Transformations of the Media Sphere: Amplifying Opportunity Structures for Populism

The book The Complexity of Populism: New Approaches and Methods (ed. Paula Diehl and Brigitte Bargetz) was published by Routledge, which includes a chapter by Mojce Pajnik entitled Transformations of the Media Sphere: Amplifying Opportunity Structures for Populism.

The chapter argues that within the post-democratic condition, the populism of political parties and their leaders is closely intertwined with the media. It addresses communication as a political dimension affected by populism as it is identified by the editors and examines the role of media. The chapter focuses on conceptualizations of populism that recognize the institutional, structural, and policy changes in the media system as pivotal to understand the flourishing of populism and media populism in contemporary societies. It discusses conceptual and methodological debates on populism by shifting the focus to structural changes in the mediascape in recent decades. Methodologically, multi-scale analysis exposes the transformation of mass media conditions in recent decades in order to show where the developments comply with populism or where they have made it easier for populism to flourish.

The chapter is available here: Opportunity Stuctures for Populism