Routledge Handbook of Global Populism by Carlos de la Torre

Author:Carlos de la Torre [Torre, Carlos de la]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

The hybridization of populist political communication in Western Europe

Where is the confluence of populism and media heading in Western Europe? Let us take their separate trajectories first. In regards to the former, populism in Western Europe seems to be on the rise – and if one does not wish to subscribe to such a strong claim, it is at very least in the process of being ‘mainstreamed’, having proven itself to not be a temporary phenomenon, but rather a seemingly permanent feature of contemporary democratic politics in the region. In regards to the latter, the contemporary media landscape in Western Europe (and elsewhere) is in serious flux. Traditional or old forms of media are facing decreasing circulation or viewership, changing modes of consuming news, less advertising profits, and more broadly, less trust in ‘mainstream’ outlets that previously held a fair degree of prestige as purveyors of ‘the truth’. On the other hand, the rise of the internet, ‘fake news’, social networks, on-demand viewing, Web 2.0, the proliferation and ubiquity of mobile devices and more generally a more multi-directional and segmented media landscape has disrupted the media and political landscape irrevocably.

Drawing these two disparate trends together, it is clear that populists have not been immune to changes in the media landscape. We can still, to some extent, identify a divide in Western Europe between ‘old media’ and ‘new media’ populists – the former including figures like Silvio Berlusconi or parties like the SVP, who rely heavily on television, newspapers and the mass media; the latter including M5S, Podemos and DiEM25, whose appeal to ‘the people’ strongly relies on appearing as ‘directly’ in touch with ‘the people’ through online channels. To some extent, this divide appears to be generational as well as ideological, with the old media populists mainly appearing on the radical right, while new media populists tend to appear on the left (or in the case of M5S, as more ideologically ambiguous) (see Bennett et al. 2017).

This old media/new media divide is unlikely to hold for much longer when it comes to populism: the likely trajectory is that these modes of political communication by populists are going to necessarily converge. Populists who have relied on old media – particularly television and talk radio – will unavoidably also have to adopt an online presence, especially if they wish to court younger, more technologically adept voters who are increasingly eschewing television for on-demand viewing or social network platforms. Similarly, we can likely expect to stop fetishizing ‘online’ parties as somehow novel or unusual – online populist parties like Podemos and M5S (as well as non-populist online parties like Pirate Parties across Europe) are now relatively well-established and have been around for around a decade, proving themselves less as flash-in-the-pan parties and more as parties with electoral staying power. These parties are similarly realizing, however, that online mobilization and communication with their ‘people’ is not enough, and that ‘mainstream’ coverage by traditional media is important in reaching new voters and legitimizing the party

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