IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/poango/v10y2022i1p197-209.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Informational Consequences of Populism: Social Media News Use and “News Finds Me” Perception

Author

Listed:
  • Pablo González-González

    (Democracy Research Unit, University of Salamanca, Spain)

  • Hugo Marcos-Marné

    (Democracy Research Unit, University of Salamanca, Spain)

  • Iván Llamazares

    (Democracy Research Unit, University of Salamanca, Spain)

  • Homero Gil de Zúñiga

    (Democracy Research Unit, University of Salamanca, Spain / Department of Film Production and Media Studies, Pennsylvania State University, USA / Department of Communication, Universidad Diego Portales, Chile)

Abstract

Prior studies have theorized a positive association between people’s populist attitudes and an increased use of social media to consume news, which will be mainly driven by individuals’ engagement with news that reflects their people-centered, anti-elitist, and Manichean understanding of politics. However, such general connection remains elusive. This research seeks to further clarify this strand of the literature by incorporating people’s belief that important political information will find them without actively seeking news—"News Finds Me” perception (NFM). For that, we use online survey data from two European countries that differ regarding the ideological political supply side of populism (Italy and Portugal). The main results suggest that citizens who hold stronger populist attitudes will also develop stronger NFM. Furthermore, findings reveal a mediating effect of social media news use on the effects of populist attitudes over NFM. That is, those who hold stronger populist attitudes tend to use social media to get exposed to public affairs news more often, which in turn explains the development of the NFM. These results emphasize the importance of systematically exploring citizens populists’ attitudes within today’s social media, social networks, and complex information systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Pablo González-González & Hugo Marcos-Marné & Iván Llamazares & Homero Gil de Zúñiga, 2022. "The Informational Consequences of Populism: Social Media News Use and “News Finds Me” Perception," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 10(1), pages 197-209.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v10:y:2022:i:1:p:197-209
    DOI: 10.17645/pag.v10i1.4772
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/politicsandgovernance/article/view/4772
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/pag.v10i1.4772?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco Lisi & Enrico Borghetto, 2018. "Populism, Blame Shifting and the Crisis: Discourse Strategies in Portuguese Political Parties," South European Society and Politics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 405-427, October.
    2. Rudiger Dornbusch & Sebastian Edwards, 1991. "The Macroeconomics of Populism," NBER Chapters, in: The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America, pages 7-13, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dani Rodrik, 2018. "Populism and the economics of globalization," Journal of International Business Policy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 1(1), pages 12-33, June.
    2. Manuel Funke & Moritz Schularick & Christoph Trebesch, 2023. "Populist Leaders and the Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(12), pages 3249-3288, December.
    3. Pablo García S. & Camilo Pérez N., 2017. "Desigualdad, inflación, ciclos y crisis en Chile," Estudios de Economia, University of Chile, Department of Economics, vol. 44(2 Year 20), pages 185-221, December.
    4. Emilio Ocampo, 2020. "What Kind of Populism is Peronism?," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 732, Universidad del CEMA.
    5. Gilles Saint‐Paul & Davide Ticchi & Andrea Vindigni, 2021. "Engineering crises: Favoritism and strategic fiscal indiscipline," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(3), pages 583-610, November.
    6. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/1divsbu8t888r9vqektjbmlqoa is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Akhand Akhtar Hossain, 2009. "Central Banking and Monetary Policy in the Asia-Pacific," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12777.
    8. Feliz, Raul Anibal & Welch, John H., 1997. "Cointegration and tests of a classical model of inflation in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 189-219, February.
    9. George Alogoskoufis, 2024. "Before and After the Political Transition of 1974 Institutions, Politics, and the Economy of Post-War Greece," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 198, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    10. Alesina, Alberto & Angeletos, George-Marios, 2005. "Corruption, inequality, and fairness," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1227-1244, October.
    11. Georgy Egorov & Konstantin Sonin, 2013. "A Political Theory of Populism," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(2), pages 771-805.
    12. Bresser-Pereira, Luiz Carlos, 2009. "A tendência à sobreapreciação da taxa de câmbio," Textos para discussão 183, FGV EESP - Escola de Economia de São Paulo, Fundação Getulio Vargas (Brazil).
    13. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1993. "Monetary regime choices for a semi-open country," Pacific Basin Working Paper Series 93-02, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    14. Joaquin Vial, 2018. "Globalisation and the Chilean economy," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Globalisation and deglobalisation, volume 100, pages 83-100, Bank for International Settlements.
    15. Stephan Kaplan, 2016. "partisan Technocratic Cycles in Latin America," Working Papers 2016-28, The George Washington University, Institute for International Economic Policy.
    16. Benczes, István & Szijártó, Norbert, 2024. "Államháztartási kiadások alakulása populista kormányok alatt Kelet-Közép-Európában [Public expenditure under populist governments in Central and Eastern Europe]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 1001-1031.
    17. Luca Bellodi & Massimo Morelli & Matia Vannoni, 2021. "A Costly Commitment: Populism, Government Performance, and the Quality of Bureaucracy," CESifo Working Paper Series 9470, CESifo.
    18. Scartascini, Carlos & Tommasi, Mariano & Ardanaz, Martín, 2010. "Political Institutions, Policymaking, and Economic Policy in Latin America," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1708, Inter-American Development Bank.
    19. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 2010. "Monetary Policy in Emerging Markets: A Survey," NBER Working Papers 16125, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Rajakaruna, Iwanthika & Suardi, Sandy, 2021. "The dynamic linkages between current account deficit and budget balance deficit in the South Asian region," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    21. Fausto Panunzi & Nicola Pavoni & Guido Tabellini, 2020. "Economic Shocks and Populism: The Political Implications of Reference-Dependent Preferences," CESifo Working Paper Series 8539, CESifo.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:poango:v10:y:2022:i:1:p:197-209. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.