking beyond the discourse of presidents to that of other elite-level actors such as opposition politicians and civil society activists. And it requires moving beyond elite-level data to the thinking of ordinary citizens, viewable through survey data, ethnographic research, and experiments (Akkerman, Mudde, and Zaslove 2014;Fernandes 2010;Hameleers, Bos, and de Vreese 2016;Hawkins, Riding, and Mudde 2012). Putting it another way, it requires looking at both the supply of and the demand for populism, as well as how these interact.…”

Believing in Conspiracy Theories: Evidence from an Exploratory Analysis of Italian Survey Data

“…Second, both populism and conspiracism present clear and pronounced antielitist attitudes (partially connected with the low trust in political institutions). In both conspiracists' and populists' claims, the elites are seen as an obscure, corrupt lobby that does not serve the heartland's interests (Hameleers, Bos & de Vreese 2016).…”