ABSTRACT

This article suggests considering a social facet of populism, focusing on the supporters, to grasp how they use media to engage with the populist message and their understanding of it. The article proposes that a fan studies approach can be useful to examine how populist supporters’ identification with the imagined community of pure people can help them address specific social-psychological needs. A study applying this approach to the Spanish populist far-right provides evidence that a fan studies framework can help understand populist supporters’ community-building processes and benefits. Then, the article explains the implications for research on populism using this approach, offering a guide for future research. This work is relevant to multiple areas including political communication and cultural studies.

摘要

本文建议考虑民粹主义的社会层面，着眼于支持者，以掌握他们如何利用媒体与民粹主义信息互动以及对民粹主义信息的理解。这篇文章提出，用爱好者研究的方法来检验民粹主义支持者对想象中的纯洁人社区的认同如何可以帮助他们解决特定的社会心理需求是有用的。将这种方法应用于西班牙极右翼民粹主义的研究提供了证据，即球迷研究框架可以帮助理解民粹主义支持者的社区建设过程和利益。然后，本文解释了使用这种方法对民粹主义进行研究的意义，并为将来的研究提供了指南。这项工作涉及多个领域，包括政治传播和文化研究。