The populist people and mediatized populism: the construction of “The People” by Iranian politicians on Twitter

Democracies have always been susceptible to populism, and in recent years, there has been a growing concern about the threat posed by populist movements worldwide. Populism is defined by its support and praise of “the people,” particularly when their values differ significantly from those accepted by the elites. Therefore, “the populist people” has a unique meaning in populist definitions and is represented in various ways. The concept of populism after the 1979 Iranian revolution has been used to analyze some of the changes in Iran. This study focuses on the concept of “The people” and identifies dimensions of the populistic people (Pure, Exclusive, Victim, and Other-antagonist) as well as the anti-populistic people (Plural and Immature). The study identified the characteristics of populism among Iranian politicians. It determined the differences in the use of politicians affiliated with appointed and elected institutions, with conservative and reformist tendencies. In this regard, we collected all the tweets of the official Iranian politicians (39,641 tweets). Using the combined content analysis method, the 909 tweets were categorized as either populistic or anti-populistic. Findings indicate that constructing the “Other-antagonist people” was the primary strategy used in Iranian populism, while the dimensions of the anti-populistic people were the least common. Iranian reformists represented a more pure and homogeneous people, while conservatives used a strategy of constructing the “other-antagonist people”. The people constructed by conservatives/appointees were more populistic than the reformists/electives. The conclusion is that the ideology of populism has revealed its “thin” nature in Iranian politics. It has emerged as an auxiliary tool in the discourse of all conflicting political groups, creating a pragmatic populism with a conservative and power-oriented tendency. Reformists have become victims in the construction of the people, and conservatives have become custodians of the status quo.