Abstract
ABSTRACT Populism studies tend to understand populism as a purely political phenomenon (MUDDE; KALTWASSER, 2017; MÜLLER, 2016). To categorize someone as a populist or not, is in many cases solely based on an evaluation of discourse, style or even ideology. It is much rarer to see approaches to populism that focus on the relation between politics and media and digital media in particular (welcome exceptions are CESARINO 2019 e SILVA, 2019). Throughout this contribution, I will argue that we cannot understand populism in full without focusing in detail on how populists and others actually construct the populist voice, how they communicate themselves on different platforms as the ‘true representatives of the people’. This inevitably means taking the changing media landscape into account as a key-context that shapes contemporary populism. The hybrid media system, its media logics, affordances and its culture of connectivity need to be considered when trying to make sense of populism and politics in general in the 21st century.
Highlights
Populism studies tend to understand populism as a purely political phenomenon (MUDDE; KALTWASSER, 2017; MÜLLER, 2016)
To categorize someone as a populist or not, is in many cases solely based on an evaluation of discourse, style or even ideology
It is much rarer to see approaches to populism that focus on the relation between politics and media and digital media in particular
Summary
Digitalization has fundamentally reshaped and re-organized the fields of politics and media. The front office of the digital infrastructure is organized around keeping the users hooked (EYAL, 2016) and enabling them to become producers while the back office is set up to measure and quantify that activity This infrastructure enables platforms to algorithmically rework user data to improve services for the user and to enable personalized communication strategies for those who are interested in the user’s attention (ZUBOFF, 2019). It is not enough to produce ‘content’ to gain attention in a hybrid media system, politicians need to build a network that actively interacts with their message. This network is crucial to gain visibility and get people to pay attention and potentially influence people.
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