The effects of populist identity framing on populist attitudes across Europe: Evidence from a 15-country comparative experiment
- Author(s)
- Michael Hameleers, Desiree Schmuck, Anne Schulz, Dominique Stefanie Wirz, Jörg Matthes, Linda Bos, Nicoleta Corbu, Ioannis Andreadis
- Abstract
We investigate the effects of populist messages that (a) stress the centrality of “ordinary” people, (b) shift blame to the “corrupt” elites, or (c) combine people centrality and antielitist cues on 3 dimensions of populist attitudes: anti-elitism, homogeneous people, and popular sovereignty. We conducted an extensive 15-country experiment in which we manipulated populist communication as social identity frames (N = 7,271). Multilevel analyses demonstrate that messages stressing the centrality of the ordinary people activate all dimensions of populist attitudes. In contrast, anti-elite messages activate anti-elitism attitudes only for those individuals with lower levels of education and extreme positions on the ideological left–right spectrum. Our findings suggest that populist political communication plays a key role in activating populist attitudes across Europe.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Communication
- External organisation(s)
- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Université de Fribourg, University of Amsterdam (UvA), University of Oxford, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, National University of Political Studies and Public Administration, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
- Journal
- International Journal of Public Opinion Research
- Volume
- 33
- Pages
- 491–510
- No. of pages
- 20
- ISSN
- 0954-2892
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edaa018
- Publication date
- 2021
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 508007 Communication science
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/3726341d-6595-428c-98ea-1a02455154b4