Outside the Bubble: Social Media and Political Participation in Western Democracies (original) (raw)
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Populist Digital Media? Social media systems and the global populist right discourse
Public Seminar, 2019
The dynamic of digital media and society, especially in the context of the current populist zeitgeist in Britain and beyond, is one of the key aspects of contemporary politics. On the social level, the rise of British right-wing populism around Brexit should be viewed in the contemporary context of global and national neoliberalism and the way it has led to a democratic deficit. The success of the UK Independence Party in 2013-2016 and Brexit Leave campaign in 2016 indicates failure of representational governance, clouded by hyper normalization of neoliberal rationality. The Brexit discourse has been emotionally invested against economic liberalism, free movement of capital and labor, and deregulation of financial markets-even though, in practice, all these were ultimately reduced to anti-immigration rhetoric in its populist articulation and appropriation. In other words, immigration became symbolic of both the evidence and the source of policies which had harmed many lower-class people. In other words, associating the structural faults in the distribution of wealth & opportunities with visibility of immigration has been the strategic narrative cultivated by the bulk of the political and media establishments. But what is the role of social media in this? Participatory digital spaces or social media communication (SMC) should be viewed as a completely new communicative paradigm. This new communication system has made a radical shift in the way the media has been understood, upending established mass media assumptions in terms of linearity, mono-directionality, one-to-many, top-down dynamic of communication. Users work together in the production and dissemination of content. They interact with each other in front of a broad audience of other users and have direct access to both media content and the space to react to it. In effect, the new paradigm of communication has changed politics and the nature of what can now pass as political communication and activism. 'Old' media are now branded as elitist, as grassroots users and makers take over the task of production, consumption, and distribution and seek to have an impact on events. Free and global access to discursive resources (e.g., language, visuals, memes, videos, music, networked publics, digital meaning-making, etc.) is uncritically celebrated as democratic involvement. Although social media spaces
Populism and social media: a global perspective
Media, Culture & Society, 2018
The link between the spread of social media and the recent surge of populism around the world remains elusive. A global, rather than Western, theory is required to explore this connection. Such a theory would need to pay particular attention to five questions, namely, the roots of populism, ideology and populism, the rise of theocratic populism, social media and non-populist politicians, and the embedding of social media in larger systems of communication. In this essay, I draw from a range of cross-cultural examples to argue that social media are inextricable from a dense web of highly diverse online and offline communicative practices. Like most other forms of political communication, populism is twice hybrid, in that it entails the ceaseless interaction between old and new media as well as between online and offline sites of communication. Populists never operate in a vacuum or indeed in a filter bubble: they share hybridly mediated spaces and arenas with other populists and with...
Social Media and Populism: An Elective Affinity?
Since the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, an intense debate has developed around the connection between social media and populist movements. In this article, I put forward some theses about the reasons for the apparent ‘elective affinity’ between social media and populism. I argue that the match between social media and populist politics derives from the way in which the mass networking capabilities of social media, at the time of a ‘mass web’ involving billions of people worldwide, provide a suitable channel for the mass politics and the appeals to the people typical of populism. But this affinity also needs to be understood in light of the rebellious narrative that has come to be associated with social media at times in which rapid technological development has coincided with a profound economic crisis, shaking the legitimacy of the neoliberal order. This question is explored by examining the role acquired by social media in populist movements as the people’s voice and the people’s rally, providing, on the one hand, with a means for disaffected individuals to express themselves and, on the other hand, with a space in which disgruntled Internet users could gather and form partisan online crowds.
Populism 2.0, digital democracy and the new ‘enemies of the people’
Communication Today, 2018
Like in many other Central and Eastern European countries, in 2016, Romanian populist parties were voted by the 'silent' citizens, by those feeling deprived and not represented properly. Shortly before that, in 2015, the tragic Colectiv nightclub fire had given birth to a new party: Save Romania Union (USR) that promotes a populist discourse on the 'corrupt elite' versus the 'pure people'. At the beginning, however, the new party did not disseminate messages specific to the nationalist or radical right-wing populists. Another party, endorsed by a news television channel Romania TV, almost succeeded at overpassing the electoral threshold in the 2016 parliamentary election: United Romania Party (PRU) used xenophobic and anti-EU messages during the 2016 general election campaign. My hypothesis is that the extremist electoral messages, the expressions of hatred towards foreigners and Western businessmen or the EU institutions were spread through social networks. Using a content analysis, I shall verify the extent to which the official Facebook pages of the Social Democratic Party (PSD, the direct successor of the Romanian Communist Party), the United Romania Party (PRU) and the Save Romania Union (USR) reflected the antagonism of the 'pure' people versus the 'corrupt' elite and I shall reveal who these parties identified as the so-called 'people's enemies'.
Political communication, digital inequality and populism
Digital Media Inequalities; Policies against divides, distrust and discrimination, 2019
The proliferation of internet-based forms of communication has had a dramatic impact on the way in which societies, media and political actors act and interact in the twenty-first century. Political communication is changing, but it is unclear how the changes relate to concerns about inequalities in the media sphere. More critically, the contemporary communication landscape is challenging the study of political communication itself as new forces come to play a part in producing and transmitting messages across a whole range of media. The aim of this chapter is to discuss the conducting of political communication in the light of the current developments. The first part of the chapter explores aspects of the "transformation" of political communication whilst reflecting on questions of inequality. The second part focuses on populism, a subject that has considerably re-energized researchers and, more significantly, polities.
Politics and populism across modes and media, 2020
This is a chapter from the book ''Populism and the digital media: a necessarily symbiotic relationship? in Politics and populism across modes and media'' edited by Ruth Breeze and Ana María Fernández Vallejo. Citation: Venizelos G. (2020) Populism and the digital media: a necessarily symbiotic relationship? in Politics and populism across modes and media [eds.] Ruth Breeze and Ana María Fernández Vallejo, Bern: Peter Lang
Social media -a catalyst for civil society movements and a tool for populism. Evidence from Romania
Civil Szemle, 2023
The paper aims to evaluate the potential of social media in shaping civic and electoral behavior by analyzing several civic protest movements as well as the role of social networks in the last legislative elections held in Romania in December 2020. It examines both sides of social media, namely its use for organizing and supporting civic movements, and its use as a tool for the accession of a far right populist party to the Parliament. The selected cases demonstrate that social networks are a catalyst for civil society movements pillared by people who are demanding to have their share in the political process and a tool for maximizing the votes of a new populist party. Social media acts as a breeding ground for a vibrant civil society. Through social networks people connect with each other, organize themselves and discover the feeling of "togetherness". Civil society thus becomes an actor that politicians must take into account in the decision-making process, as the civic movements presented here demonstrate. The problems that arise are the way social media is used and the social responsibility of social platforms. The good side of social media, as platforms for organizing and mobilizing people for right causes that support democracy, citizens' rights, the anti-corruption fight, is often diminished by its dark side, which means fake news, manipulation or even incitement to hatred and violence. The social responsibility requires finding a balance between the freedom of expression, one of the greatest gains of modern democracies, and the need to reduce misinformation and manipulation that take place on digital channels.