How do political elites use social media platforms to gain power over people? And what is the relationship between democracy, public culture and media?

UCL Press

Chapter Title: Digital media and the rise of right-wing populism

Book Title: Social Theory after the Internet Book Subtitle: Media, Technology, and Globalization Book Author(s): Ralph Schroeder Published by: UCL Press. (2018) Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt20krxdr.6

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3 Digital media and the rise of right- wing populism

Studies of the internet and politics often focus on progressive politics  – on the internet as a democratizing influence or on movements such as Occupy Wall Street in the United States. The other main area is the devi- ant internet of hackers and mischief- makers like trolls. What gets far less attention are retrogressive mainstream political forces such as right- wing populism, which, I will argue, have been the single most important politi- cal change in at least three of the countries examined here (in China, they are among the most important). To make the argument, this chap- ter compares four right- wing populist movements:  Donald Trump in America, Narendra Modi in India, the Sweden Democrats and Chinese nationalists. Digital media have been a necessary precondition for the success of all four, but in quite different ways, depending on the media system, including digital media, in each country. Common to all four, however, is the fact that digital media have bypassed traditional media gatekeepers.

Trump’s success in becoming the Republican candidate was achieved by dominating the agenda of mainstream media via his use of Twitter. In India, Modi used Twitter to mobilize his Hindutva support- ers to become elected as prime minister; like Trump, he circumvented his own party. Sweden Democrats have online newspapers that create an alternative to the consensus in public broadcast media and among parties that lock them out. And in China, the government uneasily keeps in check extremists who promote the stronger assertion of a national- ist agenda using social media. In all four countries, populist politicians, parties and movements have used digital alternatives to get around the mainstream media, which populists and their leaders perceive as biased against them. In doing so, they have been able to promote a message online that is less visible in traditional media, partly because it would

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be more contested there, and sometimes because their message is unac- ceptable within mainstream media or is against media regulation. The strength of populism cannot be understood without a theory that takes into account how new technologies enable parties and movements to become counterpublics that reshape the political agenda in media.

To understand this force, we must define populism. It has been defined as a belief that ‘juxtaposes a virtuous populace with a corrupt elite and views the former as the sole legitimate source of political power’ (Bonikowski and Gidron 2016, 1593; see also the review in Gidron and Bonikowski 2013; Mudde and Kaltwasser 2013; Mudde 2016 for a recent account of European populisms). Populists, in Mueller’s view (2016), claim that they are the ‘100 per cent’ people. They are the only true and virtuous people whose views are underrepresented and they want to exclude ‘others’ from the right to full citizenship in the nation. Mueller also defines populists as anti- elite:  they are against the media and the political ‘establishment’ in the case of right- wing populists and against wealthy economic elites in the case of left- wing populism (which is out- side the scope here since it plays a much more minor role in the four countries examined). In addition to being the ‘100 per cent’ people and anti- elitist, a third characteristic of populists is that they espouse the ideal that the government should more adequately represent ‘the people’, which is where media come in.

The ‘exclusionary’ characteristic of populism raises a question or paradox that can be dealt with immediately: namely, are, or can, popu- lists, once they are in power, be democratic? Populist parties can form parts of or dominate governments, and there can be majorities in favour of a populist agenda without forming parts of government. If populists rule or govern, however, they cannot be more adequately represented since they would have become the ‘100 per cent’ people and will have become the elite (unless there are two versions of populism in the same state). This paradox can be resolved by pointing out that the character- istics that make parties or movements populist will diminish when they come into power, although they can of course still pursue stronger pop- ulist agendas when they are in government. Mueller argues that popu- lists are anti- pluralists and so anti- democratic, that their aim is always a moral one, and Bonikowski and Gidron (2016) say it is mainly a tool of ‘political challengers’. But it is also possible to define them without this moral component, and to recognize that they can change their colours when they are no longer challengers. Their claims that their version of the ‘people’ needs more representation and that they are against estab- lished elites may lose force when they are in government. However, an

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‘idealistic’ belief system or ideology is not unique to right- or left- wing populists. Populists change once they are in power, but there is nothing inherently contradictory or anti- democratic about espousing a stronger or more ‘exclusionary’ representation of ‘the people’ (though the exclu- sion of ‘others’ is anti- pluralist and in this sense populism is also illiberal).

A general account of the causes of populism is outside the purview here; the main aim is to understand what role is played by traditional and digital media. It is relevant to note at the outset, however, that, for the four cases under consideration, a purely economic explanation (Judis 2016)  is insufficient. It is not just economically disadvantaged groups that turn to populism, and populism has not just been a response to economic crisis (which does not coincide with the timing or the eco- nomic well- being or otherwise in the four cases here). Any explanation of populism must focus squarely on politics:  it is about excluding those who are not part of ‘the people’ from full citizenship. This applies to left- wing populism, too, but here the ‘exclusion’ is economic and the enemy are economic elites, whereas right- wing populism aims to restrict and strengthen especially social citizenship rights to co- nationals against ‘others’ such as immigrants. Over the course of the twentieth and twenty- first centuries, the main force for social change in the developed world has been the interplay of classes and nations over the extension of citi- zenship (Mann 2013), but in the twenty- first century, class and nation are becoming intertwined in populism. In the developed world, and per- haps beyond, limits are emerging to extending social and other citizen- ship rights (Schroeder 2013). And these limits produce support within civil society for those who want to restrict these rights to ‘the true people’ and harness their anti- elite political representatives to this agenda.

Furthermore, politics is not just domestic: external enemies are also supposedly threatening the nation, economically and geopolitically, and a populist agenda aims to overcome these threats and put the national interests of ‘the people’ first. Thus, religion, ethnicity and immigration play a role in all four cases. But it is not just negative ill- feeling or racism towards other groups within the country or externally that defines pop- ulism, as with right- wing extremist or anti- immigration parties focused on this single issue. Populists are also anti- elite, and want the ‘virtuous people’ to be more adequately represented in government beyond the issue of immigration alone.

Nevertheless, there are different varieties of right- wing populism. It is useful to distinguish between Sweden and the United States on the one hand, where populists have gained traction largely, though not exclu- sively, with anti- immigration policies, as against India and China, with

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religious/ ethnic and nationalist/ ethnic versions of ‘the people’ respec- tively, and which focus more strongly on the corruption of elites. Still, this difference is a matter of degree; a nationalist and anti- elite agenda, and the demand for more ‘true’ representation, is characteristic of all. It can be mentioned that an admixture of left- wing populism, which is aimed against ‘rich’ corrupt elites, is particularly prominent and difficult to separate in the Chinese case, though elements of animosity towards corrupt elites can be found in all four cases. And again, in all four, one external enemy is economic globalization, though Modi’s populism (and some elite factions in China) also favours a more capitalist agenda in order to strengthen the nation. The threat of Islamic terrorism, too, plays a role in all four cases.

A crucial point to stress at the outset is that any explanation that takes into account only digital media on the one hand or populist forces on the other is insufficient. Both are necessary. Populist ideology can- not simply be seen as a media construction or the beliefs of leaders and parties that have been foisted upon ‘the people’. Instead, the strength of populism rests on the social conditions that give rise to movements and parties which define ‘the people’ in exclusionary terms and rail against elites. At the same time, I  will argue that the success of populists, their strength in the four cases examined, could not have been achieved with- out non- mainstream digital media. Put differently, populists have gained a disproportionate advantage with digital media compared to how they fare in traditional media, and compared to how established parties or political movements use media.

3.1 Trump’s ascent via Twitter

In the 2016 presidential primaries, Donald Trump dominated the news headlines on the side of the race to become the nominee for the Republican Party, even though he was a party outsider and the party favoured insider candidates. His dominance was achieved largely because of social media, mainly Twitter (though he also used other social media such as YouTube and Facebook), where he tweeted controversial positions on a range of issues. These positions then featured prominently in television newscasts and newspaper headlines. Many of these head- lines were critical of Trump’s positions, which were far from the political mainstream and promoted a populist right- wing agenda, including, most controversially, an anti- immigrant stance. Yet the headlines ensured that his views received a disproportionate amount of attention. The relation

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between the number of tweets in which Trump and other candidates are mentioned and their coverage in mainstream media over the course of the primary campaign and beyond has been tracked at http:// viz2016. com/ (Groeling et al. 2016). It shows a clear correlation: Trump is men- tioned in tweets far more than any other candidate in both parties, often more than all the other candidates combined, and the volume of tweets closely tracks his outsize coverage in the dominant mainstream media (which, in the same tracking analysis, includes CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC and local news). Polling data (such as http:// www. realclearpolitics.com/ epolls/ 2016/ president/ us/ 2016_ republican_ presidential_ nomination- 3823.html) confirms that Trump pulled ahead of other Republican candidates in synchrony with his dominance of the media attention space, despite the fact that his nomination as Republican candidate was opposed by the party up until the party’s convention and beyond.1

Traditional news media were compelled to give a lot of time to Trump’s views since, as we have seen, the American media system is characterized by horse- race politics and market competition for audience share. Tomasky (2016) quotes the television executive Les Moonves, who said during the primary election campaign that ‘the Trump phenomenon “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS” ’. The ‘free’ extensive media coverage also meant that Trump had to spend far less on political advertising than his rivals. Furthermore, journalists cover- ing the campaign, themselves extensive users of Twitter, eagerly picked up newsworthy items on Twitter. Hamby (2013) has argued that Twitter has changed presidential political campaigns, with journalists relying on Twitter as a major source, not just to follow candidates and campaign teams but also to follow each other. However, they are also under pres- sure from their editors to feature such ‘breaking news’ in their stories, especially attention- grabbing issues, to maximize audience share. Thus Trump was able to set the agenda by tweeting positions that were guar- anteed a wide audience in mainstream media.

Hamby criticizes the dominance of Twitter, especially the way it contributes to the greater prominence of trivia or focuses on the pro- cess of campaigns rather than the substance. He notes that this is not a new criticism, but the trend is intensified by Twitter since messages are unfiltered – or, put the other way around, there is less editorial control – which allows minor incidents to gain widespread attention quickly. Here it can be noted that Trump’s tweets also went against the grain of the tighter management of campaign messages on social media, which has been characteristic of other presidential campaigns (see Kreiss 2016).

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He tweeted himself (and still does so!), and the controversial nature of many of his messages means they are a boon to news- starved journalists. Hamby describes how there is often a desperate search to find something newsworthy to report among journalists during the primary campaign, and Trump often provided tweets (and again, still does) that were con- sidered newsworthy enough to be reproduced in full in the news.

Trump’s position could not have been achieved without the sup- port of a substantial proportion of the electorate. His base of support consisted of a part of the population that considers itself left out by the country’s media elites and its established party elites.2 And while there is an economic aspect to the demographic of this support, it is among the less educated, male, more rural, white population. Trump supporters are against established state elites and share a distrust of government, a deep- rooted tradition in American politics (Hall and Lindholm 2001). Their anti- immigrant, anti- refugee and anti- Muslim stances are more to do with citizenship rights and economic nationalism than purely eco- nomic disadvantage or uncertainty.

As we have seen, unlike elections elsewhere (such as in Sweden – Dimitrova and Strömbäck 2011), the focus during American elections in the media is on the horse race between candidates, who rely on per- sonal media attention (as opposed to attention on parties and policies), within a media system where news is driven more strongly (and almost exclusively, unlike Sweden, with its public- service media) by market competition for audiences. The role of Twitter can be singled out here; it was a transmission belt to visibility in traditional media. It did not play a decisive role once Trump was the nominee of the Republican Party since, from that point onwards, the candidates of both parties were guaranteed a roughly equal share of media attention (and Trump could also gain attention by seeking media appearances). But Twitter did play a decisive role in his success in becoming the nominee for the Republican Party and, for a crucial period, he was able to circumvent media autonomy – or use digital media to amplify his message in traditional media.

This success cannot be explained by reference to Twitter alone; rather, again, the explanation relies on how Trump’s political message – his unconventional remarks on Twitter – received a level of attention in traditional media that would have been impossible had he relied on press conferences or traditional broadcast coverage. In other words, by com- municating via Twitter, Trump was able to bypass the conventional gate- keepers of journalists and mainstream TV and newspapers because they were compelled to report his views in a competitive environment that relies on audience share. Put differently, Trump did not directly speak to

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his audience via Twitter – too few Americans are on Twitter. But he could rely on traditional media to broadcast his new media messages. As Karpf (2016) argues: ‘In a world with digital media, but less analytics, this elec- tion drama would have unfolded differently . . . journalists and their edi- tors would have been less attuned to the immediate feedback of Trump’s daily ratings effects, and this would have led them to spread their cover- age more evenly (as they always have in the past). Trump’s media domi- nance isn’t just driven by our attention, it’s driven by the media industry’s new tools for measuring and responding to that attention.’ As we will see in chapter 6, these analytics have become important beyond politics and elections and now also shape the competition for online audiences generally.

In any event, the role of the media and of Twitter was decisive inasmuch as other factors that typically play a role can be ruled out: the argument that the party and its elites ‘decide’ on the candidate (Cohen et  al. 2016)  did not apply on this occasion (though arguably, it applied to Hillary Clinton’s nomination). Second, Trump had fewer resources; he spent far less than other candidates during the primary campaign (and he also spent less, and there was less overall spending, than in previous campaigns). Third, Trump did not have an effective data analytics- driven or ground campaign; in this respect, his campaign was less sophisticated than that of his competitors.

Populists have traditionally been adept at using the mass media of their day. But the reach of their media was limited, as with direct mail and magazines or latterly email (Kazin 1998, 259– 60), unless populists could also obtain sufficient attention in the mainstream media. Other populists have had a critical attitude to the mainstream media, and Trump has also maintained a critical  – even conspiratorial  – attitude towards the establishment- dominated media throughout the election (and beyond) and accused the media of being ‘rigged’ against him. The extent to which this attitude drove his supporters to alternative media and social media has not been systematically examined (to my knowledge). But the key is that Trump was able to continue to have his message relayed from his tweets to the mainstream media, even though the mainstream media often covered him negatively (and covered his claims that the media were biased against him).

Trump stands in a long line of right- and left- wing populism in America, though as Kazin (1998) points out, populism has generally moved rightwards since the Second World War. Populism as an ideol- ogy has waxed and waned in the post- war period, though it has often been just as strong as left, right, moderate and libertarian ideologies

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(Claggett et  al. 2014). Trump’s language was strongly populist; only Bernie Sanders rivalled him on the left and Ben Carson on the right for populist language, as Oliver and Rahn (2016) show. They also show that support for his views was strong among voters, and argue that such populist views have not been taken into account by parties, and by the Republican Party in particular, which they say constitutes a ‘representa- tion gap’: ‘Donald Trump’s simple, Manichean rhetoric is quintessentially populist . . . the opportunity for a Donald Trump presidency is ultimately rooted in a failure of the Republican Party to incorporate a wide range of constituencies’ (2016, 202). In other words, his populist appeal mattered too. In short, Twitter, translated into mainstream media, plus populism, explains Trump’s success.

3.2 The Sweden Democrats’ alternative media

The Sweden Democrats are a populist anti- immigration right- wing party that has risen to prominence in the past decade, though their popular- ity pre- dates the recent migrant crisis (the party was founded in 1988). Indeed, their roots lie partly in a neo- Nazi movement that has been on the fringes of Swedish politics since the 1960s or earlier, though as the Sweden Democrats have gained electoral support, they have had to dis- tance themselves ever more from this association to appear respectable (Baas 2014). Another predecessor of the Sweden Democrats were the New Democrats, a right- wing challenger party sparked by an anti- statist tax revolt of the early 1990s, but whose support quickly petered out. Sweden Democrats, in contrast, have gained strength in the recent elec- tions, particularly as immigration and refugees have become an increas- ingly salient issue. They are also Eurosceptic and see Islamic terrorism and Islamic values among immigrants as a threat. Yet they were ignored by other parties and by the mainstream media until they entered parlia- ment in 2010 (Hellström et al. 2012; see also Strömbäck et al. 2016).

The populism of the Sweden Democrats is part of a broader fam- ily of right- wing populist parties and movements in the Nordic coun- tries (Lindroth 2016). A  comparison is often made with the Folkeparti (People’s Party) in Denmark, which has formed a part of coalition gov- ernments. In Sweden, in contrast, the strategy of the other major parties has been to place a ‘cordon sanitaire’ around the Sweden Democrats, in this way keeping them out of government. The political effectiveness of this strategy can be put to one side here. But while outside of the main- stream, the Sweden Democrats have also attempted to claim to represent

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the left- wing tradition that has dominated Swedish politics, the ideal of a ‘people’s home’ or ‘folkhem’. This social- democratic ideal aims to cre- ate a welfare state for all Swedes. The populist agenda here can thus be described as welfare chauvinism, restricting the benefits of citizenship rights, and especially social citizenship, of the ‘folkhem’ to the ‘true peo- ple’, and in this sense can be described as right wing.

Sweden Democrats have been blocked from having influence in the government. The so- called ‘December Agreement’ after the 2014 election kept the Sweden Democrats from playing the kingmaker role, which their share of parliamentary representation could have afforded them since neither the left nor the right bloc of parties achieved a majority. This agreement has enabled the left coalition to rule with the support of a right- wing bloc of conservative and liberal (‘borgerlig’) parties. Subsequently, however, the parties from this conservative bloc have entertained the possibility of allying themselves with the Sweden Democrats, so that this agreement and the ‘cordon sanitaire’ could unravel. During the summer of 2016, the government also made immi- gration laws more restrictive, no longer allowing family reunification for refugees and immigrants (which had been one of the Sweden Democrats’ demands). Whether partly adopting the Sweden Democrats’ core agenda in this way, or making common ground with them, dampens their popu- list support, remains to be seen.

The electoral support of the Sweden Democrats has come mainly at the expense of the Conservative party (Moderaterna), which has tradi- tionally favoured a pro- immigration stance for humanitarian and labour policy reasons. This has meant that the Sweden Democrats, claiming to protect Swedish values in contrast to such ‘openness’, could gain sup- port among right- wing voters. They have also presented themselves as martyrs and paint the media as being biased against them (Schall 2016, 181), just as Trump has done in America. And, like Trump supporters, they are less educated, more rural and male. As they have also received mostly negative coverage in the mainstream media, a raft of alternative media have sprung up in support of the Sweden Democrats, self- defined as ‘alternative’ to the mainstream media.

These alternative media consist of online newspapers, but the Sweden Democrats have also made extensive use of social media. Larsson found, during the 2014 election, a ‘tendency for ideologically marginalized parties to gain more traction in novel media spheres than in the coverage curated by established media actors’ (2015, 12), which also benefited other smaller parties such as the Feminist Initiative and the Pirate Party. However, unlike these two parties, by 2014 the Sweden

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Democrats were no longer marginal, and had gained the third- largest share of votes (they had already passed the 5 per cent threshold of votes to gain seats in Parliament in 2010, unlike the other two). Polls since the election have put them at around 20 per cent (for example, Sannerstedt 2016). And the public’s distrust of mainstream media on immigra- tion has been high; among Sweden Democrat supporters it stood at 93 per cent, whereas it was 60 per cent among the general population (Rydgren and van der Meiden 2016, 22).3 At the same time, attitudes towards immigrants and refugees have generally become more posi- tive among Swedes supporting other parties, whereas among Sweden Democrat supporters, they have become more negative (Demker and van der Meiden 2016).

In Sweden, the dominant media gatekeepers remain in place. Public broadcasting is still the dominant source of news among the popu- lation, though among the younger generation, as we have seen, social media have become more popular (Westlund and Weibull 2013). Since the 1980s, commercial broadcasters have also taken an increasing audi- ence share, even as the Swedish government continues to support news- papers with subsidies to enhance a diverse press.4 In short, the Swedish media system remains a distinct and mixed public/ commercial system (Hallin and Manicini 2004). But whereas traditional media did not pay much heed to the Sweden Democrats until they entered parliament, now they receive more attention than some established parties, even if it is mainly negative (Rydgren and van der Meiden 2016). Audience figures for alternative media, on the other hand, are difficult to come by. The online newspaper Avpixlat, according to Rydgren and van der Meiden (2016, 22), gets 200,000– 300,000 unique visitors per week. Holt (2016a) has used Google Analytics and registered the number of unique visitors to four sites in 30  days (Fria Tider 1,419,573, Nyheter Idag 416,214, Avpixlat 788,282 and Motgift 80,770; though he points to the limitations of what these figures indicate). Sweden Democrats, he says, rely more than other parties on ‘alternative media’– not just online newspapers but also social media.

Holt (2016b) also analysed the content of a number of online news- papers that support the Sweden Democrats. These deliberately contrast themselves with the ‘mainstream media’ that allegedly distort the truth. What Holt found is that these ‘alternative media’ are in fact heavily dependent on the ‘mainstream media’ since they have few independent journalistic resources, and so take content from the mainstream media and give it an interpretation that fits with populist right- wing beliefs. Interestingly, in comparing the content of ‘alternative’ with ‘mainstream

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media’, he found that they are not more sensationalist, but focus more on domestic and international politics and so do not cover the breadth of topics (sports, economics and culture/ lifestyle) covered by mainstream media. But the coverage of domestic and international politics is differ- ent in these online media, particularly in respect to immigration, which is linked to criminality and the abuse of welfare, and rails against the ‘political correctness’ of multiculturalism as well as the threat of Islam.

Apart from driving supporters to alternative media, it is not clear whether the largely negative coverage of the Sweden Democrats in the mainstream is helping or hurting them. Social media and online news- papers are useful channels for the Sweden Democrats to communicate to wider audiences since their political position is widely regarded as unacceptable in mainstream public discourse. Populists in Sweden have thus developed an alternative media presence in support of a party that is outside the political mainstream and whose views lie beyond the politics in traditional media. But unlike in the United States, they compete for attention in a multi- party system, so their success in gaining a share of power depends not only on alternative media but also on whether other parties can continue to outflank them by locking them out or adopting a strong- enough stance to keep them out of government.

3.3 Modi’s religious nationalism on Twitter

Narendra Modi’s use of Twitter in his 2014 election campaign to become prime minister has been compared to the Obama election campaign in terms of the sophistication of social media use, but Trump’s campaign is a better comparison. Like Trump, Modi used Twitter to circumvent tradi- tional media to engage directly with his populist base of supporters and to challenge the elite and the media. Modi’s media campaign strategy, like Trump’s, deliberately bypassed his own party (Price 2016, 94), and like Trump, he criticized and taunted politicians from his main competi- tion, the Congress Party, and especially Rahul Gandhi, who was the main competitor to become prime minister in 2014. Modi’s campaign on social media, again like Trump’s (among his supporters), had to overcome the lack of an extensive base of social media users in India. So unlike Trump, Modi’s campaign adapted high- tech tools to a variety of low- tech outlets. These included holograms, through which he reached 15 million people (Price 2016, 136)  and TV screens that were set up in villages to carry his speeches and rallies. Large popular rallies are, of course, common in Indian political campaigns.

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Modi and the BJP were not the only ones to benefit from social media. Ahmed et  al. (2016) analysed a large random sample of tweets from all of the major parties during the national election, and they also came to the conclusion that the internet (and first- time voters, who are more likely to use mobile phones and the internet) played a crucial role in the BJP’s success. Interestingly, the party that had the next greatest Twitter presence was a relatively new and small challenger party, Aam Aadmi (common man). This anti- corruption party rules in Delhi, where there are strong progressive civil society organizations, and like other non- traditional parties (recall the Feminist Initiative party in Sweden), they gained disproportionally from social media.

Modi’s use of Twitter was part of a deliberate strategy to craft his image as a technology- savvy leader who is transforming India into a world- leading nation via information technology. Jaffrelot (2015a, 6)  calls it ‘high- tech populism’. This appeal was directed at a younger urban elite. Modi’s Twitter and social media strategy was similar to that of other political leaders in focusing on self- promotion, updating his fol- lowers about events in which he participated or that put him in a good light, such as posting pictures with popular cricket and Bollywood stars (Pal et al. 2016). He has also followed high- tech icons on Twitter such as Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt, which gives him prestige, as well as follow- ing Indian spiritual leaders, which fits into broader social media uses in India (Miller et al. 2016). One difference from other leading politicians who use Twitter to communicate one way is that Modi has engaged with ordinary members of his BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) Hindu nationalist party and of the RSS (the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Hindu nation- alist volunteer organization) by following them. Pal et  al. (2016) give examples of tweets by these followers in which they say that they are proud to be followed by Modi, and will do their utmost to further his cause and the cause of Hindu nationalism.

What these authors also show, again exhibiting a pattern typical of populist politicians, is that the more extreme Hindu nationalist themes of Modi’s posts early in the election campaign, energizing his core, taper off in the run- up to the election, when he needed to be more restrained to appeal to a broader base outside of the nationalist right wing (the same goes for Donald Trump and for the Sweden Democrats). Towards the end of the campaign, Modi’s tweets and most frequent retweets were those that attacked the ‘established elites’, the Congress Party and especially the Gandhi family – in particular ‘an infantilizing reference to Rahul Gandhi’, his main competitor to become prime minister in 2014 (Pal et al. 2016, 58). (This recalls Donald Trump’s tweets taunting ‘Little

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Marco’ Rubio, one of his rivals for the Republican nomination.) After he was elected, Modi’s tweets became less political, in the ‘style of a benign ruler’ (Pal et al. 2016, 59), a point at which he had more than 10 million followers, and each of his messages was being retweeted and favourited at least 1,000 times.

Another parallel  – and a common feature of populism  – is that Modi’s election campaign was partly a personality- centred campaign that went against his own party. He used Twitter to challenge the elite and the media, which of course could not happen in China. In India’s highly com- petitive democracy, as Rajagopal points out, there has been a wider trend whereby election campaigns used to be coordinated by parties to mobilize people; now, he says, ‘political campaigns came to resemble personality- centred marketing operations’ (2016, 127). Modi presented himself as an outsider and claimed to be ‘anti- establishment’. His social media team, focusing on Twitter and Facebook, operated outside of the party’s media campaign team, and was run by the American advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather (Price 2016; Chakravarty and Roy 2015). But Facebook reached only 10 per cent of Indians in 2014 (according to Palshikar 2016), and ‘the most visible and high impact campaign events were big public rallies that were mostly, and are still, held in “maidan”, or the public grounds in most cities that are meant for holding large public events’ (Neyazi et al. 2016, 412)  – though half a million people also participated in Modi’s Google Hangout session, according to Price (2016, 63).

Modi’s campaign was able to circumvent the elite- dominated English-language media and found a ready audience in other vernacu- lar language media. As Chakravarty and Roy (2015) point out, television stations were only too eager to devote attention to Modi since he boosted audience ratings. Yet even after he was elected, Modi used Twitter and other social media for direct contact with people:  there is a ‘near- total lack of contact, as Prime Minister, with traditional news media. Outside of prepared speeches at major events, what we see of Modi is almost all we see of him. And yet, Modi comes across as the most interactive prime minister the country has ever had,’ say Pal et  al. (2016, 60). It can be added that Modi’s interaction with his supporters needs to be put into a broader context, that this self- staging also translates into mainstream media, though little is known about this in India (whereas the mutual dependence and independence in the Swedish and US cases is well known: in China, as we shall see, there is a tension between them).

Hindu online nationalism is more widespread than Modi and his party.5 Udupa has documented a movement of Hindu nationalists online that promotes a ‘dream of a resurgent “new India” purged of corruption

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and “Muslim menace” to recast Hindu nationalism as an entrepreneurial, ideological project of net- enabled youth’ (2015, 433). They also have off- line meetings that are then available on YouTube, with speeches by Hindu nationalist leaders. Unlike Modi’s tweets, these tweets (often anonym- ous) and videos of meetings can be more extreme than communication by the party – even if they clearly support Modi and the BJP. Udupa also describes how these meetings, such as the ‘Global Patriotic Tweeples Meet’ in Mumbai, attract wider audiences, with attendees taking pride, for example, that the event’s hashtag trended nationally for several days. Apart from meetings, conflicts flare up on Twitter when extreme Hindu nationalists and their Muslim extremist counterparts exchange insults. And, as in China, there are also attempts by online amateur historians and others to reinterpret history in line with India’s great Hindu past (Udupa 2016; George 2016, 101– 8).

Modi is not the only populist using new media in politics. As we have seen in the previous chapter, Mayawati had already used a more low- tech approach in her election campaign in 2007, and she can also be seen as a populist (Subramanian 2007, 89– 90), since she sought to circumvent the hostile mainstream media and the political elite with her own, in this case mobile- phone supported, organization. And unlike China, India has a lively civil society, including protest and social move- ments that are carried by the media. But unlike China, online mobiliza- tion is still confined to a small, urban, affluent and younger minority. Active online political engagement outside of elections is mainly limited to activists and journalists. Yet, as in China, online politics centres on cor- ruption or on high- profile events such as crimes  – here related to com- munalism. Even if television and newspapers still dominate – far more so than in China due to the lack of reach of the internet – activists, including nationalists, can gain attention in mainstream media by agitating online. Thus, again, it is necessary to take the media system, including both tra- ditional and new media, into account. But populists gain disproportion- ately from new media insofar as they can disseminate messages that are too aggressive or inflammatory for mainstream media, so they need to evade media autonomy with messages that have come to resonate widely among a large part of the population.

Modi pursued a high- tech strategy, including lots of spectacle, to gain visibility in a low- tech environment. His social media strategy was successful because he could gain widespread mainstream media attention in a highly competitive media landscape. His tweets and text messages to mobile phones were ‘part of a conscious effort to use social media to force the newspapers, TV and radio to take notice of every speech and to cover

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them in a way that reflected the priorities of the campaign’ (Price 2016, 103). Jaffrelot says ‘Modi literally saturated the public space’ (2015b, 157). Now that he is elected, he no longer needs social media, but having mobilized his Hindutva supporters, as George points out, ‘it is difficult for him to restrain them, since their platform of religious nationalism got him elected’ (2016, 108). Though he adds:  ‘The main restraint on the Hindutva agenda may be the country’s sheer ungovernability – an obsta- cle that has thwarted Indian leaders’ most progressive intentions, and may do the same to Modi’s nationalism’ (2016, 109).

3.4 Containing online nationalists in China

In China, right- wing populism has found widespread expression online. Leibold (2010) examined nationalist websites, and estimates those who post most to be in the thousands, while readership is likely to be in the millions. They advocate Han supremacism, asserting the superiority of the dominant Han ethnic group over minority ethnic groups and the superiority of Chinese culture in the world- at- large. But unlike in the other cases, the regime tries to keep a lid on them, even while encour- aging populism when it suits the government. There are also right- wing populist sympathizers among factions within the regime, and among other professionals, such as academics and journalists. They champion different kinds of nationalist agendas, but find support among a broader population that gives vent online to the idea that China should pursue a strong and distinctively Chinese path of development.

In China, as we have seen in chapter 2, the political agenda is still set by officially controlled media, even if much of the population seeks alternative sources of political and cultural information in order to evade what is widely known to be official propaganda in public- service and mainstream commercial media. China’s online populists, like other movements that are critical of the regime, therefore use social media to promote their ideas under the radar of censorship. A crucial feature that sets China apart from the other cases, however, is that the party  – the political elite or ‘the establishment’  – cannot be criticized in such a way that its legitimacy is directly challenged. Still, populists complain that the mainstream media do not represent their views and are too liberal (Osnos 2016: 337– 8), so they express their views online instead.

Although the regime is not democratic and so does not depend on popular support, this is too simple. As Perry (2015) has noted, the

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regime sees itself as a ‘populist democracy’ whereby it is the party’s duty to embody the will of the people for the public good. Tang (2016) has argued that the Chinese regime can be described in terms of ‘populist authoritarianism’. That is, it is a regime that has achieved stability based on the strong support it has from the population as well as its ‘hyper- responsiveness’ to public inputs  – despite the absence of strong demo- cratic institutions such as elections, independent political organizations and the rule of law. He calls the regime ‘hyper- responsive’ because, unlike in democracies, where, once elected, rule is guaranteed until the next election, the party- state must be constantly attuned to public opin- ion. Indeed, in Tang’s view, the direct responsiveness of the leadership to the people’s will is a continuation of the longer- term tradition in Chinese politics whereby the emperor’s legitimacy or his removal rested directly on the public’s approval.

While Tang calls it ‘populist authoritarianism’, Stockmann and Luo (2016) call it ‘responsive authoritarianism’. The contrast of both is with ‘elite authoritarianism’, imposed from above without consent or without requiring popular support or legitimacy, which implies that the regime must maintain coercive rule or face collapse if it does not. This is not the place to adjudicate the debate on whether China’s authoritarian- ism will collapse or survive (or adapt). Suffice it to say that the regime has strong support among the public, and this support, including pres- sure on the regime for improvements  – and keeping these pressures within bounds  – increasingly finds its strongest expression online. As Wu (2007) argues, there is a misconception that the assertive national- ism in China’s online sphere is instigated by the regime. In fact, as Wu shows, nationalist fervour aimed at shaping domestic politics and for- eign relations (especially anti- Western and anti- US sentiment) comes ‘from below’; it is a ‘grassroots’ nationalism that the regime must control lest it get out of hand.

The legitimacy of the regime thus rests on maintaining stability at home and in foreign relations, and any elements that threaten this stabil- ity can be attacked as unpatriotic. At the same time, the regime’s legiti- macy rests on continued economic growth. If such growth were to come to an end, or if the benefits of citizenship were to be further curtailed – there has already been a widening gap in this regard – popular support for the regime could wane. At that point, integration of China in a global economy could be scapegoated, as it has been in other right- or left- wing populisms. Or the regime and populists might want to blame political enemies within, such as Islamic ethnic groups in the west of the coun- try, or external geopolitical enemies (Islamic terrorists, or Hong Kong,

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Taiwan and Japan), and assert Han or Chinese cultural supremacy more aggressively vis- à- vis Western democracies or vis- à- vis the United States.

But while populism has assumed the form of virulent national- ism, it has not so far been a threat to the regime. Leibold argues (2010; 2016)  that online nationalists are likely to be kept in check by the regime since they share the aim of the territorial integrity of the People’s Republic, even if they also criticize the Communist Party for not being aggressive enough towards non- Han ethnic groups within, or not promot- ing Han civilization and claims over disputed Chinese territories in the world- at- large. The government’s policy has been to recognize the needs of ethnic minorities and it has tried to foster a multi- ethnic state. It has also been cautious about promoting public sentiment that is too aggres- sive towards its foreign policy antagonists. At the same time, Zhao (in Carlson et al. 2016) quotes a survey by Tang and Barr which shows that China has the strongest support for nationalism among 22 countries sur- veyed (the United States is next strongest, with Sweden among the low- est). He says that ‘while the Chinese government made effective efforts to control nationalism . . . before 2008, it has become increasingly reluc- tant to constrain its expression and more willing to follow the national- ist calls in confrontation against Western powers and neighbours . . . this strident turn is in part because the government is increasingly responsive to public opinion’, including a ‘growing number of ways such as the social media to express . . . nationalist feelings’(Carlson et al. 2016, 440).

It is worth bearing in mind when thinking about right- wing pop- ulism and nationalism in China that the left/ right split operates differ- ently, as we have seen. In Pan and Xu’s (forthcoming) analysis of the ideological spectrum in Chinese public opinion, rightists support going back to Mao- era communist politics, a conservative position if it is con- trasted with modernist liberalizers who are in favour of embracing capi- talism and Western values. That is why it is difficult to categorize Han supremacists or nationalists as right- wing in a Western sense. It is also difficult to identify a coherent populist right- wing agenda, as this may promote traditional Confucian values, communist (Mao- era) values, or embrace Western values and capitalism (for different orientations among intellectual and political elites, see Fewsmith 2001). In all cases, how- ever, the aim is to strengthen a distinctive Chinese culture and a stronger nation. In the other three cases of democracies, not only are there public opinion surveys, but populists can be measured by their share of votes. In China, apart from measuring nationalist sentiment, an equivalent could be to examine, in a Kremlinological way, the strength of populist- leaning elite factions within the ruling regime.

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In China, the ethnic divide also exists, but another fault line (as in India, and to a lesser extent in America and Sweden) is between ‘the people’ and the corrupt elites that are enriching themselves. Note how- ever that there is a difference between left- wing populism in other places (Southern Europe, Latin America), where the wealthy who are enriched by capitalist globalization are the target (Mueller 2016), whereas elites in China are targeted if they are enriched by corruption via the state (though these may be differences in degree, not kind). And Western capitalism can also be criticized in China as being contrary to a Chinese economic model based on Confucian civilization or on Maoist anti- capitalism. As in India, too, history is thus also a major battleground for online national- ists. One prominent online historian discussed by Leibold, for example, ‘views China’s past through . . . a struggle between civilization and barba- rism, with the Han state and its Confucian morality standing firmly on the side of peace, stability, and progress’ (2016, 9). The ‘moral decline’ of China, on the other hand, is attributed to ‘unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about how minority elites are teaming up with foreign forces to split China and undermine its national interest’ (2016, 11). Gries, echo- ing this debate, argues that ‘pride in the superiority of Confucian civili- zation is central to Chinese nationalism today’ (2004, 8) and adds: ‘the legitimacy of the current regime depends upon its ability to stay on top of popular nationalist demands’ (2004, 136). Again, the party elite as such cannot be attacked here, but only those elites that have lost Chinese ‘virtues’ and become corrupted by the West or by economic corruption.

It can be noted that the regime sometimes has an interest in encour- aging populism to get rid of corrupt party elites. Tai (2015) speaks of a ‘vengeful populism’ whereby party officials or wealthy elites who flaunt the law or who are seen with luxury items are hounded by the public on social media. The public can thus take part in ‘grassroots surveillance’. But the government can also engage in top- down surveillance by using social media to gauge popular opinion (Stockmann 2015b), as we will see further in chapter  6. This allows the regime to respond to populist outbursts or populist sentiments that are deemed excessive. The gov- ernment may also want to weaken factions in the party or in the media that are not nationalistic enough. But again, ‘not nationalistic enough’ can itself mean different things:  too Western, but also not Western enough if Western modernizing strategies could strengthen the nation; too Confucian, if left- wing Maoist strategies are seen as the best way to strengthen the nation – and vice versa.

The same applies to geopolitics and ethnic politics, which could be isolationist or empire- seeking, assimilationist or advocating ethnic

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chauvinism. Populism can take different forms, as long as it does not challenge the party. It could also conceivably take a left- wing populist turn, if inequalities continue to grow, and then be aimed at the super- rich inside the party and among business elites. But left- wing populism can be defused with egalitarian policies. Right- wing populism, on the other hand, can be defused only by aligning what the ‘virtuous people’ regard as the ‘true people’ with government policy, which is a more elusive goal.

Nationalist populism is not new in China (Dikötter 1994). The 1988 multi- part television documentary ‘River Elegy’ attracted hitherto unprecedented audience levels and generated much debate. It was criti- cal of nationalism, but also characterized by nostalgia for when media were oriented more by national interests and not just by commercialism (Zhu 2012, 120– 7). Recently (2006), another popular documentary ‘Rise of Nations’ (Zhu 2012, 104– 10) criticized Chinese policymakers for not learning enough from other great powers about how to strengthen China. Like other forms of political expression in China, populism or nationalism also waxes and wanes around events: flare- ups occur during periods when there are perceived threats by Japan or terrorist attacks carried out by ethnic minority groups. A  major wave of nationalism erupted during the Beijing Olympics in 2008, when Western media were attacked for being anti- Chinese.

In China, populism is under control for the foreseeable future. It cannot destabilize the government unless the party- state has a broader crisis of legitimation and so needs more populist or other support. This point emerges by noting that in the other cases, anti- elite sentiment draws its support from civil society and aims to democratically replace established elites (recall the discussion about whether populists can be democratic). Populists in China support the state’s authoritarianism, but the government also worries that they may support the nation more strongly than the party (Osnos 2016, 147). At the same time, the regime enjoys widespread – if not universal – support in China, and it needs to be mentioned that most Chinese are generally supportive of the state’s control of the internet (Leibold 2011).

3.5 Prospects for mediated politics

All four cases of online populism can be seen through the same lens: the responsiveness of politicians and governments to their civil societies  – which consist of citizens or publics and social movements. Populist

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demands, and responsiveness to them, take place almost entirely via media. How populism is articulated vis- à- vis the state and elites varies among the four cases, but a common feature is that populists are challeng- ers or counterpublics:  they blame established parties, their politicians and the media, and they do so most successfully using digital media, gain- ing a proportion of attention that they could not obtain via mainstream media. Populism is aimed at national governments and bounded within national media systems. The share of attention they obtain is gained in competition for limited attention to dominate the political agenda space. Thus, even if populists get negative attention in the mainstream media, this deprives political rivals and alternative political views of visibility.

All forms of populism are anti- elite; this is the main fault line  – a virtuous people against an unresponsive elite. The content of populism differs, although strengthening the nation with the aim of more repre- sentation for its distinctive tradition of embodying ‘the people’ is com- mon to all four cases. Another ‘exclusionary’ commonality is holding anti- Muslim views, fuelled by domestic terrorist or violent incidents and Islamic fundamentalism in the world- at- large. But American populists see a strengthening of a ‘pure’ people in a right- wing leader espousing a racist anti- immigration agenda, and Indian populists a religious/ ethnic strengthening in a leader who will give more space to Hindu nationalist views. Sweden Democrats also have a primarily anti- immigrant agenda, and believe their party will restrict the people’s home to ‘pure’ Swedes. Chinese populists seek a stronger assertion of their national culture, sometimes seen in ethnic terms but also in civilizational terms, at home and in the world.

Populism has been the single most important recent political change in India, Sweden and the United States, though it is currently not the main challenge in Chinese politics, flaring up episodically as it does. Rising inequality and the regime’s authoritarian control are more impor- tant in China. But populist nationalism could become more important in China if conditions change, as with an economic downturn or foreign aggression. If the regime becomes threatened, the party and populist movement can blame external enemies (geopolitical enemies, or ‘for- eign’ capitalism in the sense of both economic competition and a com- peting economic culture or system) and enemies within (ethnic groups, ‘foreign’ capitalists, corrupt elites). And as long as the state sets the polit- ical agenda via media, and the public’s opinion is not reflected in main- stream media or opinion polls but can be manipulated and encouraged while also growing ‘from below’, it may yet come to be a major force. While Indian and Swedish populism do not have worldwide geopolitical

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repercussions, Chinese and American populism do. And American and Chinese populist fears about their geopolitical rivalry also mirror each other.

The prospects for online populism vary, with media systems being a crucial factor. In competitive commercial media environments (the United States, India), without strong public media (unlike Sweden) or state control (unlike China), online populism can directly appeal to the public without counterweights. The political systems also matter: pop- ulists in Sweden can potentially exploit being kingmakers in a multi- party system without a clear majority (unlike in other countries, such as Denmark). In the United States they are restricted in national poli- tics to competing in a majoritarian American presidential race. China’s populist- nationalists can also goad the party towards Han or civiliza- tional supremacism, but the party may also need to adopt stronger nationalist policies to make up for a loss of other sources of legitimacy. Populist messages are often unsuitable for mainstream media, and so can only be expressed, or expressed more forcefully, online. In all four cases, neither new media technology nor the rise and strengthening of populism alone explain the change in the political landscape; com- bined, they do.

The similarities and differences can be summarized as follows:

• Populism is leader- centric in the United States and in India, party- centric in Sweden, and a diffuse social- intellectual movement around a common core in China.

• In China and in America, populism lacks strong organizations, whereas in India and Sweden, it has organized bases.

• In all four, social media have been used to circumvent the gate- keepers of traditional media, and to circumvent party and media ‘establishments’.

Populism is gaining strength in many parts of the world (Mueller 2016). It is not caused by new media, but equally it would not be such a potent force without new media. Populist counterpublics thrive in the online public arena. In terms of media theory, digital media add to the medi- atization of politics (Hjarvard 2008); however, in the sense of circum- venting traditional gatekeepers, online populists also disintermediate (vis- à- vis traditional gatekeepers) while adding to the role of media with regard to how political actors respond to civil society. This change is unthinkable without digital media. One mechanism is that ‘while the mass media adhere to professional norms and news values, social media

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serve as direct linkage to the people and allow the populists to circumvent the journalistic gatekeepers’ (Engesser et al. 2016, emphasis in the origi- nal). But this mechanism needs to be put in the context of different media systems (Stanyer et al. 2016), and whether these systems enable or con- strain this ‘linkage’ to become part of overall media attention space – or not. Populisms are gaining ground in the twenty- first century, and digital media help make it so.

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