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Summary of Articles for Political Communication & Journalism (Y) PART II
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Week 4Bos, L., Schemer, C., Corbu, N., Hameleers, M., Andreadis, I., Schulz, A., ... & Fawzi, N.
(2020). The effects of populism as a social identity frame on persuasion and mobilisation:
Evidence from a 15‐country experiment. European Journal of Political Research, 59(1),
3-24.
Introduction
● Most notably, voters that feel more vulnerable are more likely to be supportive of
populism
● In other words, populism not only addresses voters’ grievances, but reaches out to
vulnerable voters by fostering a positive social identity, irrespective of the specific
social context.
● social identity theory
What is studied?
● To test our expectations, we draw on an extensive experiment conducted in 15
countries (N 7,342).
● Specifically, the study explores the effects of populist identity framing of an economic
issue on issue agreement and political engagement and investigates the extent to
which these effects are dependent upon subjective vulnerability – that is, feelings of
relative deprivation.
● 2x2 between-subjects experiment
○ two out-groups – the political elite and immigrants
○ 2017
○ Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands,
Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United
Kingdom
○ read an online news item
○ fictional foundation called ‘FutureNow’
Populist communication as an identity frame
● The central idea of populist communication emphasises a binary divide in society:
The ‘good’ ordinary people are opposed to the ‘evil’ and ‘corrupt’ elites
● This central populist message is not necessarily attached to one actor or
communicator, but rather is a frame that can be adopted by different actors, such as
politicians, journalists or citizens
two elements of populist communication:
1. anti-elitism
2. anti-immigration
3. a combination of the two.
The effects of populist in-group cues on issue agreement
● The in-group/out group distinction that is fostered by populist communication
increases the salience of shared group membership or in-group identification and
fuels out-group derogation
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, ● The in-group of ‘the people’ is constructed by applying ‘norm talk’
● Additionally, strong in-group identification and similarity among in-group members
increase the credibility and persuasiveness of in-group sources of messages
(internalisation of in-group norms)
The mobilising effects of populist identity framing on readiness for (collective) action
● social identity additionally serves to mobilise people for social change
● in-group mobilisation results from priming a severe threat to the well-being of the
group motivating the in-group to take action
Perceived relative deprivation as a moderator
● Perceptions of relative deprivation can be defined as the belief that the resources
available in society are not distributed in a fair way
● Those voters that feel threatened, ‘having difficulties in finding a positive social
identity’ , justified or not, are more likely to feel heard when they are addressed in a
populist message.
● When social groups perceive themselves as being disadvantaged with respect to the
distribution of resources compared to out-groups then inter-group conflict is highly
likely
● Individuals who perceive group-based inequality or deprivation may see collective
action as the most effective way to ameliorate their situation and are most likely to
confront those responsible in order to redress this
Findings
1. anti-elitist identity frames that blame the political
elite for societal problems are persuasive and
mobilising, the latter (= mobilising) especially among
people who feel more left out.
frame that blames elite for societal problems are persuasive and mobilising; people
who feel more left out (= relative deprivation) especially mobilising
2. exclusionary cues backfire especially among those
feeling less relatively deprived, producing lower issue
agreement and demobilising message recipients.
people who do not feel left out respond bad to exclusionary cues → demobilising , lower issue agreement
exclusionary cues = cues of populist messages
3. the combination of an anti-elitist identity cue and an anti-immigrant cue does not elicit
stronger effects.
→ anti immigrant and combination did not work
● The findings demonstrate that the use of populist identity frames blaming the
political elite for a negative economic outlook results in higher issue agreement as
compared to the control condition.
○ Populist messages that depict societal problems as a threat to the in-group
caused by the political elite are more persuasive.
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, ● When it comes to mobilising individuals the results show that when people are
exposed to anti-elitist populist identity frames in a news story, mobilisation is
increased among those who show high relative deprivation.
○ because they are more vulnerable, given the bad economic situation and,
consequently, they depend more on collective action to redress their
disadvantage
● We found consistent evidence that the anti immigrant cue in the news story reduced
issue agreement and engagement (even more than the anti-elite cue enhanced it)
Hameleers, M. (2020). Augmenting polarization via social media? A comparative analysis of
Trump’s and Wilders’ online populist communication and the electorate’s interpretations
surrounding the elections. Acta Politica, 55(3), 331-350.
What is studied?
● Integrating the perspectives of politicians and ordinary citizens, this paper provides
in-depth insights into politicians’ populist self-communication and the electorate’s
populist discourse surrounding the U.S. and Dutch elections.
→ Taken together, this research explores the extent to which politicians’ online
discourse overlaps or differs from citizens’ interpretations.
● First Study: qualitative content analyses of Donald Trump’s and Geert Wilders’
tweets surrounding the 2016 U.S. and 2017 Dutch elections
○ Dutch sample
● Second Study: electorate’s populist discourse on Facebook is analyzed. Comparing
the European and the U.S. cases of polarization and populism
○ U.S and Netherlands
A social identity perspective on populism and affective polarization
In populist discourse, the “ordinary” people are depicted as a good, superior unity (Taggart
2004). The elites, in contrast, are constructed as an “evil” and corrupt out-group that is
unwilling and unable to represent the people’s general will
affective polarization (from social identity perspective):
positive qualities are ascribed to the in-group whereas negative qualities and blame are
attributed to the out-group perceived of as a substantially different entity
in group = good, out group = different and bad
Direct populist communication via social network sites
● social media enable politicians to establish a direct linkage to the people, while
circumventing gatekeeping journalists in traditional mass media.
● Establishing a direct link between politicians and the ordinary citizens is a central
feature of populist communication
Affordances of the online context shaping populist discourse
Four technological affordances:
1. asynchronicity
a. empowers the “silenced majority” of ordinary citizens
2. a pervasive and
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