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In this article, the introduction to a special International Journal of Press/Politics (IJPP) issue on populism, we articulate and define populism as a communication phenomenon. We provide an overview of populist political communication research and its current foci. We offer a framework for ongoing research and set the boundary conditions for a new generation of research on populist political communication, with an aim to push the research agendas and design toward a more interactive, systematic, and in particular, comparative approach to the study of populist political communication. © The Author(s) 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

The studies in this volume conceptualize populism as a type of political communication and investigate it comparatively, focusing on (a) politicians’ and journalists’ perceptions, (b) media coverage, and (c) effects on citizens. This book presents findings from several large-scale internationally comparative empirical studies, funded by the European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST), focusing on communication and the media within the context of populism and populist political communication in Europe. The studies are based on comparative interview studies with journalists and politicians, a large-scale comparative content analysis, and a comparative cross-country experiment using nationally representative online-surveys over 15 countries. The book also includes advice for stakeholders like politicians, the media, and citizens about how to deal with the challenge of populist political communication. This enlightening volume is ‘populist’ in the best sense and will be an essential text for any scholar in political science, communication science, media studies, sociology and philosophy with an interest in populism and political communication. It does not assume specialist knowledge and will remain accessible and engaging to students, practitioners and policymakers

This chapter for the first time shows what populist and non-populist politicians think about the rise and the success of populism and how they respond and interpret this political reality. The chapter examines the reactions of mainstream politicians to the rise of populism and of populist politicians to established politics in 11 countries. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with some 50 politicians, the chapter explores popular definitions of populism; reasons for popularity; issues related to populism; consequences of populism; and perceptions of media support for populism. It finds that populism is seen by most mainstream politicians as a threat to the political and social order and something that needs to be challenged, while populists are keen to show how out of touch mainstream politics is. When asked for the reasons for populist success, politicians mainly point to the malfunctioning of established democratic institutions, including mainstream political parties, in addressing problems and producing convincing discourses and solutions. Politicians generally agree that the media are an important part of the equation in explaining populist success, although there is little consensus on this. Overall, there are no clear, discernible regional patterns. Instead, national contexts seem to play a major role for the workings of populism as viewed by the interviewed politicians.

This chapter for the first time shows how journalists react to populist politicians and movements and what they think about them. It examines the reactions of journalists in serious and popular media to the presence of populism in 13 countries. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with around 50 journalists, the chapter explores popular definitions of populism; reasons for popularity; issues related to populism; consequences of populism; and perceptions of media support for populism. The research shows that while journalists do not agree on a single definition of populism, they see the phenomenon as a negative force with detrimental consequences for European democracies. Journalists identify a number of reasons for the rise of populism; most often mentioned are immigration and economic issues, alongside the effective communication of populist politicians. There are no strong regional patterns of perceptions of populism nor systematic differences between journalists from different types of media outlets. Rather, there are commonalities in more general perceptions of populism that cross nations and differences in more specific questions that point to the relevance of specific national experiences, situations, and circumstances.

This chapter focuses on trends in reporting over time. It examines the presence of populist key messages in European newspapers coverage of immigration and commentaries on current political events, at two points in time, spring 2016 and spring 2017. The chapter explores the similarities and differences in the populist content of newspapers between the two periods and identifies a set of extra-media and intra-media explanatory factors contributing to the understanding of the emerging differences in a year-to-year comparison. The findings show that the presence of populism in news and commentaries in some countries is loosely related to actual migration dynamics (see Germany and Greece), whereas in other countries it seems to follow more intensive political debates, although actual immigration is less dramatic (Bulgaria, Poland). There are fewer indications than expected that the populist tendencies in news and commentaries are a reaction to the intensity with which the population views immigration as an important national issue or is dissatisfied with decisions by political elites. Finally, there are strong indications of the great importance of intra-media factors in explaining populism in news and commentary.

This chapter investigates factors contributing to the levels of populism in media output. The chapter finds that stylistic elements, such as emotionalization, negativity, polarization, and dramatization, increase the occurrence (or likelihood thereof) of populist elements in stories. In addition to the writing style, the thematic context is another influencing factor. If a story combines the themes of immigration and European integration, this makes populism more likely to occur. Contrary to the expectation of the authors, there is no evidence that mass-market newspapers are more prone to using populism than up-market newspapers. A strong influence comes, however, from characteristics of the media system. The more adversarial the journalistic culture in a given country, the more populist the content of news items and commentaries is. The chapter also finds that majoritarian democracies and weak press systems are characterized by higher levels of populism in the press.

The purpose of this chapter is to test the relative weight of utilitarian, normative and cognitive determinants of voting choices on environmental issues. Environmental protection lends itself particularly well to such a test, since it is a typical valence issue (Kriesi, 1999: 52). At the level of principles almost everybody agrees that something should be done about it, but specific environmental measures often meet resistance. Faced with concrete proposals, many people realize that environmental protection comes at a price and tend to turn down measures which may affect their personal situation. In addition, environmental policies are often complex and have long-term implications that are hard to grasp for voters. They thus offer a promising basis for the test of the impact of cognitive factors on political attitudes.