Appel à communications pour le panel « Digital media and Populism : Friends or foes ? » du congrès de l’ECPR à Wroclaw (Pologne), 4-7 septembre 2019

Title: Populism and digital media. Friends or foes?

Panel chairs:

Caterina Froio, Sciences Po CEE & Ralph Schroeder, University of Oxford OII

Discussant:

Sebastian Stier GESIS

The growing importance of populist parties, politicians and movements around the world has led to questioning the complex relationship between digital media and the diffusion of populist ideas, pitting the virtuous people against the corrupt elite. Some have claimed that digital media are the perfect habitat for the diffusion of populist ideas, representing the main channel through which populists build their support. Others instead recognize that digital media are certainly venues through which populist ideas are spread, but emphasize also their potential for countering populists’ views and their moderate impact on offline support. In sum, whether and how exactly digital media fuel or inhibit the diffusion of populist ideas and support for populist parties, candidates and social movements is a question open for debate.

The idea of the panel is to bring together contributions using digital traces to (1) map the genus of populism and (2) to investigate the effects of exposure to online populist grievances on (offline) political outcomes. We are also interested in looking at broader dynamics that might link populist support/voting to digital media use and content. The panel welcomes theoretical and empirical contributions dealing with these topics based on different techniques (surveys, experiments, content analysis) and approaches (qualitative/quantitative, mixed methods, experimental, comparative or case studies). We also welcome contributions focusing on different digital media (Facebook, Twitter, Instragram, Youtube, etc.)

Keywords: Populism, digital media, internet, political parties, social movements

You can submit an abstract proposal to Caterina Froio caterina.froio@sciencespo.fr  and Ralph Schroeder ralph.schroeder@oii.ox.ac.uk .

The deadline to submit paper proposals is 10 February 2019 (midnight UK time). The proposal will include an abstract no more than 250 words.