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Article published In: Right-Wing Populism in Europe & USA: Contesting Politics & Discourse beyond ‘Orbanism’ and ‘Trumpism’
Edited by Ruth Wodak and Michał Krzyżanowski
[Journal of Language and Politics 16:4] 2017
► pp. 510–522

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Social media and the cordon sanitaire

Populist politics, the online space, and a relationship that just isn’t there

 | University of Hull
 | Teesside University
Published online: 7 August 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17029.lit
Abstract
Much research has sought to map the spread of extreme and populist political ideologies across Western Europe. Despite this, it often fails to explain how these ideologies move from the political fringes to positions of influence, subverting the traditional cordon sanitaire around extreme views. As a result of recent successes by populist actors, a more nuanced understanding of this process is required.
This paper posits an explanation for this success, suggesting that the growing pluralisation of the online media environment and the impact of social media content sharing are key to understanding how fringe political actors avoid both overt and implicit barriers to popularising extreme positions. Using data from the British Election Study, this paper offers a quantitative test of this approach, finding an inconsistent relationship between social media use and extreme political opinions. Potential explanations for this are discussed alongside possible directions for future research.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Understanding the ‘orthodox account’ of 21st century populism
  • 3.Social media and political access
  • 4.Methods and results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • References
References (35)
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