Populism and the Media

Abstract

and Keywords This chapter discusses three aspects of the relationship between populist discourses and the media: the process of mediatization of politics, the impact of media populism on democratic quality, and the link between new media and populism. The aim is to summarize theories and results present in the relevant literature, while advancing a more sophisticated framework for analysis based on a clear definition of populism as an ideology articulated discursively. In particular, the chapter proposes to consider the media sphere and the political realm as an integrated system for the production of user-friendly political news, thus overcoming the fictitious opposition between media and political-logic. Populist discourses should therefore be considered as the result of a constant flow of direct, indirect, and mixed interactions between political and media actors.