Seite 148 [148]
146 | Norbert Merkovity and Büsra Özyüksel
in their speeches and programmes. Some, such as Podemos, profess to be
ideologically empty, like an empty shell waiting to be filled with whatever
the peoples demands are.
Except for populist appeals (direct or indirect appeals to the people - empty
populism - and further possible attributes like the exclusion of various out¬
groups or anti-elitism), no policy or political programme can be identified
as shared by a wide range of populist political parties in Europe. The populist
label encompasses many elements, including nationalism, regionalism,
Euroscepticism, opposition to immigration, anti-multiculturalism, anti¬
corruption, and calls for greater citizen participation and more direct forms
of democracy (Stanyer et al. 2017, 357).
Here the role of media should be mentioned in terms of a vehicle transmitting
political messages to citizens. European media networks have undergone
significant changes over the past decades, leading to expanded opportunity
structures for disseminating populist themes. The loss of traditional party
press, increased media ownership concentration, reliance on advertising,
and a stronger emphasis on news values have all contributed to the rise
of populist rhetoric (Esser et al. 2017). With the emergence of political
communications fourth period, and with the rise of social media (network
logic, self-mediatisation), a new kind of populism appeared: media populism
(Mazzoleni 2003).
The term ‘media populism refers to three separate viewpoints: populism
by the media, populism via the media, and populist citizen journalism (Esser
et al. 2017, 367). The first point of view is the populism of the media, which
refers to media companies actively engaged in their form of populism through
the use of a rhetorical style in order to inject themselves, as supposed public
representatives, into the political process. Populism fuelled by the media
exists in several European states.
The second viewpoint on media populism is populism through the media.
According to Gianpietro Mazzoleni, the media’s major problem is not the
spread of media-specific populism, but rather the reinforcement of politicians’
populist rhetoric. Populist parties and movements depend on media support.
Media reports on these actors’ slogans, arguments, and ideological views
increase their public exposure and perceived validity. Mazzoleni argues that
political malaise is a common essential condition for the growth of anti¬
political sentiments: “the media play a role in disseminating it, either by simply
keeping it on a country’s public agenda or by spreading political mistrust and
a mood of fatalistic disengagement - all of which populist politicians can
easily and quickly exploit” (Mazzoleni 2008, 50).
Populist citizen journalism is the third and final approach to media populism.
It happens when media companies create channels for the dissemination of
populist messages originating from their audiences - typically, but not only,
in the form of reader comments on their websites (Esser 2017).