Populist Online Communication in Europe: Self-Presentation, Media Representation, and Audience Reconstruction of Political actors

• Research unit: COST
• Project number: C15.0051

Key words (English)

populism; political communication; online communication; elections; cross-national comparison; Europe

Research programs (English)

COST-Action IS1308 - Populist Political Communication in Europe: Comprehending the Challenge of Mediated Political Populism for Democratic Politics

Short description (English)

Even though there has been an increasing scholarly awareness for the complex relation between populism and the mass media the area of populist online communication has been largely neglected. The proposed project will aim at narrowing this gap of research by investigating how populists use the Internet as political instrument. The core project will focus on three selected countries in Western Europe (France, Switzerland, and UK) and be complemented by joint projects in Northern, Eastern, and Southern Europe. It will analyze how populist actors are represented in journalistic online media, how populists present themselves in the Internet, and what responses their media appearances trigger among online audiences. It not only aims at distilling the essence of populism from its multifaceted empirical manifestations but also at deepening our understanding of Internet communication in general. The project will integrate scholars from Northern, Southern, Western, and Eastern Europe, from the COST action's three working groups, and from its early stage researchers think tank. It will provide the action, the scientific community, and the public with fundamental research on the nature of populism.

Further information (English)

Full name of research-institution/enterprise: Universität Zürich IPMZ - Institut für Publizistikwissenschaft und Medienforschung

Partners and International Organizations (English)

AT; BE; BA; BG; HR; CZ; DK; FI; FR; MK; DE; EL; HU; IS; IL; IT; LT; NL; NO; PL; PT; RO; RS; SI; ES; SE; UK; MN; AL

Abstract (English)

See short description

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: COST-DB of the State Secretariat for Education and Research Hallwylstrasse 4 CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland Tel. [phone] Swiss Project-Number: C15.0051