Populism and Social Media

Abstract

In this interview, Sina Blassnig discusses the links between populism and social media, and argues that the content and style of politicians’ populist communication resonates with audiences on social media. Blassnig presents the results of innovative research showing that Facebook posts with populist messages receive more user reactions in the form of likes, shares or comments than do posts without populist messages. Moreover, she finds that populist online communication resonates particularly well with citizens, who in turn recirculate these messages. As a result, populist communication by politicians or in the media multiplies and leads to more populist communication by citizens. Finally, Blassnig discusses the fact that news media directly embed politicians’ tweets or Facebook posts in online news articles, thus providing an unfiltered and uncritical platform for populist communication.