Populist Communication in Traditional
and Alternative News Media in the
United States
By Alicia Schlack12034495
Master’s Thesis
University of Amsterdam - Graduate School of Communication Master’s program Communication Science
Supervisor: Dr. Alessandro Nai June 28, 2019
Abstract
The growing popularity and success of populist politicians in Western democracies has been accompanied by the emergence of alternative news outlets on the internet, which criticize the ‘mainstream media’ for not representing their views fairly. Due to several factors inherent to the nature of alternative media, it could be expected that they employ populist language to a greater extent than their traditional counterparts. Firstly, alternative media usually reject traditional journalistic practices. Secondly, there is a lower threshold for non-elite actors to enter alternative media. Thirdly, the internet enables a more direct flow of communication and puts a greater focus on the audience. A quantitative content analysis of populist language use in n = 214 news videos covering the Mueller investigation, showed that this is indeed the case, when comparing traditional left-wing channels to alternative news media. However, surprisingly traditional right-wing channels employed populist language most frequently. Furthermore, the analysis showed that right-wing news outlets overall used more populist language than left-wing news outlets. Furthermore, populism in alternative media was mainly exhibited through the use of anti-elitist language, which is in line with their self-perception as opponents to establishment media. These results contribute to the growing literature,
examining populist communication in the media, and in particular the news media.
Keywords: populist communication, media populism, alternative media
Introduction
Since the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States and the considerable popularity of progressive Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential election, it has become evident that populism on both the left- and the right-wing is on the rise in the U.S. (Oliver & Rahn, 2016). While Oliver and Rahn (2016) argue that this popularity of populist non-establishment actors is primarily connected “to a massive wave of
voter discontent with the governing classes” (p. 189), their findings also raise the question where this dissatisfaction comes from in the first place.
While the focus in the search for an explanation at first has been on political actors and parties, a growing amount of literature has looked towards the media and the news media more specifically (Blassnig, Ernst, Büchel, Engesser & Esser, 2019; Wettstein, Esser, Schulz, Wirz & Wirth, 2018). That is because the news media is able to push populist narratives, on the one hand, by simply covering populist actors in their reporting and thereby, advancing populism through the media. On the other hand, the news media can also actively employ populist narratives themselves, thereby promoting populism by the media. While most studies on populism in the news media have looked at whether they employ populism through the media, only relatively recent studies (Blassnig et al., 2019) have also considered that populism can be advanced by the media itself.
At the same time, increasingly more literature is looking at the emergence of new alternative media (Atton, 2015; Dylko, Beam, Landreville & Geidner, 2011; Haller, Holt & de La Brosse, 2019; Haller & Holt, 2018; Hintz 2015). Alternative media can be found at the more polarized ends of the political spectrum and explicitly view themselves as distinct from the traditional ‘mainstream media’, which they criticize as not representing their views fairly (Haller et al., 2019). In line with this self-perception, alternative news media commonly reject traditional journalistic norms of ‘fair’ and ‘objective’ reporting (Haller et al., 2019; Peer & Ksiazek, 2011). Furthermore, the internet, which is the prime medium of alternative news channels, bears several characteristics, such as a closer and more direct link to the people, a lower threshold for non-elite actors to enter and higher competition for attention, all of which make populism more likely (Engesser, Fawzi & Andersson, 2017b). Thus, it seems highly likely that alternative news media can be quickly led to employ more populist language compared to more traditional news media. However, until now studies have not yet examined the extent to which alternative news media employ populist language. Therefore, this study
will aim to answer the following research question: Do alternative news outlets employ more populist language in their news coverage than traditional news outlets? Moreover, political ideology seems to play a part not only in the populism literature, but also when it comes to alternative media. As a sub-research question, this thesis will thus also consider political leanings of news outlets and examine whether right- and left-wing news outlets differ in their use of populist language.
To answer the research question, this master thesis will firstly, examine the current literature on populism in general, in communication and more specifically in the media as well as literature on alternative media. Secondly, a quantitative content analysis comparing 214 YouTube videos from traditional and alternative as well as right- and left-wing news outlets will be analyzed to determine to what extent populist language is employed. Thirdly, this study will analyze and discuss the results from the content analysis and lastly, conclude with the main findings.
Theoretical Background
In order to understand the research question better, it is necessary to define and examine the key concepts that will be applied in this master thesis. First of all, the main concept of populism more generally (Mudde, 2004), its sub-dimensions populist
communication (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007) and media populism (Krämer, 2014; Blassnig et al., 2019) will be explored. Thereafter, this section will examine what the current literature on alternative news media (Atton, 2015; Dylko, et al., 2011; Haller et al., 2019; Haller & Holt, 2018; Hintz 2016) has found and in what ways alternative media differ from traditional media.
Populism
To understand what populist communication and more specifically media
there is a wide range of academic articles concerning populism, it is a concept that is contested. Scholars have identified and characterized it as an ideology (Mudde, 2004), logic (Engesser et al., 2017b), discourse (De Cleen, 2012; Laclau, 2005), style (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007; Moffitt & Tormey, 2014), and political strategy (Weyland, 2001). However, there is agreement that at the core of populism lies an inherent antagonism between a “pure people” versus a “corrupt elite” (Mudde, 2004, p. 543). Therefore, populism is commonly associated with two main concepts: people-centrism and anti-elitism. The former concept refers to the characterization of the people as a homogenous group, that is “inherently good” (Engesser et al., 2017b, p. 1282) and capable of having a common general will (Mudde, 2004; Blassnig et al., 2019). In contrast, the latter concept characterizes an elite as the corrupt antagonist to the people, that is perceived as inherently bad and actively working against or at least disregarding the general will of the people (Engesser et al., 2017b).
Several scholars consider people-centrism, to be the most important element of populism and based on this argumentation have formed the concept of ‘thin’ or ‘empty’ populism, making people-centrism the essential element to be able to speak of populism (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007; Mudde, 2004). This thin definition of populism can then be expanded with further, more concrete political “add-on ideologies” (Engesser et al., 2017b, p. 1281; Reinemann, Aalberg, Esser, Strömbäck & de Vreese, 2016). Thereby, thin populism can be applied to other ideologies and is not restricted to just left- or right-wing ideology (Canovan, 1999; Rooduijn, 2014; Reinemann et al. 2016; Taggart, 2004; Wettstein et al., 2018).
However, populism on the right and left oftentimes exhibits certain unique
characteristics. Especially right-wing populism in the United States has been acknowledged for its “unique combination of anti-expertise, anti-elitism and pronationalist sentiments” (Oliver & Rahn, 2016, p. 189). Right-wing populism usually entails an exclusion of
population-groups which are not considered “part of the ‘real’ people”, such as minorities or immigrants (Reinemann et al., 2016, p. 14; Jagers & Walgrave, 2007). Furthermore, right-wing populists frequently exhibit anti-expertise sentiments – also called anti-intellectualism – by mistrusting the opinions and scientific findings of experts and scholars (Oliver & Rahn, 2016).
Populist Communication
The most common way through which populism materializes itself is through “oral, written and visual communication” (Reinemann et al., 2016, p. 13). Therefore, populist communication has received substantial attention in the research of populism. Essentially, any actor in the public sphere, including politicians, parties, the media and citizens, is able to employ populist communication (Reinemann et al., 2016).
People-centrism in populist communication, that is people-centric language, manifests itself by “appealing to the people, talking about the people, putting the people and their opinions first in political decisions, or symbolically and rhetorically uniting with the people by talking about ‘we’ and ‘us’” (Reinemann et al., 2016, p. 14). An actor generally employs people-centric language to demonstrate an understanding of the people’s concerns and needs and to defend their interests. Jagers and Walgrave (2007, p. 323) also describe this
phenomenon as the “I listen to you because I talk about you” phenomenon. Accordingly, people-centrism can be identified by the frequent use of words such as ‘the people’, ‘citizens’, and ‘the public’ (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007). These terms exhibit an intentional vagueness and ambiguity, leading to diverse people being able to identify themselves “under a common label despite differing demands or values” (Reinemann et al., 2016, p. 16).
In turn, anti-elitism in populist communication typically occurs through verbal “attacks on, or in criticism of, various kinds of elites, institutions, the establishment, or ‘the system’” (Reinemann et al., 2016, p. 14). Thereby, a powerful adversary to the people is created, and actors employing anti-elitist language are able to distance themselves from being
portrayed as an elitist actor themselves (Engesser et al., 2017b). Depending on the political leaning of a populist actor, the target of anti-elitist language can vary and target either a political or an economic elite (Engesser et al., 2017b; Oliver & Rahn, 2016). While left-wing populism generally perceives an economic elite as its adversary, right-wing populism more frequently targets the elite as a political one (Oliver & Rahn, 2016). Therefore, anti-elitist language in this thesis was examined by differing between economic and political anti-elitism. Economic anti-elitist language can be identified through the use of terms such as ‘the rich’, ‘oligarchs’, ‘the 1%’ and ‘big banks’. Political anti-elitism in turn can be identified by the use of phrases, such as ‘the elite’, ‘establishment’, ‘corrupt-’ and ‘the swamp’.
These terms certainly do not cover the whole extent of each element and more terms and phrases could be listed here. The codebook, that was used for this study (see Appendix), entails a more inclusive list of terms associated with each concept. It is, however, important to note that any list is likely not exhaustive enough to detect the full range of populist language and their meaning oftentimes depends on the context, in which they are applied (Rooduijn & Pauwels, 2011).
There are several other communication elements which have also frequently been associated with populist communication. However, these are ‘non-essential’ elements, such as charisma, the use of a crisis frame and rhetorical elements, such as language and issue
simplicity (Reinemann et al., 2016). These factors on their own are not sufficient as indicators for populist communication and were thus disregarded in this study.
Media Populism
Until now a majority of the research conducted on populist communication has focused on politicians or political parties and their manifestos as the sender of populist messages. However, the media and news media also play a fundamental part “in mediating and moderating” the flow of populist communication (Blassnig et al., 2019, p. 1110; Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2014).
As briefly mentioned in the introduction, when considering populist communication in the media, it is important to distinguish three approaches to populist language in the media: (1) media populism or populism by the media, (2) populism through the media and (3) populist citizen journalism (Blassnig et al., 2019). Firstly, the media are able to actively employ populist rhetoric themselves, thereby consciously promoting populist messages. This is what is generally understood as media populism or populism by the media (Blassnig et al., 2019). However, the media are also able to simply disseminate and mediate populist messages from populist actors and parties without intentionally advocating for populist messages
themselves, but still giving populist actors and their messages a platform. This is considered to be different from media populism and called populism through the media (Blassnig et al., 2019). Lastly, a number of new media give their audience space to make populist statements, for example, through comment sections or blog posts. This is considered populist citizen journalism (Blassnig et al., 2019). Especially the differentiation between populism by the media and populism through the media is important for this thesis because with the increase and success of populist actors in Western democracies, studies have found an increase in populism through the media (Blassnig et al. 2019; Bos & Brants, 2014). It has been argued that this development can be mainly explained by the fact that populist messages have an inherently “high news value” and “hit all the right keys of newsworthiness” and news logic (Esser, Stępińska & Hopmann, 2016, p. 369-370; Mazzoleni, 2003; Wettstein et al., 2018, p. 476-477). However, this study proposes that populism by the news media has also become more frequent, especially in alternative news media. The next section will explain why this might be the case.
Theoretical Framework
At the same time as political scientists are describing a rise in populism,
communication scholars have witnessed the emergence of new alternative media on the internet. Since the concept of alternative media is relatively new, no generally accepted
definition of it has emerged yet (Haller & Holt, 2018). However, the term alternative media has generally been associated with several unique characteristics (Holtz-Bacha, 2015). Above all, alternative media see themselves in stark contrast and opposition to traditional ‘mainstream media’ because they believe that their views are unfairly represented there (Haller et al., 2019). They see themselves as presenting the ‘truth’ to their audiences and as “representatives of perspectives that are somehow not represented fairly within the realm of the mainstream” (Haller et al., 2019, p. 2). Alternative media have mostly emerged on the internet because the “threshold for non-elite actors to enter the arenas of communication” is lower here (Engesser et al., 2017b, p. 1284).
Alternative media can be found on both sides of the political spectrum. On the far-right end, Breitbart and Infowars are for example relatively well-known alternative news outlets. However, these outlets are also known for spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation (Haller et al., 2019). That is why this thesis will examine more moderate alternative news outlets.
Alternative news media can be placed somewhere between traditional news media and user-generated content or civilian journalism. On the one hand, alternative news outlets are already fairly professionalized (Haller & Holt, 2018; Haller et al., 2019), but, on the other hand, they do not adhere to traditional journalistic standards and a
professional ethos to the same extent as traditional news organizations (Peer & Ksiazek, 2011). The former aspect means that alternative news media exhibit a relatively high production value in terms of the audiovisual quality of their videos, which is comparable to traditional news outlets. Most alternative news outlets even produce their videos in professional studios. The latter aspect originates from the fact that the people behind alternative news outlets are usually not professionally-educated journalists and do not normally comply with established journalistic content standards, such as for example, striving for ‘objective’ and ‘balanced’ reporting or clearly separating ‘straight’ news items from political commentary (Peer & Ksiazek, 2011).
Such a break from journalistic standards has also been found to be rewarded by the audience with greater popularity in terms of views, likes and comments (Peer & Ksiazek, 2011). Considering that alternative news media mainly rely on their number of views or financial donations and membership fees from their audience to sustain
themselves, it is not surprising that alternative media aim to increase their appeal to large audiences (Blassnig et al., 2019). This situation is intensified by the fact that alternative news outlets receive immediate feedback from their audience via comments for example (Blassnig et al., 2019; Aalborg & de Vreese, 2017) and thus know exactly what their audience likes or dislikes. This is important because previous studies have found that when appealing to a broad audience is the main goal of a media type, its content will be more populist than that of other media types (Bos & Brants, 2014, Esser et al., 2016).
Moreover, because alternative news media have to compete for attention with a limitless range of content on the internet (Lanham, 2006), news stories that increase attention are oftentimes more successful (Klinger & Svensson, 2015, 2016; Engesser et al., 2017b). These circumstances favor the populist communication style, which regularly includes rhetorical features that increase attention, such as language and issue simplicity, use of emotional appeals and negativity (Canovan, 1999; Engesser et al., 2017b).
Furthermore, alternative media have a more direct and unobstructed flow of information to their audience, which is made possible by two factors. Firstly, the internet gives alternative news media the ability to publish their stories immediately, making the communication with their audience more direct (Engesser et al., 2017a; Engesser et al., 2017b; Esser et al., 2016). This more direct flow of communication makes people-centric statements and language seem more authentic and convincing on the internet than on other media types (Engesser et al., 2017b).
Secondly, the production process of news is also more direct for alternative news media because they are not required to go through an editorial board or adhere to editorial processes like their traditional counterparts (Engesser et al., 2017b; Williams & Delli
Carpini, 2011). So, while journalists in traditional news organizations are likely to face criticism or restriction from their editors, if they express populist messages in their news coverage, people in alternative news organizations can more freely express populist messages without facing backlash. Especially anti-elitist views can be more easily expressed because, as mentioned earlier, alternative media often seek to position themselves against the ‘mainstream’ and establishment. Blassnig et al. (2019, p. 1115) already found that populist messages appear more frequently in unrestricted comment sections of online news articles and in opinion-oriented news articles than in ‘straight’ news articles because the former are “less constrained by editorial gatekeeping processes and norms”. A similar effect can thus be expected for alternative news media.
As the above-mentioned arguments have shown, employing media populism is a way for alternative news outlets to gain attention, appeal to their audience and sustain themselves. Furthermore, the more direct flow of communication to the audience through the internet and the shorter news production process makes it more likely for populist messages to appear in alternative news media than in traditional news media. Thus, the first hypothesis is the following:
H1: Alternative news channels employ more populist language in their political news
coverage than traditional news channels.
Right- and Left-Wing Outlets
Since previous studies have found intrinsic differences between right- and left-wing populism and alternative news media are even more polarized than traditional news media, it is also necessary to examine differences that might occur in the use of populist language between right- and left-wing news outlets. As mentioned earlier, right-wing populism in the United States is distinctive in its adoption of anti-intellectualism. Considering two factors inherent to the Mueller investigation, it can be expected that right-wing news outlets will employ populist language to a greater extent than their left-wing counterparts. Firstly, the
Mueller investigative team was comprised of several specialized prosecutors, which are considered experts in their respective investigative fields, such as political corruption, hacking and money laundering1. Secondly, the Mueller investigation targeted a right-wing president,
thereby, automatically putting right-wing outlets in a more defensive position. The second hypothesis is thus the following:
H2: Right-wing news outlets employ more populist language in their political news coverage
than left-wing news outlets.
Furthermore, as also mentioned above, left-wing populism generally antagonizes an economic elite rather than a political elite (Engesser et al., 2017a; Oliver & Rahn, 2016). Therefore, the following sub-hypothesis will be tested:
H2a: Left-wing news outlets employ more economic anti-elitism than right-wing news outlets.
In contrast, right-wing populism more often targets a political elite (Oliver & Rahn, 2016). Therefore, the second sub-hypothesis is the following:
H2b: Right-wing news outlets employ more political anti-elitist language than left-wing news
outlets.
Methods
In order to determine to what extent alternative and traditional as well as right- and left-wing news outlets in the United States employ populist language in their news coverage, a quantitative content analysis of 214 YouTube videos on the Mueller investigation was conducted. The following section will explain how the videos were selected, which news channels were analyzed and compared in the analysis and how the videos were sampled. YouTube as Platform
All videos were taken from the video platform YouTube, because both traditional and alternative media outlets use YouTube to distribute their news videos (al Nashmi,
North, Bloom & Cleary, 2017). YouTube was also chosen because, while less people watch television every year, YouTube now reaches a larger audience than any single television network in the U.S. does (al Nashmi et al., 2017). Furthermore, a comparison between YouTube videos allows for a more equal comparison between the different news outlets than a comparison between television broadcasts or programs and YouTube videos, since television programs are usually longer than YouTube videos.
The Channels
In this study, videos uploaded by YouTube channels from traditional and alternative news outlets from both sides of the political spectrum were analyzed. Therefore, news channels were categorized into the following four groups: traditional left-wing, traditional right-wing, alternative left-wing and alternative right-wing. Due to time constraints, only eight channels – that is two for each group – were selected. An overview of the specific channels chosen for each group can be found in Table 1.
Table 1. Selected News Channels in the Four Groups
Left-wing Right-wing
Traditional
CNN NBC News
FOX News
One America News Network
Alternative
The Young Turks Ring of Fire
The Daily Wire Rebel Media
The channels were chosen based on the sizes of their audience, whether they posted videos daily on their YouTube channels and whether they covered current U.S. political news. One important factor included that the traditional channels also broadcast their programs on national U.S. cable television, while that was an excluding factor for the alternative channels. It should be noted that most of the alternative news channels are not just based on YouTube, but for the most part also publish their shows in the form of podcasts or radio shows.
The traditional news channels were categorized as either left- or right-wing based on the make-up of their audiences. Previous studies have shown that conservatives and
Republicans prefer news outlets such as Fox News, or similar but smaller One America News Network, while liberals and Democrats favor CNN and NBC News (Stroud, 2011; Feldman & Hart, 2018). The alternative news channels were categorized as either left- or right-wing based on their own descriptions. Ring of Fire says it covers “the latest Progressive news”2,
while The Young Turks explains that their name refers to a “young progressive”3. The Daily
Wire considers itself a “politically conservative news and opinion website”4 and Rebel Media
says it covers the news from “an unapologetically conservative perspective”5.
Consistency Within the Groups.
In order to check whether the channels that were selected for each group were actually alike, four independent samples t-tests were conducted, which showed that there were no statistically significant differences within the groups. The difference between the two
traditional left-wing channels, NBC News and CNN, was not statistically significant, t(10.94) = -1.14, p = .281, 95% CI [-1.32, 0.42]. There was also no statistically significant difference between the two traditional right-wing news outlets, Fox News and One America News Network, t(50) = 0.62, p = .536, 95% CI [-0.8, 1.52]. Regarding the two alternative left-wing channels, The Young Turks and Ring of Fire, the independent samples t-test also showed no significant differences, t(53) = 0.18, p = .862, 95% CI [-0.84, 1]. The same was found for the two alternative right-wing channels, The Daily Wire and Rebel Media, which also showed no statistically significant difference, t(51) = -0.1, p = .925, 95% CI [-1.01, 0.92].
2https://www.youtube.com/user/golefttv/about (retrieved June 16, 2019)
3https://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks/about (retrieved June 16, 2019)
4https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaeO5vkdj5xOQHp4UmIN6dw/about (retrieved June 16, 2019) 5https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgUQoEloyf0 (see description of the video; retrieved June 16, 2019)
These findings are supported by Figure 1, which shows the average amount of media populism employed by each news channel. The channels within each group show fairly similar results of media populism. Only the two traditional left-wing channels seem to show a slightly larger gap than the other channels. However, this, firstly, is not a significant
difference as shown above and secondly, might be explained by the fact that only 11 videos were sampled overall from NBC News, meaning that the videos coded could easily be an odd sample. Moreover, NBC News is still closer to its traditional left-wing colleague CNN than to the next closest news channel, Ring of Fire.
Figure 1. Average Media Populism per News Channel including the Standard Error The Topic of the Videos
The amount of populist language employed by news channels can differ depending on the issue they are covering as some topics are more populist in nature than other topics (Blassnig et al., 2019). Therefore, depending on which topics a news channel covers more frequently, they might appear more populist than others, while this would have nothing to do with the nature of the channels, but the different make-up of issues discussed by the channel.
0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5
CNN NBC Fox News One
America News Network The Young Turks Ring of Fire The Daily Wire Rebel Media
To avoid this bias, one news topic was chosen that would be consistently covered across all eight channels.
The news topic chosen was the Mueller investigation into a possible collusion between Donald Trump and his associates with the Russian government during the 2016 presidential campaign and the following transition period. Robert Mueller was first appointed as lead special counsel of the investigation on May 17, 2017 by then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The Mueller team also took over a criminal FBI investigation to determine whether Trump potentially obstructed justice. The investigation lasted until March 22, 2019 and over the course of the investigation charges were brought against 37 defendants,
including Trump campaign associates and Russian operatives. A redacted version of the final report was released on April 18, 2019. Donald Trump himself was not indicted by the
investigation, however, the report also says that the findings did not suffice to reach a judgment on whether Trump committed obstruction of justice. Despite the investigation ending, it is still a frequent topic in U.S. news as Attorney General William Barr was questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee and there have been debates over whether Mueller himself should testify publicly.
This news story was chosen for several reasons. Firstly, the investigation was initiated over two years ago and even now (June 2019) frequently enters the news in the U.S.
Therefore, the Mueller investigation spans over a longer time period and does not just cover one moment in time. Secondly, the Mueller investigation is and was a topic of discussion on the right- as well as the left-wing, therefore, ensuring news outlets on both sides of the
political spectrum covered it. Thirdly, lead investigator Robert Mueller served as FBI Director under both, a Republican (Bush Jr.) and a Democratic president (Obama) and has been
described as a rather “apolitical” and “bipartisan” figure6. Furthermore, previous studies have
6
often examined topics which are inherently populist, such as immigration or elections. Looking at such topics creates a “burning glass perspective” (Blassnig et al., 2019, p. 1120), where media populism is most likely to appear. The Mueller investigation thus offered an opportunity to observe whether populist language is also present in news stories on different topics.
Universe of Videos
To establish a universe of news videos covering the Mueller investigation by the eight channels, a search was conducted on each channel for videos that were uploaded between May 17, 2017 and May 1, 2019 and contained the following keywords or phrases in the title: ‘Mueller’, ‘special counsel’, ‘special prosecutor’, ‘Russia investigation’, ‘Russia probe’, ‘Russia inquiry’, ‘Russian interference’, ‘Russiagate’, ‘obstruct- justice’7, ‘collusion’. Videos
that did not actually deal with the Mueller investigation were excluded, as well as videos where no person related to the channel was talking or videos that were just interviews with people unrelated to the channel. Also live chat videos were excluded, since what people say in these videos could be directly affected by the audience comments which in turn would differ depending on the audience watching the video. Furthermore, videos that were shorter than two minutes were excluded as well since the chosen time frame for coding was one minute into the video for one minute. This led to a total universe of 769 videos by all eight channels. The distribution of videos in the universe as well as the final distribution in the sample can be found in Table 2.
Table 2. Number and Percentage of Videos per Group and News Channel
Channel Universe Sample
N % N % Traditional Left 266 34.59 54 25.23 CNN 199 25.88 43 20.09 NBC News 67 8.71 11 5.14 Traditional Right 231 30.04 52 24.30 Fox News 183 23.80 34 15.89
One America News Network 48 6.24 18 8.41
Alternative Left 202 26.27 55 25.70
The Young Turks 95 12.35 25 11.68
Ring of Fire 107 13.91 30 14.02
Alternative Right 70 9.10 53 24.77
The Daily Wire 40 5.20 26 12.15
Rebel Media 30 3.90 27 12.62
Total 769 100 214 100
Sampling and Coding
To ensure that there were no biases in the order of coding, videos from the universe were randomly chosen for coding using a random number generator. However, as can be seen in Table 2, the alternative right-wing channels published considerably less videos on the Mueller investigation than those in the other three channel groups. Therefore, videos from alternative right-wing channels were randomly oversampled by including their videos three times in the data set. Coding was stopped after each channel group included at least 50 videos.
All coding was conducted between May 21, 2019 and June 2, 2019. For an intra-coder reliability test, 20 randomly chosen videos were recoded on June 6, 2019.
Coding was performed using a codebook, which can be found in the Appendix. One minute of each video was coded starting from one minute into video, because the first minute of news videos often includes an overview of what will be discussed, the naming of sponsors or just ‘hard’ facts of a news story. More generic variables were coded first, such as date of publication of the video, views, thumbs up and down on the video, channel name, URL and title of the video, plus a full transcript of the video if available. Then the overall occurrence of populist language in the one-minute time frame was coded, using three separate items:
people-centrism, political anti-elitism and economic anti-elitism. The next section will go more into depth of these three variables. Lastly, it was coded whether the speakers in the video were male or female and what their role was with the channel.
Media Populism Variables
The three media populism variables – people-centrism, political anti-elitism and economic anti-elitism – were coded manually using a codebook. Previous content analyses on populism have been conducted both manually and by computer. Rooduijn and Pauwels (2011) compared both ways to analyze populism and came to the conclusion that both methods are adequate in detecting populist language. A dictionary of words and phrases that could be associated either with people-centrism, political anti-elitism or economic anti-elitism was used as indicator for populist language. The dictionary was established based on previous content analyses of populist communication (Bonikowski & Gidron, 2016; Oliver & Rahn, 2016; Ribera Payá, 2018; Rooduijn & Pauwels, 2011). The dictionary for each of the three populism variables can be found in the codebook in the Appendix.
During the one-minute time frame of the video, it was coded how many times people-centric, political anti-elitist and economic anti-elitist language occurred on a textual level. One populist word or phrase was counted as one occurrence, meaning that the same term
could be counted multiple times in the same video, if it was repeated. The unit of analysis was the video and the coding unit were quasi-sentences. The three variables can be seen as ratio variables with a significant zero spot, meaning no references and 1, meaning one occurrence of populist language in a video, 2, meaning two occurrences of populist language in a video and so on.
Only instances in which someone associated with the news channel (e.g. host, reporter, analyst or commentator) was talking were coded because this study only examined media populism and not populism through the media. Therefore, if a host or moderator of a news segment simply reiterated a point made by another actor, that was not counted as a populist occurrence.
For the analysis of H1 and H2, the three separate populism variables – people-centrism
(M = 0.41, SD = 0.84), political anti-elitism (M = 0.57, SD = 1.09) and economic anti-elitism (M = 0.3, SD = 1.03) – were added together to form the main dependent variable of media populism (M = 1.28, SD = 1.82).
Intra-coder reliability
All three variables were tested for intra-coder reliability by recoding 20 videos (9.35%). People-centrism (a = 0.777) and economic anti-elitism (a = 0.777) both proved to have been coded tentatively reliable, while political anti-elitism (a = 0.841) was coded slightly more reliably than the other two variables. Overall, media populism (a = 0.798) was thus coded tentatively reliable.
Results
Looking at differences between the four groups regarding media populism, a one-way ANOVA (F(3, 210) = 9.55, p < .001, h2 = .12) and Bonferroni post-hoc test showed that there
were statistically significant differences between traditional left-wing channels (M = 0.28, SD = 0.76) and all other channels: traditional right-wing channels (M = 1.85, SD = 2.36), p <
.001; alternative left-wing channels (M = 1.24, SD = 1.68), p = .024; alternative right-wing channels (M = 1.79, SD = 1.74), p < .001. Traditional left-wing channels employed
significantly less media populism than all other channels, which can also be seen in Figure 2. On average traditional left-wing news channels made just one populist remark for every three videos. All other channels on average made at least one populist remark per video.
Figure 2. Media Populism, Divided into People-Centrism, Political and Economic Anti-Elitism, in the Four Groups
Figure 2 also shows another important difference. While the few populist remarks traditional left-wing channels made, were mostly people-centric, the other three groups overall made more anti-elitist remarks. However, the four groups showed no significant differences (F(3, 210) = 2.03, p = .111) regarding the use of people-centrism as the absolute number of people-centrism is rather similar among the groups.
Alternative vs. Traditional
In order to examine the difference between traditional and alternative news outlets, alternative right- and left-wing and traditional right- and left-wing channels were combined.
0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2 1,4 1,6 1,8 2
Traditional Left Traditional Right Alternative Left Alternative Right
Since H1 proposed that alternative news channels employ more populist language than
traditional channels, an independent samples t-test was conducted. The Levene’s test was not statistically significant (F = 0.01, p = .906), meaning that equal variances could be assumed. The results revealed that traditional news channels (M = 1.05, SD = 1.9) on average made just slightly above one populist reference per video. That is less than alternative news channels (M = 1.51, SD = 1.72), which on average made about 1.5 populist remarks per video. This
difference between traditional and alternative news outlets (0.46) was, however, not significant, t(212) = -1.87, p = .063, 95% CI [-0.95, 0.26]. Therefore, H1 was rejected.
Looking at the three populism variables separately, also no significant difference were found between the alternative and traditional news outlets regarding people-centrism (t(212) = -0.67, p = .506) or economic anti-elitism (t(212) = -0.29, p = .772). However, there was a significant differences between the groups regarding political anti-elitism, t(212) = -2.34, p = .020, 95% CI [-0.64, -0.05]. In particular, the results showed that alternative news channels (M = 0.74, SD = 1.15) employ significantly more political anti-elitist language than traditional news channels (M = 0.4, SD = 1). Cohen’s d (d = 0.32) indicates that this effect size is small to medium.
Left- vs. Right-Wing
Similar to the analysis for H1, the alternative and traditional right-wing channels and
the alternative and traditional left-wing channels were combined for the analysis of H2, which
proposed that populist language is more frequently employed by right-wing news outlets compared to left-wing news outlets. The Levene’s test for this independent samples t-test was statistically significant (F = 14.2, p < .001), meaning that equal variances could not be
assumed. The results revealed that right-wing news outlets (M = 1.82, SD = 2.06) employed significantly more populist language than left-wing news outlets (M = 0.76, SD = 1.39),
t(181.59) = -4.4, p < .001, 95% CI [-1.53, -0.58]. While right-wing news outlets made nearly two populist references in every video, left-wing news outlets on average only made around
three populist references for every four videos. The difference between right- and left-wing channels (1.06) shows that right-wing outlets made over one populist reference more per video than their left-wing counterparts. Therefore, H2 was adopted. Cohen’s d (d = 0.654)
indicates that the effect is medium to large.
In order to determine if H2a, concerning whether left-wing news outlets employ more
economic anti-elitist language than right-wing news outlets, could be sustained, another independent samples t-test was conducted looking only at the economic anti-elitism variable. The results showed that there was no significant difference between right- and left-wing news outlets, t(175.29) = -1.73, p = .085. Therefore, H2a was rejected. However, it is interesting to
note that right-wing news outlets (M = 0.43, SD = 1.23) on average employed more than twice as much economic anti-elitist language than left-wing news outlets (M = 0.18, SD = 0.78), which is surprising considering previous literature suggests the opposite.
The second sub-hypothesis H2b proposed that right-wing news outlets employ more
political anti-elitist language than left-wing news outlets. Thus, another independent samples t-test was conducted looking only at the political anti-elitism variable. The results showed that there was a significant difference between left- and right-wing channels regarding political anti-elitism, t(171.76) = -4.02, p < .001, 95% CI [-0.87, -0.3]. In particular, the results showed that right-wing channels (M = 0.87, SD = 1.27) employ over three times more political anti-elitist language than left-wing channels (M = 0.28, SD = 0.78). Therefore, H2b was adopted.
Cohen’s d (d = 0.61) indicates that this effect size is medium to large. Use of Populist Language Over Time
Since the videos analyzed spanned over nearly two years, it was possible to explore the use of media populism by the four groups over time. Figure 3 shows the average number of populist statements made by the news outlets per one-minute video. The numbers had to be averaged out for a three-month period because for some months no videos were coded in this analysis.
Figure 3. Media Populism Over Time (Trimonthly)
The timeline shows that there were two spikes in the use of populist language for the alternative news channels between August and September 2017 as well as February to April 2018. These were times, in which a number of people were either indicted or pleaded guilty. In October 2017, Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates were indicted on 12 counts, including charges for conspiracy and money laundering and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pled guilty to making false statements to the FBI. Between February and April 2018, Mueller indicted 13 Russians for interfering in the 2016 presidential election, lawyer Alex van der Zwaan pled guilty, 32 financial charges were filed against Manafort and Gates and Gates shortly afterwards pled guilty to conspiracy and making false statements. It is also interesting to note that with the end of the investigation and the release of the Mueller report, the use of populist language started to increase for all four groups.
Discussion
From the results above, it has become clear that especially traditional left-wing news channels employ substantially less populist language than all other channels. As argued in the
0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5
May - Jul 17 Aug - Oct 17 Nov 17 - Jan
18 Feb - Apr 18 May - Jul 18 Aug - Oct 18 Nov 18 - Jan19 Feb - Apr 19
Av er ag e Us e of P op ul is t L an gu ag e pe r 1-mi nu te V id eo
first part of this thesis, this might be due to the fact that traditional left-wing news outlets aspire more to traditional journalistic norms of objective reporting
While it was proposed that traditional news outlets overall employ less populist language than the alternative news outlets, this argument did not hold true for the traditional right-wing channels, which surprisingly employed populist language most frequently, even exceeding the alternative news channels. However, this might be because traditional right-wing channels in the U.S. have a similar self-perception as alternative news outlets, also seeing themselves as adversary to left-wing establishment media. Furthermore, Figure 4 demonstrates that traditional right-wing news outlets most frequently had channel
commentators speak in their news videos, which could also explain why the use of populist language was so high, considering opinion segments are more likely to demonstrate populist language (Blassnig et al., 2019).
Figure 4. Distribution of Speakers in the Four Groups
Surprisingly, right-wing news outlets had a higher mean score than left-wing outlets in use of economic anti-elitist language, even though previous literature proposed the opposite.
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Traditional Left Traditional Right Alternative Left Alternative Right Host Reporter News Analyst Channel Commentator Other
It is possible that this is due to the analyzed topic in this content analysis – the Mueller investigation – which did not really call for economic discussions or considerations.
Except for traditional left-wing channels, anti-elitism was the most frequent form of populist language employed in the news stories. This is rather unsurprising, considering “the central ideological connecting element of media populism and political populism is the anti-establishment bias” (Esser et al., 2016, p. 370). Likewise, Blassnig et al. (2019) found more anti-elitist messages in online news articles than people-centric messages. This phenomenon can also be explained by the fact that journalists oftentimes see themselves as ‘watchdogs’ that hold the government and other political actors accountable for their actions (Wahl-Jorgensen & Hanitzsch, 2009), thereby, making anti-elitist statements more acceptable in the realm of journalism.
It is also interesting to mention that the timeline (see Figure 3 above) suggests that populist language use in alternative news outlets thrived most in times when people were indicted or found guilty. The fact that peaks in populist language use for the alternative channels, coincided with the arrests of Trump associates, who typically enjoy a high social status, could mean that these arrests were seen as confirmation of a crooked elite by left-wing news outlets, while for right-wing channels, it affirmed assumptions that Mueller was
allegedly biased against the right. Furthermore, the increase in populist language towards the end of the Mueller investigation across all four channels might be explained by the high politicization of the report and its release.
Limitations and Future Research
This analysis has several limitations, which make the findings somewhat less
generalizable. Firstly, this content analysis only examined the news coverage of one topic – the Mueller investigation. As mentioned earlier, it is, however, very likely that the amount of media populism varies depending on the topic (Blassnig et al., 2019). Therefore, future research should examine to what extent populist language is used in the news coverage of
different topics. For example, it is likely that news coverage of economic policy or the economy results in a higher use of economic anti-elitism than the news coverage of other news topics.
Furthermore, due to time and resource constraints, only a limited number of videos and channels were analyzed. Future research should widen the scope of the analysis and examine more news channels and videos to solidify the findings of this thesis. In addition, longer and different time frames of the videos should be examined since this study only looked at a one-minute time frame starting from one minute into the video.
Lastly, traditional news outlets are able to select the content, they upload on YouTube, and they might select videos that work better with the younger audience on YouTube (al Nashmi et al., 2017). The content traditional news outlets air on television might thus be different from the content they decide to publish on YouTube. Therefore, future studies should compare to what extent the online content of traditional news outlets differs to the content that is broadcasted.
Conclusion
To conclude, all news channels seem to contribute to the rise of populism at least to some extent by actively employing media populism. However, from this analysis it has become clear that especially traditional left-wing news channels stand out compared to the other groups. They employ very little populist language and if so, it is more often people-centric than anti-elitist language. All other channels on average made at least one populist reference per one-minute video and a majority of those were anti-elitist references. Therefore, there seems to be a rift in how traditional left-wing news channels cover the news compared to alternative and right-wing outlets.
While this study found relatively little difference between right- and left-wing alternative news outlets, there were interesting similarities among them. In both alternative
news outlets, populist language thrived most in times where people were indicted or found guilty, while this was not the case in traditional news outlets. This might indicate that traditional and alternative media cover criminal investigations differently than traditional media.
Furthermore, this study showed that right-wing news channels employ populist language to a much greater extent than left-wing outlets, even though many of the features that are usually considered to be only part of right-wing populism were already excluded from this content analysis. Therefore, this study adds onto previous findings that not only the political right-wing employs more populist elements, but that also the right-wing media employs more populist language.
Contrary to findings of previous research, this study found, firstly, that there was a large difference between traditional right-wing and left-wing channels in terms of use of populist language, and secondly, that left-wing channels employed less economic anti-elitist language than right-wing channels. Therefore, this study indicates that further research is required into, firstly, why traditional right- and left-wing channels differ to such a great extent in the use of populist communication and, secondly, whether political anti-elitism is truly a feature of left-wing populism.
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Appendix
CODEBOOK POPULIST COMMUNICATION IN U.S.
NEWS COVERAGE
GENERAL INFORMATION A. Video ID
Enter the number assigned to the video B. Date of Coding
Enter the current date, on which the video is being coded, in DD/MM/YY format. C. URL
Enter the URL, under which the video can be found. D. Video Title
Enter the title of the video on YouTube. E. Channel Name
Which YouTube channel published the video?
1. CNN
2. NBC News 3. Fox News
4. One America News Network 5. The Young Turks
6. Ring of Fire 7. The Daily Wire 8. Rebel Media
F. Date of publication
G. Length of the video in minutes Enter the duration of the video in minutes. H. Remaining seconds of the video length Enter the remaining seconds of the video duration. I. Views of the video
How many views does the video count at the moment of coding? J. Thumbs up
How many “thumbs up” does the video have at the moment of coding? K. Thumbs down
How many “thumbs down” does the video have at the moment of coding? L. Full transcript of the video
If available for the video, please insert the YouTube transcript for the entire video. If the transcript is not available, enter 99.
If the transcript does not reflect the actual video, enter 88. CONTENT ANALYSIS
Skip the video to 1:00 and watch the video for 1 minute. If this excerpt of the video contains any quotes, interviews or people talking, who do not belong to the channel, add the time used for these at the end and disregard anything that is not being said by one of the channel host, contributors or reporters. If the video is talking about another topic than the Mueller
investigation in the beginning, skip ahead to the part where the video talks about the Mueller investigation.
M. Analyzed part of the transcript of the video
If the transcript is available for the video, please insert here the part of the video that was analyzed. This should exclude any quotes, interviews, people who do not belong to the channel or are only guests. If the video is not long enough after the exclusion of quotes, interviews and guests, the video should be disregarded
If the transcript is not available, enter 99.
If the transcript does not reflect the actual video, enter 88. N. People-centrism
Does the channel make a reference to the (general will of the) people in the selected time frame of this video?
Before acknowledging a reference, it should be ensured that the reference is in the broader context of a people in general. Here is a list of words and references that could indicate a reference to the people:
The (American) people/public, this/our country/nation, we (the people), our-, citizen- A reference should not be considered people-centrism, if the phrase is used for a certain group of the population, such as partisan group, the channel group, or a more specific group of people. Use the following answer scale, indicating how often a reference to the people was made. Each word or phrase counts as one reference.
1. No references 2. Yes, one reference 3. Yes, two references 4. Yes, three references 5. …
O. Political anti-elitism
Does the channel make a reference against the political establishment in the selected time frame of this video?
Here is a list of words and references that could indicate a political anti-establishment reference:
Elit-, establishment, Corrupt(ion), dirt(y deeds), propaganda, deceit-, scandal, shame betray, undemocratic, (drain the) swamp, the government (in Washington), big
government, the system, special interests, lobbyists, ruling, Washington elite, deep state crooked/ deceiving/ dishonest/ shadowy/ shady politician(s)
1. No references 2. Yes, one reference 3. Yes, two references 4. Yes, three references 5. …
P. Economic anti-elitism
Does the channel make a reference against the economic elite in the selected time frame of this video?
Here is a list of words and references that could indicate an economic anti-elitist reference: Greedy millionaire-/ billionaire-, the rich/ wealthy/ privileged, CEOs, big banks/dollars, Wall Street, inequality, corporations, the 1%, loopholes, donors, campaign
contributions, (Super) PAC money, oligarch-,
1. No references 2. Yes, one reference 3. Yes, two references 4. Yes, three references 5. …
Q. Notes
Enter any notes that you consider important regarding the video and might need to be revisited later.
SPEAKERS
R. Role of Speaker 1
What is the role within the news channel of the first person talking in the video excerpt?
2. news reporter/ correspondent 3. News analyst
4. channel commentator/ contributor 5. Other
If “4. Other” is selected, please specify the role in the notes S. Gender of Speaker 1
What is the gender of the first person talking in the video excerpt?
1. male 2. female
3. identifies otherwise
T. Role of Speaker 2
What is the role within the news channel of the second person talking in the video excerpt?
Use the answer scale from Q
U. Gender of Speaker 2
What is the gender of the first person talking in the video excerpt?
Use the answer scale of R.
V. Role of Speaker 3
What is the role within the news channel of the third person talking?
Use the answer scale from Q
W. Gender of Speaker 3
What is the gender of the first person talking in the video excerpt?
Use the answer scale of R.
