The moral language of populist communication

Block, Elena

doi:10.4324/9781003118602-6

Cited by 9 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…The dynamics of political fandom and fan antagonism may even exacerbate social polarization (Mason, 2018). Memes have also been identified with a broader populist style embraced by new far-right globally (Atton, 2006; Baldwin-Philippi, 2019; Block and Negrine, 2017). Memes’ amateur aesthetic can be part of the technological performance of populism that antagonizes the political establishment (Baldwin-Philippi, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memes, scenes and #ELXN2019s: How partisans make memes during elections

McKelvey

DeJong

Frenzel

2021

New Media & Society

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Our article analyses partisan, user-generated Facebook pages and groups to understand the articulation of political identity and party identification. Adapting the concept of scenes usually found in music studies, these Facebook pages and groups act as partisan scenes that maintain identities and sentiments through participatory practices, principally by making and sharing memes. Using a mixed methods approach that combines social media data and interviews during the 2019 Canadian federal election, we find that these partisan scenes are an active part of elections and the overall political information cycle in Canada but endure beyond election cycles. Rather than trying to sway voters of different political affiliation and influence the election outcome, Facebook users employ memes to hang-out and build community, thereby reinforcing partisanship.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memes, scenes and #ELXN2019s: How partisans make memes during elections

McKelvey

DeJong

Frenzel

2021

New Media & Society

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“…Scholars have envisioned populism as a specific style of communication or rhetoric characterized by several traits ( Block and Negrine, 2017 ; Bracciale and Martella, 2017 ; Norris and Inglehart, 2019 ). Populism is fundamentally defined by the use of antagonistic discourse to present a “thin–centered” ideology that “considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’” ( Mudde, 2004 : 543).…”

Section: Of Populism and Permanent Campaigningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pandemic populism and permanent campaigning: How Central American presidents build political legitimacy on Facebook

Salas

Siles

2023

International Communication Gazette

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This article examines how Carlos Alvarado and Nayib Bukele, presidents of Costa Rica and El Salvador, respectively, employed Facebook throughout 2020 to communicate about the COVID-19 pandemic. The study draws on content analysis of 1584 posts made by both presidents on Facebook throughout 2020. The article argues that Alvarado and Bukele turned the pandemic into a means to build political legitimacy in their specific political context through two main strategies: populist communication and permanent campaigning. Whereas Alvarado relied on these strategies to demonstrate that he was in control of the country amid mounting backlash, Bukele infused both strategies with a religious imaginary to attack political opponents and perform the role of El Salvador's messiah. This analysis broadens the understanding of the relationship between populist communication and permanent campaigning in two main ways. First, by employing a comparative approach to identify singularities and differences in the ways that presidents built political legitimacy during the pandemic in a largely under-examined region (Central America). Second, by situating findings within a wide temporal perspective that included posts in an entire calendar year and comparisons with Alvarado's and Bukele's presidential campaigns.

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“…Overall, what unites these definitions is their agreement on the fact that what unites populist political actors from the wide range of the political spectrumboth from leftist and rightist partiesdespite their ideological differences is a certain way of communication. Building on four prominent definitions by Block and Negrine (2017), by Jagers and Walgrave (2007), by Weyland (2017) and by Moffitt (2016), as for the aims of this research, we conclude populism to be: a strategic style of political communication that is characterized by an appeal to the people and a simultaneous exclusion of an ‗other' (whose identity depends on the goal of the populist actor, but it is usually the elite or certain out-groups) expressed via a style of communication that can be defined as adversarial and abrasive, displaying ‗bad manners'. Populist discourse often builds on the topics of crisis, breakdown and threat (Körösényi 2019;Moffitt 2015;Moffitt 2016).…”

Section: Contemporary Populismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This setting favors populist communication, as features of the populist style (e.g. the simplification of complex issues) correspond well with media logic (Block -Negrine 2017). Politics are becoming popular, in which self-mediatization and spectacularization are crucial processes.…”

Section: The Era Of Contemporary Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Populist Communication in a Time of Global Pandemic: Understanding ‘Post-truth Populism’ During COVID-19

Drávucz¹,

Kocollari²

2023

sociologia

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Populist Communication in a Time of Global Pandemic: Understanding 'Post-truth Populism' During COVID-19. Populism and the post-truth: two concepts often used simultaneously or interchangeably to explain current developments in contemporary politics, yet the demarcation line between them remains blurry. Building on definitions of populism that describe it as a style of political communication, 'post-truth populism' can be regarded as a specific type of populist communication which shares the characteristics of post-truth politics. How the two phenomena intertwine, and how the aesthetic transformation of the public sphere and the rise of social media had a role in their appearance will be discussed. The theoretical framework is illustrated by two cases during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The moral language of populist communication

Cited by 9 publications

References 0 publications

Memes, scenes and #ELXN2019s: How partisans make memes during elections

Memes, scenes and #ELXN2019s: How partisans make memes during elections

Pandemic populism and permanent campaigning: How Central American presidents build political legitimacy on Facebook

Populist Communication in a Time of Global Pandemic: Understanding ‘Post-truth Populism’ During COVID-19

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