ABSTRACT

This study explores populism in terms of communication while distinguishing between its ideological and stylistic dimensions. We examine the social media communication of the three main Italian political leaders during the last national electoral campaign to underline the differences and similarities in their use of populist communication in terms of ideology and style and assess how it affects Facebook and Twitter engagement. Our analysis shows that the three leaders all adopt populist communication styles but in slightly different ways. In all cases, populist style elements have a stronger impact on online engagement than populist ideology. The main difference between social media seems to be related less to the leaders’ communication elements than to their platform-specific audiences’ positive reactions to populist communication strategies.

摘要

本研究从传播的角度探讨民粹主义，同时区分其意识形态和文体维度。我们研究了上次全国竞选期间三位主要意大利政治领导人的社交媒体传播，以强调他们在意识形态和风格方面使用民粹主义传播的差异和相似之处，并评估它如何影响 Facebook 和 Twitter 的参与度。我们的分析表明，三位领导人都采用民粹主义的沟通方式，但方式略有不同。在所有情况下，与民粹主义意识形态相比，民粹主义风格元素对在线​​参与的影响更大。社交媒体之间的主要区别似乎与领导者的沟通要素有关，而与其特定平台的受众对民粹主义传播策略的积极反应有关。