Populism 2.0: social media and the false allure of 'unmediated' representation

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Abstract

This chapter interrogates a number of taken-for-granted assumptions about the relationship between populism and social media, and sets out four ‘traps’ for studying this relationship. These traps revolve around assumptions about social media’s allegedly ‘direct’ and ‘unmediated’ nature, representation and the uniformity of populist use of social media. Namely, these traps are: (1) mistaking directness for being ‘in touch’ with ‘the people’; (2) fetishising the ‘unmediated’ nature of populism, thus ignoring the fact that all political representative claims are mediated; (3) assuming that populist online communication is multi-directional and (4) assuming that populist use of social media is relatively uniform.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPopulism and the Crisis of Democracy
Subtitle of host publicationVolume 2: Politics, Social Movements and Extremism
EditorsGregor Fitzi, Jürgen Mackert, Bryan S. Turner
Place of PublicationAbingdon Oxon
PublisherRoutledge
Chapter2
Pages30-46
Number of pages17
Edition1st
ISBN (Electronic)9781315108063
ISBN (Print)9781138091375
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2019
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameRoutledge Advances in Sociology
PublisherRoutledge

Keywords

  • populism
  • social media
  • representation

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