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Political communication and populism Norbert Merkovity and Büsra Özyüksel The scholarship of political communication has a long tradition in European academic research, and distinguishes different periods in the evolution of political communication in Europe. The first period is shaped by the party logic. The second acknowledges the emergence of television and the alienation of voters from politics. The third period witnesses the rise of the media logic, while the fourth period - that of present times - points out the self-mediatised nature of political behaviour and the importance of social media channels in the process of political communication. Distinguishing these periods also allows us to give a historical perspective to the concepts of media logic, network logic, and mediatisation. It also grants stable grounds for examining the recent successes of populist political communication in European countries, the role of media in the spread of populism, and citizens’ reactions. Populism is indeed shaping the patterns of political communication across Europe. Therefore, understanding the motives of different actors’ communication is of essential importance. Keywords: political communication, media logic, network logic, selfmediatisation, populism The research on political communication in Europe started in the 1960s and has evolved into a significant area in political science and media studies, which delivered lots of important and relevant results on, for instance, election campaigns, political actors’ attitudes and behaviours, the role of media in political issues, or electoral behaviour. The fall of socialist regimes in 1989/90 has also resulted in an important contribution to the field from Central and Eastern Europe. Nevertheless, most of the findings presented in this chapter will reflect comments by Western European scholars on contemporary European democracies, as a more detailed overview of regional divergences in the existing literature would go beyond the scope of our text. This chapter will not attempt to introduce all research directions of political communication. However, it will highlight those tendencies through which political actors’ communication could be understood and explained. After the introduction to the periods of political communication, and into the media and the network logic, mediatisation and self-mediatisation will be
