Populist Disinformation in Fragmented Information Settings

Understanding the Nature and Persuasiveness of Populist and Post-factual Communication

Michael Hameleers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000455496
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Kommunikationswissenschaften

In this highly relevant work, Dr. Michael Hameleers illuminates the role of traditional and social media in shaping the political consequences of populism and disinformation in a mediatized era characterized by post-factual relativism and the perseverance of a populist zeitgeist.

Using comparative empirical evidence collected in the US, the UK, and the Netherlands, this book explores the politics and discursive construction of populism and disinformation, how they co-occur, their effects on society, and the antidotes used to combat the consequences of these communicative phenomena.

This book is an essential text for students and academics in communication, media studies, political science, sociology, and psychology.

1
Populist disinformation

Exploring the intersections of populism, misinformation and disinformation and their political consequences

DOI: 10.4324/9781003194668-2

Introduction

In recent years, various societal phenomena and democratic threats have been described in the light of populism, disinformation, and increasing partisan divides in politics, media, and society. The aftermath of the 2016 US elections, for example, has sparked a debate on the omnipresence of populism and “fake news” in Western societies. Populism and “fake news” have consequentially been used as labels to describe various phenomena salient in the fragmented information setting of the post-true communication era (e.g., Van Aelst et al., 2017). Here, it needs to be argued that the popular term “fake news” may be misleading and inaccurate, as it presupposes that the dissemination of communicative untruthfulness is actually “news” in the first place (also see, e.g., Freelon & Wells, 2020). In that regard, disin-formation or partisan misinformation may be better suited to describe these mediatized phenomena that point to increasing attacks on the truthfulness and honesty of the public sphere (Jackson, 2017; Tandoc, Lim, & Ling, 2018; Wardle, 2017).

Populism and the spread of disinformation are often conflated in popular discourse or used simultaneously to describe the rhetoric and statements of polarizing (radical-right) politicians. Although such references are often simplifications, the assumed connection between these phenomena is not completely unjustified. In the context of the current fragmented and post-factual media environment (Van Aelst et al., 2017), populism and (partisan) misinformation or disinformation do share key communicative features and psychological underpinnings that justify a more integrative approach to these phenomena (Waisbord, 2018). But how are misinformation and disin-formation and populism actually connected when taking a communicative approach to understand these concepts?

The mechanisms underlying the persuasiveness of populism and misinformation can both be interpreted in the light of social identity framing (e.g., Mols, 2012). Importantly, populist ideas reach the electorate through different modes of communication, and the populist ideology needs a medium in order to make an impact on the electorate (Aalberg, Esser, Reinemann, Strömbäck, & de Vreese, 2017; Moffitt, 2014). The framing of the people’s identity vis-à-vis culpable others is central in the expression of populist ideas or styles. In other words, populism’s core idea constructs and communicates an all-encompassing binary divide in society: the ordinary citizens belong to the innocent in-group and the corrupt elites are part of the culpable out-group (Mudde & Rovira Kaltwasser, 2017).

The same principles of identity politics underlie the construction of (partisan) misinformation or disinformation. Misinformation can be defined as information found to be inaccurate or untrue based on relevant expert knowledge (Vraga & Bode, 2020). Although misinformation is different from disinformation in the sense that disinformation relates to inaccurate information spread with a political goal in mind (e.g., Tandoc et al., 2018) – the terms misinformation and disinformation are partially used interchangeably in this book as these forms of communicative untruthfulness are difficult to separate empirically. More specifically, in the strictest sense, one needs to know the goals that agents of disinformation have to manipulate or decontextualize information in order to define untrue information as disinformation. In order to empirically identify disinformation, it is thus important to explicitly reveal the intentions and political agenda of the communicator.

If we think about the political consequences of intentional versus unintentional untruthfulness, the distinction is conceptually relevant – and may be considered an important factor to understand the effects of populist identity frames. In that sense, what matters most is that misinformation or disinformation is frequently partisan in nature. Partisan misinformation or disinformation relates to the spread of one-sided misinformation that supports one particular party’s attitudinal stance whilst discrediting information from the other party. Resulting from the spread of such inaccurate information, the electorate can hold persistent misperceptions, which are inaccurate perceptions of reality that result as a consequence of exposure to partisan misinformation or disinformation (Thorson, 2016). Similar to the social identification process underlying populism, partisan misinformation or disinformation constructs an all-encompassing moral and causal divide between two camps: “we” are right and truthful and “they” are wrong and fake (Schulz, Wirth, & Müller, 2018). The partisan nature of misinformation or disinformation also explains its stickiness: when information resonates with people’s identities and when it echoes their beliefs, pointing people to inaccuracies may potentially backfire as people are motivated to avoid or reject attacks on their existing beliefs (e.g., Nyhan & Reifler, 2010) – which is afforded by digital and high-choice information settings that allow people to select reassuring information and avoid attacks on their beliefs.

Both populism and partisan misinformation and disinformation depict the in-group as a morally good and innocent entity whereas the out-group is seen as evil and causally responsible. Indeed, radical-right politicians such as Donald Trump and Geert Wilders frequently blame the elites for spreading fake news that mislead the “honest” ordinary people. At the same time, however, they deliberately disseminate disinformation that supports their own position and discredits the other party’s position. Although it is hard to prove, this can be seen as informed by strategical considerations: fostering distrust in elite knowledge and the establishment may create momentum for radical right-wing challengers who aim to punish the corrupt elite and represent the voice of the true people they claim to be part of. Such identity-framed messages can be effective. In light of this, despite convincing retractions, fact-checks, and scientific evidence, radical right-wing leaders such as Trump or Bolsonaro continue to deny the existence of climate change as a pressing and human interference in global warming. Even more so, they refer to a conspiracy between the (left-wing) elite to further enhance polarization and attack established and expert knowledge. People who claim that climate change is caused by human actions are blamed for being ignorant. This is line with extant research which indicates that misinformation is hard to refute when it is strongly intertwined with people’s ideological beliefs and pre-existing attitudes (e.g., Thorson, 2016). Hence, people seem to prefer a version of reality that confirms their existing perceptual screens, irrespective of the factual basis of these partisan realities.

At this stage, for conceptual clarity, it is again important to distinguish misinformation from disinformation (also see Wardle, 2017). Although misinformation can be defined as the dissemination of any information that is found to be false, the communicator does not have the goal to mislead receivers (Jackson, 2017). Disinformation, in contrast, refers to the intentional spread of misleading information to achieve a certain goal, such as gaining electoral success, augmenting partisan divides, or fostering political distrust among society (Freelon & Wells, 2020; Marwick & Lewis, 2017; Weedon, Nuland, & Stamos, 2017). Crucially, disinformation can have an impact on society even if it is regarded as inaccurate (e.g., Nyhan & Reifler, 2010). Empirical research indicates that rebutted partisan falsehoods are most likely to influence people’s attitudes when such information is linked to their beliefs and ideology (e.g., Lewandowsky, Ecker, Seifert, Schwarz, & Cook, 2012). In that sense, the communicator of falsehoods can adjust his/her communication strategy by targeting the identitarian beliefs of the electorate – which is in line with populism’s Manichean outlook (Waisbord, 2018).

Another linkage between populism and misinformation or disinformation is the resonance between populism’s communication style and post-factual communication (Waisbord, 2018). Populism is frequently associated with emotionalization, conflict, simplification, and references to common sense and the experiences of the ordinary people (Mazzoleni, Stewart, & Horsfield, 2003). At the same time, elites (including the mass media) are circumvented or criticized for their biased reporting (Krämer, 2014). Taking this one step further, verified facts, expert knowledge, and elaborated argumentation are distrusted and circumvented, whereas the opinions of the ordinary people are prioritized. Populist communication is therefore prone to post-factual discourse and may even intentionally rely on fact-free sentiments that describe the experiences of the people. At the same time, established truths and facts are doubted, as they are perceived as intentionally misleading. In other words, according to the populist rationale, the elites “sell” their version of reality as factual – whereas this version of reality is distorted to maintain their power positions. Populist rhetoric may thus emphasize that the people are misled by the dishonest elites so that they can maintain the power discrepancy between the people on the ground and their ivory tower. Populist framing may thus align with the spread of misinformation and disinformation across society.

In sum, to better understand the political consequences of populism situated in today’s fragmented, high-choice media setting, it is important to link misinformation and disinformation to populist communication. As both phenomena are regarded as vexing threats to democracy, and as they can both be understood in the context of the underlying psychological processes of identification and social differentiation, this book aims to understand the effects of both populist communication and misinformation or disinformation and the role of affordances in today’s media landscape that contribute to its spread, effectiveness, and potential remedies. The next step is to understand how exposure to such identity-framed messages can persuade the electorate.

What are the effects of populist communication?

Populist blame attribution can be conceptualized as a discursive frame to describe journalistic populist communication on the sender-side and interpretations of citizens on the receiver-side (Hameleers, Bos, & de Vreese, 2018a). To provide an example of a journalistic interpretation along the lines of populism’s ideational core: on June 13, 2016, the largest British tabloid newspaper The Sun published a front-page article in which they actively constructed the divide between the ordinary people and the culprit elites, as illustrated by the following quote: “The Sun urges everyone to vote LEAVE. We must set ourselves free from dictatorial Brussels. Throughout our 43-year membership of the European Union it has proved increasingly greedy, wasteful, bullying and breathtakingly incompetent in a crisis.” In this article, the European Union was blamed for their incompetence in solving the native people’s crisis. Because “they” are greedy, wasteful, bullying, and incompetent, “our” nation has not been able to recover from the crisis.

On the receiver-side, citizens also frequently express populist ideas by emphasizing the opposition between their blameless in-group and opposed out-groups. The following quote posted on the Facebook community The Netherlands in Revolt provides an example of such a populist expression by an ordinary citizen: “Our elderly people and the chronically ill are unable to work. Because of this evil government, they are not getting enough to even survive. If it’s up to this government, we can all die.” The source of this quote, an ordinary citizen, emphasized the opposition between the vulnerable members of the in-group who are abandoned to their fate because the elites in government do not care about their well-being.

Populist ideas can thus be detached from specific political actors by connecting these ideas to the post-factual information environment they are part of. The next step is to explore how populist ideas expressed by and through the media can be related to the populist interpretations of citizens. In order to do so, a causal link between two important areas in populism research can be made: media populism or populism by the media (e.g., Krämer, 2014; Mazzoleni, 2008) and populist attitudes (Akkerman, Mudde, & Zaslove, 2014; Hawkins, Riding, & Mudde, 2012).

The tentative evidence supporting such a causal link between the populism of the media and the populist interpretations of citizens mainly stems from the literature on responsibility attribution. Extant literature on causal responsibility attributions demonstrates that messages that attribute blame indeed guide citizens’ political opinions in congruence with the targets attributed to causal responsibility (Hobolt & Tilley, 2014; Iyengar, 1991). If a message emphasizes blame attributions to the European Union, for example, citizens follow suit by accepting this culpable out-group construction in their own political opinions (e.g., Tilley & Hobolt, 2011). Against this backdrop, Chapter 4 will test the central causal expectation that populist blame attributions emphasized in media content affect the populist attitudes of citizens in message-congruent ways.

Beyond fake news: (partisan) misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda

To better understand the content and consequences of the spread of inaccurate information, it is important to move beyond the buzzword “Fake News.” Specifically, fake news implies that we talk about news, and that this news is made up by some actors. In addition, fake news is increasingly weaponized by political actors and citizens who use it as a blame-shifting rhetoric and a tool of information warfare (Waisbord, 2018). It therefore lost its meaning in describing the phenomena of informational untruthfulness. A more precise understanding of this current development can be achieved only if we distinguish between misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation can be defined as the spread of information that may initially be regarded as truthful and accurate but regarded as incomplete or inaccurate at a later instance (Fridkin, Kenney, & Wintersieck, 2015; Thorson, 2016). It refers to information that lacks empirical evidence or expert opinion (Vraga & Bode, 2020), but it is not spread with the intention to mislead receivers (Nyhan & Reifler, 2010). In the political sphere, such communicative untruthfulness is frequently framed in a partisan way: false information is generally offering support...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• Introduction: the essence of populist disinformation and the roots of its persuasiveness
• 1 Populist disinformation: exploring the intersections of populism, misinformation and disinformation and their political consequences
• 2 The discursive framing of populism and (un)truthfulness by politicians
• 3 Citizens’ online interpretations of populism and post-factual relativism
• 4 Populist and post-factual discourse on online news platforms
• 5 Effects of populist communication in a comparative setting
• 6 How populist disinformation can mislead the electorate
• 7 Hope on the horizon: correcting post-factual populist communication
• 8 Political consequences and democratic implications of populist disinformation: should we worry about the future of truth and democracy?
• 9 Conclusion
• Index