What do the People want? Analyzing Online Populist Challenges to Europe (Populism Online)
Abstract
Digital media are the most important way in which populism is promoted
as they allow populist politicians, parties, and movements to bypass the
mainstream media which they perceive as biased against them. It remains
unclear, however, how widespread and impactful populist concerns are
among online audiences or the general public. In the project, digital
traces are used to (1) map what 'the people' want, (2) analyze whether
and why they want similar or different things across Europe, and (3)
investigate the effects of exposure to online populist grievances on
(offline) political outcomes. In providing answers to these questions,
the project aims at improving the understanding of the societal (macro)
and the social-psychological (micro) processes behind the rise of
populism. It is guided by the hypothesis that online populist
grievances, i.e., the communication of and exposure to populist
complaints, may constitute both a challenge and a corrective for
representative democracies and need to be examined in all their
complexity. The project focuses on countries with varying vote shares
for left- or right-wing populist parties and where populists form part
of the government (Poland and the U.S.), constitute a middle-sized block
in parliament (Germany and Sweden), are not represented in parliament
(the UK), or form a strong opposition (France, Italy, and Spain). The
research period starts in October 2018 and features at least one
election in all countries, including the European Parliament election.
The project relies on existing data to account for the context of
populism (political, economic, cultural, media systems) and generates
novel data to assess the societal embeddedness of populism.
Runtime
2018-10-22 – 2022-12-31Funding
Volkswagenstiftung