[Commlist] cfp - Media Populism: How Has Social Media Served to Get Populist Politicians to Power?

*Call for Abstracts***

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*Frontiers in Communication, Political Communication ***

*Research topic: ***

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*Media Populism: How Has Social Media Served to Get Populist Politicians 
to Power?***


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    *About this Research Topic*

Populism has been recently the focus of researchers attempting to 
conceptualize and explain the rising of populist leaders across European 
democracies and the US. The media in Europe and the US, in many 
instances, appear to have contributed to a legitimization of the issues, 
key-words and communication styles typical of populist leaders. Leaders 
striving to gain media attention have successfully exploited the media’s 
eagerness to break the routine and attract public attention. To ensure 
media coverage, the supply and demand relationship appears to have 
increased the visibility and significance of populist leaders and their 
strategic messages, serving as a powerful tool of mobilization for 
populist causes.

The well-established mainstream media, in most countries, is arguably 
the mouthpiece of the ruling classes. The media tend to overtly 
combat/downplay/protest populist threats, contributing to their 
containment. Television, specifically, is central to the political 
process. There is an ongoing adaptation of political public 
performances, language and at times even policy-making, to the demands 
of an increasingly commercialized mass media. Thus, the mediatization of 
political communication is often identified with the marketization of 
the public representation of politics, and the transformation of 
political language into spectacle is its most evident effect. In 
contemporary society, where image is paramount, political leaders must 
be good actors and master the tools of drama to address effectively a 
domestic audience that has become increasingly distracted from politics. 
It is interesting therefore to look at the most successful communication 
strategies implemented by populist movements in order to both tap into 
the public mood and capture the media’s attention.

The media’s role in the dissemination of populism remains nevertheless 
by and large underexplored, especially for Western democracies. In Arab 
authoritarian countries, especially in Egypt, media populism has been a 
natural practice since the time of Nasser. The media in Egypt is under 
complete control of the state by law, whether state or private media.

The aim of this Research Topic is to offer a variety of case studies 
demonstrating the role of the media, specifically social media, in 
getting populist leaders to power in democratic and authoritarian 
states. It seeks to examine the process of media representation and the 
symbolic construction of favorable opinion climates for populist 
leaders. Finding indicators that the media provides a significant degree 
of support for the rise of populist phenomena is a key factor. Other 
factors to be analyzed in this process include the nature of political 
systems, and the features of social and cultural political climates, 
which the media help disseminate.

This Research Topic seeks to provide clear and specific answers to the 
following questions:
1- How is fear continuously invoked and legitimized through various 
types of media?
2- How is the politics of fear manifested by instrumentalizing 
ethnic/religious/linguistic/political minorities as scapegoats, as a 
threat ‘to us’ and ‘our nation’?
3- How is the politics of denial employed by dominant populist rhetoric? 
How are media scandals provoked to dominate the agenda, forcing all 
other important topics into the background?
4- How do populists produce and reproduce exclusionary ideologies in 
everyday politics, in the media, in campaigning, in posters, slogans and 
speeches, legitimizing the politics of exclusion?
5- How do populist leaders succeed (or fail) in sustaining their 
electoral success?



*Keywords*: populism, media, social media, populist leaders, Egypt, 
mediatization



*Important Note*: All contributions to this Research Topic must be 
within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, 
as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to 
guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal 
at any stage of peer review.


Please send your abstract through the following link:

Media Populism: How Has Social Media Served to Get Populist Politicians 
to Power? 
<https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/10026/media-populism-how-has-social-media-served-to-get-populist-politicians-to-power>


	


    Media Populism: How Has Social Media Served to Get Populist
    Politicians ...

Populism has been recently the focus of researchers attempting to 
conceptualize and explain the rising of populi...

<https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/10026/media-populism-how-has-social-media-served-to-get-populist-politicians-to-power>




For more information you can send your inquires to:

Rasha El-Ibiary at (rousha /at/ aucegypt.edu) <mailto:(rousha /at/ aucegypt.edu)>or 
Brian Calfano at (calfanbn /at/ ucmail.uc.edu) <mailto:(calfanbn /at/ ucmail.uc.edu)>














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