Popu­lism in media: the voice of ​“the people“?

How does the media gene­rate popu­lism? Alexa Vaagt and Hanna Nyzhnyk explore the pheno­menon of popu­lism in the print media and tele­vi­sion of Ukraine and Germany. Misin­for­ma­tion, pola­riza­tion, and inap­pro­priate emotio­na­lity are all typical stra­te­gies of popu­list media in both count­ries – part of why this so-called ​„jour­na­lism“ needs to be coun­ter­acted strongly.

As media experts say, the rise of popu­lism is caused by the weak­ness of poli­tical parties, and poli­tics itself is a big field for mani­pu­la­tion and loud, but empty language. Imagine the news would say some­thing like this:

„Today’s article, though, has very special meaning because today, we are not merely trans­fer­ring power from one news­paper to another, but we are trans­fer­ring power from the whole media world and giving it back to you, the people.“ (modi­fied quote from one of the most popu­list people in power, soon to be ex-presi­dent of the United States Donald Trump).

Hoping to have immersed you into the rhetoric of popu­lism with that, let us intro­duce you to the typical motives and stra­te­gies of this pheno­menon.

Popu­lists, poli­tics, and press

Popu­lism is a broad and rather abstract term, diffi­cult to define because it has been mani­fested in various dimen­sions through the years. Cambridge dictionary gives us the follo­wing expl­ana­tion: popu­lism repres­ents poli­tical ideas and acti­vi­ties that are intended to get the support of ordi­nary people by giving them what they want. Addi­tio­nally, it incen­ti­vizes divi­sive rhetoric, hyper-partis­an­ship, and disin­for­ma­tion.

To create a perfect envi­ron­ment for the growth of popu­lism, there needs to be a charis­matic leader with straight­for­ward poli­tical inte­rests. Popu­list poli­ti­cians can be reco­gnized by their use of direct appeals to the people as a poli­tical instru­ment.

Popu­lists like to defame the press as ​„fake news“, but their success depends on media coverage as a source of disse­mi­na­tion (i.e. the act of spre­a­ding news), and indi­vi­duals to follow and nod to the instruc­tions given. This might create bene­fi­cial condi­tions for poli­tical mani­pu­la­tion and the control of poten­tial voters. By ensu­ring media coverage, poli­ti­cians are given a wide choice of tools to mani­pu­late with: from gene­ra­ting these tools before elec­tions, to the selec­tive expo­sure of facts and topics, and publi­shing biased polls and surveys.

Mobi­li­zing an anti-estab­lish­ment atti­tude in German popu­list media

The Popu­lism Baro­meter survey from 2020 shows that 20,9 percent of German citi­zens who are entitled to vote hold popu­list views. The role of the media in influen­cing this trend should not be unde­re­sti­mated. Robert Vehr­kamp, one of the authors of the study, claims that popu­lism has 3 dimen­sions: excep­tio­na­lity of nation’s will, anti-estab­lish­ment, and anti-plura­lism.

The survey found that right-wing voters are very likely to satisfy all three dimen­sions. Almost 90 percent of those who voted for the right-wing party ​„AfD“ have popu­list tenden­cies. At the same time, this is the party that mobi­lizes against publicly funded media and has adopted an anti-press language. By poin­ting out a supposed left consensus in jour­na­lism, they present them­selves as the alter­na­tive voice of the German nation, expo­sing the ​„fake news“. However, there are news­pa­pers that are very useful for the popu­list party, as they use similar stra­te­gies in order to provoke nega­tive feelings towards the govern­ment.

The mobi­liza­tion of an anti-estab­lish­ment atti­tude is typical for popu­list media, which can be illus­trated with the rhetoric of ​„us“, the public, and ​„them“, the govern­ment, that is already being used in their atten­tion-grab­bing head­lines. Quota­tions are often taken out of context to create a dramatic and emotional tone. Moreover, right-alter­na­tive media tries to push the boun­da­ries of the sayable with anti­se­mitic and racist content. Lorenz Blumen­thaler from the Amadeu-Antonio foun­da­tion, which rese­ar­ches on the extreme right in Germany, explains the concept of ​„dog-whist­ling“, a stra­tegy of the right media to spread discri­mi­na­tory ideas through a coded language. That way, their jour­na­lism is meant for a parti­cular audi­ence that knows the ​„hidden meaning“ behind it.

Both, popu­list poli­ti­cians, and the popu­list press, like to play the Blame Game – shif­ting respon­si­bi­li­ties for crises onto estab­lished parties and the govern­ment, but also to refu­gees and migrants. Also through picking up conspi­racy theo­ries, right-wing jour­na­lists provoke enemy images and hate, says Blumen­thaler. This kind of reporting strongly pola­rizes the public opinion into those who inter­na­lize xeno­phobic and anti-elitist bias and those who reject this kind of posi­tion even more.

This is relatable to both Ukraine and Germany. The main perpe­tra­tors of popu­list fake news in Ukraine, accor­ding to nume­rous Ukrai­nian media expert’ state­ments, are Vesti, Komso­mol­skaya Pravda and Segodnya news­pa­pers.

„They have a pro-Russian narra­tive, usually follo­wing the agenda of their owners and are writing mate­rials against the EU deve­lo­p­ment of Ukraine, focu­sing on the audi­ence who believe in Soviet Union,“ said a Ukrai­nian media expert. ​„Also, very often their stories are not fact-checked, so I am not sure what percen­tage of imagi­na­tion there is. Usually inde­pen­dent media do not consider these news­pa­pers as worthy ones.“

An oppor­tu­ni­stic approach using popu­lism for the pola­riza­tion of discourse so far has had little influence on the forma­tion of EU policy towards Russia, since the annexa­tion of Crimea and the desta­bi­liza­tion of Eastern Ukraine. Crimea and the East of Ukraine have also become popular topics of mani­pu­la­tion in popu­list media.

Media in Ukraine: ​„Emotional decla­ma­tions instead of rational speci­fics“?

In Germany, there is a huge market of right-alter­na­tive print media, while in Ukraine espe­ci­ally TV chan­nels use these stra­te­gies. With diffe­rent back­grounds and initial posi­tions, Ukraine and Germany both share similar stra­te­gies for invol­ving poli­tical inte­rests in media: toxic speech, putting forward strong opinions on pola­ri­zing issues, and disin­for­ma­tion. Media repre­sen­ta­tives use these stra­te­gies to wrap their poli­tical inte­rests in a sellable cover.

„Ukrai­nians usually tend to easily idea­lise someone, with help of the media, and then ruin the image of this person as quickly as they idea­lised,“ said Oksana Piddubna, former jour­na­list for BBC Ukraine. ​„And the result of the pro-presi­dent party in these local elec­tions showed it pretty well.“

She suggests that the most vulnerable readers are the people in regions with a lack of access to diffe­rent media, and pensio­ners. Popu­lists appeal to the poorly educated masses and deny scien­tific exper­tise. Media, being midd­lemen to transfer the message, are auto­ma­ti­cally nega­ting the jour­na­li­stic values and stan­dards of impar­tia­lity.

The tendency to roman­ti­cize things has possibly led to the elec­tion of famous come­dian Volo­dymyr Zelensky as new presi­dent of Ukraine in 2019. The fame of being a pro-popu­list humo­rist, and of being the prot­ago­nist of a TV-series in the role of – guess who? – the presi­dent of Ukraine – has affected his results. Ukrai­nian media portal Liga News held a survey on request of USAID to discover the reasons Ukrai­nians voted Zelensky. Only 16% of respond­ents have claimed that personal appeal was the motive, while voters of his main oppo­nent and former presi­dent of Ukraine Petro Poros­henko were convinced that they voted for Zelensky guided by emotions, not mind, and because they iden­ti­fied him with the prot­ago­nist of TV series of the film ​„Servant of the People“. Mean­while, the local elec­tions of October 2020 finished with major setback for his team – presi­den­tial party candi­dates have lost in major Ukrai­nian cities, even in the current president’s home­town.

The TV network which broad­casts programs featuring Zelensky had a share of 10% of Ukrai­nians watching in 2018. During the 2019 presi­den­tial elec­tions, the channel supported Zelensky, while actively criti­ci­zing the current presi­dent, Petro Poros­henko. In March 2019, a few days before the first round of elec­tions, the program ​„Ukrai­nian sensa­tions: 50 shades of Petro Poros­henko“ accused Poros­henko of commit­ting crimes, inclu­ding invol­vement in the death of his brother. Poros­henko called the chan­nel’s actions a media attack and black­mail, announ­cing plans to sue. ​„The target audi­ence of popu­lists hears what they want to hear,“ said a free­lance jour­na­list who preferred to remain anony­mous. Repre­sen­ta­tives of popu­list media use this as their tool to act on.

No more drama in jour­na­lism

Contem­po­rary popu­lism is undoub­tedly a chall­enge to demo­cracy in both Germany and Ukraine, which becomes an even sharper issue with the help of the media. Media should not be a stage for popu­list poli­ti­cians and their, often right-wing, beliefs. Jour­na­lism is not a TV show – why the dramatic tone? The kind of emotio­na­lity often accom­panying popu­list press does not match the goal of an infor­ma­tive and impar­tial jour­na­lism. Sadly, the stra­te­gies of atten­tion-grab­bing seem to work, as both Ukrai­nians and Germans consume popu­list media a lot.