ABSTRACT

Social Network Sites (SNSs) provide a platform for different actors to directly communicate populist ideas. Politicians and citizens can bypass elite media by directly speaking to the people via social media. Although a growing body of research has investigated the effects of populist messages, extant research has not explicitly compared how the dissemination of populism by (1) traditional media, (2) politicians, and (3) ordinary citizens can activate populist attitudes on the demand-side of the electorate. Relying on a comparative experiment in three countries (the US, UK, and the Netherlands, N = 1,096), this paper shows that the effects of populist messages on populist attitudes are contingent upon four factors: (1) the likelihood of selecting populist content in real life, (2) relative deprivation, (3) political cynicism, and (4) identification with the “ordinary people” as a source of populist ideas. There are no direct effects of populist communication by the news media, citizens, or politicians. Source cues on their own thus do not make populist communication more or less persuasive. Together, this study shows that people are most likely to be persuaded by populist messages when these messages confirm dissent, source identification, and media exposure patterns.

摘要

社交网站 (SNS) 为不同的参与者提供了一个直接交流民粹主义思想的平台。政治家和公民可以通过社交媒体直接与人民交谈，从而绕过精英媒体。尽管越来越多的研究调查了民粹主义信息的影响，但现有的研究并没有明确比较 (1) 传统媒体、(2) 政治家和 (3) 普通公民如何传播民粹主义，以激活对需求的民粹主义态度。 ——选民一方。依靠在三个国家（美国、英国和荷兰）的对比实验，N= 1,096)，本文表明民粹主义信息对民粹主义态度的影响取决于四个因素：(1) 在现实生活中选择民粹主义内容的可能性，(2) 相对剥夺，(3) 政治犬儒主义，以及 (4) ) 认同“普通人”是民粹主义思想的来源。新闻媒体、公民或政治家的民粹主义传播没有直接影响。因此，来源线索本身并不会使民粹主义交流或多或少具有说服力。总之，这项研究表明，当民粹主义信息确认异议、来源识别和媒体曝光模式时，人们最有可能被这些信息说服。