Populism, Trust, and Anti-Elitism

Overview

• The rise of populism is linked to a broad crisis of trust in social institutions and globalization within Western liberal democracies
• Fake news and filter bubbles are symptoms of this crisis, reflecting political polarization
• Anti-elitism affects journalists and news organizations, with signs indicating trust in news may be recovering due to concerns about digital platforms

Rise of Populism

• Historical shifts are pinpointed by significant years when developments align across different places
• The year 1968 marked student protests against the Vietnam War, and the rise of the 'New Left' and new social movements
• The year 1989 marked the fall of the Berlin Wall, German reunification, and the Eastern Bloc's dissolution, indicating a post-Cold War world
• 2016 saw the Brexit vote in the UK(leave the EU), and Donald Trump's election as US President
• The Brexit vote was a revolt by the 'Somewheres' (rooted individuals with ascribed identities) against the 'Anywheres' (mobile, educated individuals with achieved identities)
• Term "Deplorables,” “left behind", and "forgotten men and women of America' describe Trump's voters
• Trump's platform included economic nationalism and reversing 40 years of global economic integration using tariffs to protect US manufacturing
• "New populism" is used to analyze current trends arising "populist moment' in global politics
• Globalization's uneven effects on employment, racism,migration, social anxiety are structural supports for populist rhetoric
• Academic literature views populism in two ways:
  • Constructing a 'we/they' opposition between the people and others
  • Defining it as a thin-centered ideology contrasting "the people" and "popular sovereignty" against "the elites"
• Populism opposes pluralism
• Pluralism values diversity, difference, and diffusion of power
• Common traits of populist leaders are antipathy to liberalism and using force against 'enemies'
• In the political left, populism, seen as a viable strategy, challenges 'Third Way' politics
• Populism articulates ‘the people's’ interests by uniting diverse interests against the establishment
• Left-populists view populism as rooted in material realities and advocate for unifying people against big business, economic inequality, and insecurity
• Piketty and others found that populist movements capitalize on mass discontent with rising economic inequality
• Populism relates to popularity and leaders directly who address the people, instead of depending on elites
• Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, and Jacinda Ardern, have been labelled as populists
• Political leaders use a populist style dependent on political positions and policy questions

Rise of Populist Politics

• The rise of populist politics internationally can be caused by:
  • The rise of social media spreading fake news and disinformation
  • A growing tendency towards online filter bubbles where users connect with like-minded people, confirmed by algorithms
  • A crisis of trust in social institutions, especially in liberal democracies
  • Populism is a nationalist movement opposing globalization

Traditional Media

• Populism and the media make good bedfellows and relies on media-driven influences that shape its contemporary features
• Populism uses:
  • Appeals to common sense
  • Argumentativeness
  • Inappropriate talk
  • Distaste for complexity
  • Prioritization of conflict
  • Questioning expert knowledge
  • Personalization
  • Simplification
  • Capturing emotions
  • Focus on scandals and bad news
• Silvio Berlusconi owned a TV station and the AC Milan football team before politics
• Sarah Palin hosted reality shows
• Pauline Hanson was on Dancing with the Stars.
• Donald Trump hosted The Apprentice for 15 seasons

The Trump and the Media

• Trump's election led to analysis relating to U.S. media

• Traditional and social media uniquely merged in Trump's campaign

• Disconnect between agenda-setting media and segments of American voters during Trump Campaign

• Deluge of fake news circulated on social media

• Confrontation between Trump and the media through constant Twitter use

• Matrix that connects politics, media, technology, and the citizenry is imbalanced

• Trump prevailed over Hilary Clinton plus 16 candidates in Republican primaries

• Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz had stronger profiles than Trump

• Trump's unorthodox campaign and unscripted speeches helped news media

• News media organizations thrive on conflict, unpredictability, and soundbites

• CBS Chairman Les Moonves stated the 2016 campaign means money for CBS

• The media (CNN and The New York Times) was a part of Trumps demonology

• After Trump's election, disputes include

  • Trump's inauguration attendance
  • Kellyanne Conway's 'alternative facts'
  • Trump admonishing Jim Acosta and calling him “fake news”

• Jim Acosta describes tension, not called "fake news" nor "the enemy of the people”

• Antipathy towards the 'liberal' media goes back to the Nixon administration and the Vietnam War

• "The Pentagon Papers" was shown in "The Paper"

• Edward Herman described U.S. mass media as dominated profits

• Robert McChesney questioned digital platforms’ impact after years revealing that mainstream media advanced power interests

• WikiLeaks sought global transparency exceeding compromised mainstream journalism

• By 2016, Julian Assange spread anti-Hilary news justified by exposing the 'deep state', from Russian hackers

Fake News

• "Fake news" was Macquarie Dictionary's 2016 Word of the Year
• The term ‘fake news’ is difficult to define
• Simply identifying fake news tells little about the intentions and motivations
• Veles, Macedonia teenagers made a BMW from online advertising revenues
• The town of 55,000 hosted over 100 pro-Trump web sites
• Allcott and Gentzkow: ‘fake news’ sites are economics and ideological motivations
• Macedonian teenagers are economic motivators
• InfoWars, created by Alex Jones in 1999, is alt-right
• 'Alt right' reaches 10 million monthly views, even mixed with much fake news
• Two characteristics of fake news are:
  • Little journalistic research
  • Focus on short-term profits rather than reliable sources
• Social media increasing fake news due to:
  • Lower costs for online content
  • Mobile media platforms, difficulty identifying article veracity
  • Sharing, liking, and commenting within networks and filter bubbles with similar ideologies
• Fake news may be a synonym for propaganda
• Graham (2017) traced persuasive communication using rhetoric and imagery
• Committee on Public Information (CPI) influenced U.S. citizens to engage in WW1
• Radio broadcaster William Joyce from 1939-1945 reduced English motivation
• The Sun published “Stalin: Why I'm Voting for Kinnock”, involving a London clairvoyant to find if Soviet saw leader as communism
• The National Enquirer supports Trump
• Digital platforms aren’t the sole spreader of fake news
• Fake news requires organizations that are otherwise mainstream news
• Digital media operate in the same ecology as digital platforms
• The media includes digital platforms, and is grappling with public expectations
• Allcott and Gentzkow stress supply factors, while demand dictates that supply trickles to the margins
• Crisis of institutional trust and the reaction of globalization creates the demand for fake news and lack of interest from public institutions

Rise of Social News

• Platformization of the internet has caused major transformation in digital media from the 2000s to 2010s
• The internet starting with search became commercial platforms through which it distributed and accessed
• Network monopolies and oligopolies have increased
• FAANG or FAMGA are top companies with rising regulators due to anti-competitive actions + personal info misuse
• Digital companies should be regulated by nation-states, similar to media companies
• Growth of social news news accessed and shared through social media platforms
• Reuters, from 2012-2017, observed growth of social media news such as Twitter and Facebook
• 50%. of the population accessed news in the U.S. through social media, up from 25% in 2013
• In Australia’s Digital News Report 2018, 52 percent of people access news via social media and 17% as the main source
• 86% of Australians access information online opposed to magazines, radio, television or newpapers (83%).
• Social news is skewed depending on age, and is popular with younger people
• Fake news spread through newspapers, magazines, radio, and television
• Fake news websites must be picked up by larger online media
• Partisan online media are critical and have evolved trust relations with their audience
• Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, and Drudge Report purvey fake news to skeptic news
• Growth in online comments on the left from BBC and labour leaders as alternative media (Canary, Skwarkboxx etc)

Concerns

• Overlap between ‘fake news’ and partisan media
• Crackdowns will limit news outlet points that challenge incumbents
• Malaysian Prime Minister passed bill against misinformation and prosecute media use
• Four Australian companies account for four fifths of online news:
  • News Corporation
  • Fairfax
  • Nine Network
  • Seven News Media
• Facebook and Google help international brands: The New York Times and Australian publications
• Buzzfeed and Junkee are new sources
• Concepts like " filter bubbles, echo chambers, and fake news" are connected to Trump victory in 2016
• Algorithmic sort of past online data
• Social media, aggregators, and search engines increase diversity, unlike filter bubbles
• Digital platforms increasingly cause wrongfully bad stereotypes

Further Information

• Internet users rely on political source material and cross check the information
• Politically engaged users will look through multiple topics
• Propensity to use searches is inversely related to trust in media
• Panic over fake news, echo chambers, and filter bubbles are overhyped
• Facebook and Twitter user do engage with diverse people/ views
• Some of Facebook and Twitter users view the most of people similar
• 37% feeling worn out by posts and 59% interactions lead to stress
• 39% take action to unfriend people over politics
• Challenges claim filters exist, most studies tend to be single platformed
• Interest reduces chances in bubbles, estimated they only affect 8%

Institutional Trust

• Scandals (Cambridge Analytica) shows platform trust
• Google, Twitter and Facebook under public trust
• 2008 financial crisis shows untruthful behavior
• Royal Comission investigated misconduct and bank impropriety
• Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse
• US Gallup tests have been decline since the 1970s
• Congress, Big Business, news are failing
• Edelman Trust global barometer says declines for business, government, NGO are failing
• Institutions are not trusted by not top 25% due to expert opinions
• Michael Gove’s remarks on experts, support Brexit referendum
• Donald Trump loved the “poorly educated” leading to more skepticism
• Edelman says that most people distrust media, and that trust has fell, under media + business
• General population distrust media more than higher income segment do and fear fake news
• U.S. has a 34-point difference about those that trust Republicans and Dems
• Consistent decline found since 1996 for newspapers and television
• Australia has only <1/3 that trust media, Finkelstein review has identified it as a problem for industry self regulatuon
• From 63% down to 42% trust mainstream newspapers in 7 years
• Roy Morgan found percent -13 trusted the source, TV -16%, while Faceboook was a low -42%.
• Most trusted is Australian Broadcasting Corp, the government program

Surveys

• Reduced trust in platforms is an ongoing trend
  • Media blames Facebook for the change
  • Facebook claims it carries the digital content
    • Digital has more trust than regular media, and less than journalism
  • EU is revisiting E-Commerce to regulate safe harbot
  • Section 230 is under dispute with Gillespie, Caplan etc
• Digital distrust means growth for subscriptions
  • Publications have increase print revenue Facebook is to blame mostly by the public
• The New York Times gained digital subscriptions after
• Australia The Age made growth by print and digital
• "Trump bump" means fake news has led to paying to see trusted sources
  • Magazine editors like Jeffery Goldberg wants quality journalism and hard debates
  • Dep Ed Helen Lewis wants publication to reject funds and pay themselves
• Trust matters and should have a belief in reliability and truth of some thing or someone
  • Has a part and 3 beliefs
• Pierre termed this "an institutional economiser" -Eliminates the various procedures and proof to believe
  • This is called "Ontological security” term from Giddens which has a belief in shareability
  • Coleman is trust as realisation for "social expectation", is dependment and meetings and societal expectations the higher their dissapointment

Final Thoughts

• Major intuitions and people are failing expectiations
• Corporations and churches
• Regulation models are in crisis
• Corporations require an ethic
• There risk distrust turns into a cycle, populism follows
• Populist politics can be seen effective to be more authoritarian

Conclusion

• Populism questions rise
• Factors affecting social/economic and political
• A crisis of trusts means
• The is a risk when trust gets taken for granted
• Post truth see world without expert opinions -Looks for figure to have the power
• As online we challenge -Digital platforms can be regulated for -Activists should fight them —Globalization
• We have a world trade war -Established by institution in 1999 -Early 70s had high grow -2010 there was less refuge welcome -"they argue globalization and elites and penalised workers to put us first".
• The end of global vision
• Steve thought Trump V.Cosmo
• Left right populists coalition can stop migration -As bannon say it as trump and sanders -Strong China supports rules
  • the Europe is likely to continue with multi nations
  • but they have clippiung
• Tony b says summer then automn -G and nation capacity can shape capital flow and can undrestaind national cultures, pop is cause of crisis in trust, there there’re realignmints -Moofe"extremst" or"populist"is in retrat
• Questons is if the left will and spiral distrust -If the politics become battle field -Lefts have big adv -It connection with migration -But left has a dilemma politics -Second the anile have all capitalism dimesion
  • Global impact of the time -Media should engage criticall -Not engage or damage it.