"News media continue to play a central role in promoting public debate and the visibility of populist messages. This study discusses how Brazilian television journalism reacted to the populism of Jair Bolsonaro during the COVID-19 crisis. We adopted a content analysis and a framing analysis to ident
...
ify the main themes and frames in reports at the beginning of the crisis by the country’s 2main television news programs. The corpus consists of 26 editions of Jornal Nacional (JN) and 26 editions of Jornal da Record (JR). Our hypothesis is that these news programs had significantly different interpretations of the Bolsonaro government’s actions. The data show that JN voiced its opposition to the president, while JR assumed the role of the government’s official voice, creating mechanisms to normalize populism. These results have important implications for understanding how the political positions adopted by traditional media affect how populism is promoted in the public sphere." (Abstract)
more
"This study discusses the relationship among the various dimensions of populism, hate speech, and disinformation within the political discourse on X (formerly Twitter) in India and Pakistan. Employing manual content analysis, we examined 7,141 posts from both populist and non-populist political lead
...
ers in both countries. Our findings reveal a significant correlation among these three challenging concepts, indicating that posts exhibiting higher levels of populism also tend to score higher on both hate speech and disinformation. Although certain aspects of populism, such as a pro-people and anti-elite approach, are not inherently harmful, our study emphasizes that Manicheanism is a problematic concept in political discourses because of its close association with hate speech and disinformation." (Abstract)
more
"Das vorliegende Handbuch präsentiert erstmals den Stand der Zensurforschung aus einer interdisziplinären, transhistorischen und globalen Perspektive. Nach begrifflich-theoretischen Grundlagen werden zentrale Akteure und Handlungsfelder der Zensur behandelt: Politik, Religion, Wirtschaft, Kunst, M
...
edien und Recht. Es folgt ein Überblick über die Zensurgeschichte von der Antike bis zum 21. Jahrhundert. In Beiträgen zu verschiedenen Weltregionen (Afrika, Asien, Australien, Nord-, Mittel- und Südamerika, West- und Osteuropa) werden die globalen Dimensionen von Zensur entfaltet. Abschließend geht es um aktuelle Kontroversen und Polemiken der Zensur, um Zensurnarrative und -debatten (z.B. über "Cancel Culture" und "Identitätspolitik")." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
more
"Despite the increasing number of studies examining the conflicts between the media and populist leaders, understanding how such clashes prompt shifts in journalism norms and practices remains to be thoroughly explored. Based on a literature review and the discussion of an extensive array of example
...
s characterizing the Brazilian media setting, this article provides a qualitative assessment of how Jair Bolsonaro's rhetoric and actions have triggered a “critical incident” in our mainstream journalism. We consider four dimensions currently experiencing transformations: the media's (1) institutional responses and campaigns, (2) production of the news, (3) production of editorials, and (4) how media professionals have reacted to populist attacks. There is evidence that journalism has increasingly become a central topic in news texts. We have also cataloged changes in news production routines (e.g., the editors’ hesitancy to send reporters to cover some political events), the use of editorials to reinforce metajournalistic discourses, and shifts in how professionals make sense of their work. Our findings contribute to the broader literature by investigating how traditional borders and values of journalism are renegotiated during institutional crises. In addition, our analytical framework can be applied to other media settings experiencing similar tensions and help underpin the construction of empirical variables to understand meaningful changes in the field. Lastly, this study considers the possible effects that change in norms, routines, and practices can have on the democratic roles of journalism." (Abstract)
more
"This volume addresses the concept of “(in)nocent lies” in the media – beyond the concept of misleading information online, this extends to a deliberate effort to spread misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories – and proposes a critical approach to tackle the issue in related i
...
nterdisciplinary fields. The book takes a multidisciplinary and international approach, addressing the digital divide and global inequality, as well as algorithmic bias, how misinformation harms vulnerable groups, social lynching and the effect of misinformation on certain social, political and cultural agendas, among other topics. Arranged thematically, the chapters paint a nuanced and original picture of this issue." (Publisher description)
more
"This article examines the semantics of populist rhetoric and conspiracy narratives in the Philippines to understand how they can be operationalized for governmental purposes. Focusing on Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency (2016–22), I argue that conspiracy narratives simplify socio-economic issues an
...
d aid the transformation of collective discontent into an instrument of governmentality. Evidence from public speeches, news articles and online ethnographic research shows that these narratives enable populist actors to emotionally charge the political landscape, framing society in moral binary terms: the virtuous people, depicted as victims of corruption, vs. a morally compromised elite. In this context, populism simultaneously forges an antagonistic frontier and promotes an elitist agenda, thereby silencing dissent and leaving little space for resistance. The findings suggest that while populism can inspire and mobilize marginalized communities, its co-option for governmental purposes can subvert its emancipatory potential." (Abstract)
more
"This open access book is the product of three years of academic research that has been carried out in the EU-funded Jean Monnet Network on "Post-Truth Politics, Nationalism and the Delegitimation of European Integration" since 2019. Drawing on the multidisciplinary expertise of the network's member
...
s, the book explores the impact of the phenomenon of post-truth politics on European integration and the European Union. It places particular emphasis on how post-truth politics has played out in the public sphere and asks what impact the phenomenon has had on public deliberation, but reflects also on its implications for democracy in a wider sense." (Publisher description)
more
"This paper analyzes how presidential candidates Fabricio Alvarado and Nayib Bukele used Facebook during the elections in Costa Rica (2018) and El Salvador (2019) respectively to develop a particular style of communication that blended populist elements and religious discourse. This style of communi
...
cation extended traditional modes of populism that have prevailed in Latin America since the turn of the century (emphasizing the notion of the hero who comes to rescue “the people”) but expressed them in an explicitly religious way (stressing the role of a “messiah” who comes to alter the established political order). We conducted both content and multimodal discourse analyses of 838 posts made by these candidates on Facebook during their respective electoral campaigns. We argue that the study of these campaigns would be incomplete without accounting for the relationship between populism, religion, and social media. While populism gave political validity to religious discourse, a religious imaginary provided populism with charismatic and messianic authority. This populist/religious reason found an ideal expression in Facebook and, simultaneously, was resignified by this platform’s affordances. In this way, we assess how fundamentalist Christianity has become a legitimating force of knowledge and politics in the context of epistemic tensions that shape contemporary Latin-American societies." (Abstract)
more
"Martin Marinos applies a critical political economy approach to place Bulgarian right-wing populism within the structural transformation of the country’s media institutions. As Marinos shows, media concentration under Western giants like Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and News Corporation have l
...
ed to a neoliberal turn of commercialization, concentration, and tabloidization across media. The Right have used the anticommunism and racism bred by this environment to not only undermine traditional media but position their own outlets to boost new political entities like the nationalist party Ataka. Marinos’s ethnographic observations and interviews with local journalists, politicians, and media experts add on-the-ground detail to his account. He also examines several related issues, including the performative appeal of populist media and the money behind it." (Publisher description)
more
"Populists and the Pandemic examines the responses of populist political actors and parties in 22 countries around the globe to the Covid-19 pandemic, in terms of their attitudes, rhetoric, mobilization repertoires, and policy proposals. The responses of some populist leaders have received much publ
...
ic attention, as they denied the severity of the public health crisis, denigrated experts and data, looked for scapegoats, encouraged protests, questioned the legitimacy of liberal institutions, spread false information, and fueled conspiracies. But how widespread are those particular reactions? How much variation is there? What explains the variation that does exist? This volume considers these questions through critical analysis of countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, by leading experts with deep knowledge of their respective cases. Some chapters focus on populist parties, others on charismatic populist leaders. Some countries examined are democracies, others autocracies. Some populists are left-wing, others right-wing. Some populists are in government, others in opposition. This variation allows for a panoramic consideration of factors that systematically influence or mediate populist responses to the pandemic. The book thus makes a unique contribution to our understanding of the intersection between two of the most pressing social and political challenges of our time. The book will be of interest to all those researching populism, extremism, and political parties, and those more broadly interested in political science, public policy, sociology, communications, and economics." (Publisher description)
more
"Populist politicians increasingly accuse opposing media of spreading disinformation or “fake news.” However, empirical research on the effects of these accusations is scarce. This survey experiment (N = 1,330) shows that disinformation accusations reduce audience members’ trust in the accused
...
news outlet and perceived accuracy of the news message, while trust in the accusing politician is largely unaffected. However, only individuals with strong populist attitudes generalize disinformation accusations to the media as an institution and reduce their general media trust. The phrase “fake news” does not amplify any of these effects. These findings suggest that politicians can undermine the credibility of journalism without much repercussion—a mechanism that might also threaten other authoritative information sources in democracies such as scientists and health authorities." (Abstract)
more
"As populist campaigns against the media become increasingly common around the world, it is ever more urgent to explore how journalists adopt and respond to them. Which strategies have journalists developed to maintain the public's trust, and what may be the implications for democracy? These questio
...
ns are addressed using a thematic analysis of forty-five semistructured interviews with leading Israeli journalists who have been publicly targeted by Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The article suggests that while most interviewees asserted that adherence to objective reporting was the best response to antimedia populism, many of them have in fact applied a “strategic bias” to their reporting, intentionally leaning to the Right in an attempt to refute the accusations of media bias to the Left. This strategy was shaped by interviewees' perceived helplessness versus Israel's Prime Minister and his extensive use of social media, a phenomenon called here “the influence of presumed media impotence.” Finally, this article points at the potential ramifications of strategic bias for journalism and democracy. Drawing on Hallin's Spheres theory, it claims that the strategic bias might advance Right-wing populism at present, while also narrowing the sphere of legitimate controversy—thus further restricting press freedom—in the future." (Abstract)
more
"Through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 18 Filipino reporters and editors from three influential media outlets that then President Rodrigo Duterte targeted as enemies – the broadcaster ABS-CBN, the newspaper Philippine Daily Inquirer, and the website Rappler – this paper offers novel i
...
nsights on journalists’ counterstrategies with appeals to their strengthened roles as watchdogs, interpreters and disseminators of populist communication. Findings indicate that journalists discard practices like false equivalence and shift roles including from being detached observers to media freedom advocates and truth activists to respond to institutional attacks, rising disinformation, and perceived democratic erosion as they seek to speak truth to a populist in power. The study provides theoretical and empirical contributions by combining paradigm repair and role perceptions as tools in analyzing journalists’ responses to legitimacy threats, and by presenting an understudied case of anti-media populism in the Global South." (Abstract)
more
"This conceptual paper focusses on two fronts forming a broad assault on journalism, extending from more autocratic settings to include liberal democracies, and leading to what is now widely perceived as a crisis in news. We analyze these two attacks by presenting a framework integrating their sourc
...
es and causes. We argue that the first attack emanates from commercialized media, occurring at economic and normative level, and has created, at least in part, the conditions that have enabled the more recent attack, which is more directly political, associated with the re-emergence of forces that are loosely categorized as populist. What is new in the second front is the geography and the constitutional nature of the societies in which this antagonism has grown. It extends now to long-established representative democracies that have come to be governed, or where new influence is wielded, by emergent right movements and parties who seek to cast the press as the enemy within. Abuse and even mortal danger increasingly have become part of the occupational reality of news-making. We conclude that this development is inscribed in the current material conditions under which journalists work, as well as in the materiality of the media through which they do so." (Abstract)
more
"Starting from the assumption that media play a crucial role for populist discourses of authenticity, the volume moves beyond conventional and social media by expanding its focus to media in formal education, notably school textbooks and curricula. These two particular media formats lastingly shape
...
younger generations and thus the future. The proposed volume adopts global perspectives from three postcolonial countries that are often beyond the scope of studies dealing with populist discourses and media entanglements - insights that contribute new aspects to international scholarly debates." (Publisher description)
more
"This companion brings together various concepts used to analyse dimensions of media disinformation and populism. The companion is theoretically and methodologically comprehensive and features various historical and critical approaches providing a full and incisive understanding of media, misinforma
...
tion and populism. It is both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary consisting of contributions from scholars analysing aspects of misinformation, disinformation and populism across countries, political systems and media systems. A global, comparative approach to the study of misinformation and populism is important in identifying common elements and particular characteristics, and these individual essays cover a wide range of topics and themes, with contributions from both leading and young scholars. The distinctiveness of the companion is its encompassing of a variety of subject areas: Political Communication, Journalism, Law, Sociology, Cultural studies, International Politics, and International Relations." (Publisher description)
more
"The unique dangers of the new communication revolution fall into several categories: Velocity – The lightning speed of online communication is in tension with democracy because well-timed lies immediately preceding an election can gain a national audience before they can be rebutted; Virality –
...
The legacy intermediaries that served to cabin what kinds of speech received a national audience have declined in importance in the internet age. With their decline, virality has become the new coin of the political communication realm. The kinds of speech, strategies, and candidacies most likely to succeed in a regime that places primacy on virality are those that appeal to emotion, especially to outrage. Democratic discourse requires some baseline of reasoned deliberation that is not well-served by a communication system based on virality; Anonymity – Anonymity can be an indispensable protection for dissenters in authoritarian and democratic regimes, alike, but it also gives rise to a range of unaccountable anti-democratic speech. Although hate groups are increasingly willing to march in the light of day, they fester and foster in the anonymity the internet provides. Moreover, the privileging of anonymity is what generates the “bot” problem – in which computer code generates much of online communication that is increasingly indistinguishable from human speech. So too, the problem of foreign interference in election campaigns is facilitated by internet anonymity, because the origin of campaign speech is unknown to the audience and regulator alike; [...]" (Executive summary)
more
"Taking a global and interdisciplinary approach, the Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories provides a comprehensive overview of conspiracy theories as an important social, cultural and political phenomenon in contemporary life. This handbook provides the most complete analysis of the phenomenon
...
to date. It analyses conspiracy theories from a variety of perspectives, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. It maps out the key debates, and includes chapters on the historical origins of conspiracy theories, as well as their political significance in a broad range of countries and regions. Other chapters consider the psychology and the sociology of conspiracy beliefs, in addition to their changing cultural forms, functions and modes of transmission. This handbook examines where conspiracy theories come from, who believes in them and what their consequences are." (Publisher description)
more