The “New Form” Of American Populism In The Social Media Era

Populism is marked as a significant political force in the United States by Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016 and his winning close to half of the popular votes in2020.Not long before the current wave of American populism,social media entered U.S.politics and started to become an institutionalized means of political communication.This has noticeably changed the mode of political operations as well as the thinking and action patterns of political participants.While the “Trump Phenomenon” epitomizes those two trends,namely,the rising of populism and the institutionalization of social media,Joe Biden’s campaign in 2020 also displayed elements of populism and social media.It begs questions both theoretically important and realistically relevant: what becomes of populism in the social media era and what are the subsequent effects?This dissertation focuses on the evolution of populism in the social media era.Specifically,what is the substance of such evolution;what causal mechanism does such evolution follow;what,if any,is the evidence of it;and what consequences does it bring.It assays populism from the perspective of social media,adopting a two-fold,theoreticalplus-empirical approach,consisted of a qualitative probe into the inner architectures of populism and social media to identify the mechanism of such evolution,and a quantitative,comparative analysis of the tweets by Trump and Biden during recent election cycles to discover supporting evidence of the aforementioned evolution.In the theoretical aspect,this research finds social media,due to its structure and some characteristics,almost inherently promote the key elements of populism.Social media open up the public sphere to lower social classes and amplify their policial weight;people from lower social classes tend to be the target of populism.Social media are decentralized,hence a desirable platform for propagating anti-establishment ideas.Social media enable users to directly interact with each other;they connect politicians and voters directly,weaken intermediate institutions such as policial parties and the mainstream media,and can even serve as a carrier for direct democracy.Social media enhance tribalization,making it easier for charismatic political leaders to persuade and mobilize the crowd by spreading alternative truths and appealing to emotions.With social media predictably gaining larger market share,populism gets a favorable long-term environment.To compete with populists,non-populists have to turn to populist style and strategies to harness social media.In this way,populism is prolonged and spreads among political parties and branches,acquiring a “new form”.In the empirial aspect,this research selects Trump and Biden as cases,compiles a collection of more than 12,000 tweets posted by the two in their respective election periods,and conducts a qualitative content analysis using self-written python programs and other softwares.It finds during the 2016 election,Trump frequently interacted with people via twitter and attempted to manipulate public opinion in the process.Trump mainly engaged in criticizing political opponents,describing the political establishment as crooked and corrupt,while himself was the candidate to lead the American people to“make America great again”.Trump essentially constructed a homogeneous,rightleaning populistic “people” who believed in a version of alternative truth.During the 2020 election,Biden also spent most efforts in condemning Trump,labeling him as an ignorant,incompetent and corrupt subverter of American core values,while Biden himself was the one to unite all Americans and to lead the country back on the right track.Biden similarly created a homogeneous,left-leaning anti-Trump “people” who believed in another version of alternative truth.Behind their political operations on twitter lies an apparently populist narrative that a homogeneous construct of “the people”,directly mobilized and represented by a leader via social media,attempt to seize control of the country through election.After four years,a left-wing president-elect from the establishement adopts the style and strategy of his right-wing populist predecessor;this proves the “new form” of American populism actually exists.The “new form” of populism in the social media era suggests American democracy is facing challenge.The U.S.foreign policy is also impacted.In recent years,populism has gone viral in western democracies.This implies the “new form” of American populism in the social media era could shed light on similar phenomena throughout the West.Populism,now in its new form,can do more than infiltrating and clinging on in one government,but to cause chronic and deep effects on the western democracy in general.The dissertation is divided into seven parts.Chapter one explains the proposition of the research question and the significance of the research,reviews relevant scholarly literature domestic and abroad,introduces the theoretical framework of and methods used in the rearch,elucidates the innovativeness of this disserataion,and outlines the chapter composition of the disserataion.Chapter two proposes a new definition of populism,points out the key elements of populism,and explains the previous form of populism as well as the causes of such form.Chapter three traces the history of American populism with the aim of clarifying the path of its evolution.Chapter four expounds the “‘new form’of American populism in the social media era” concept,discusses the meaning of “the social media era” and illustrates the mechanism behind the “new form” with an original theoretical framework referencing related theories.Chapter five conducts a quantitative,comparative analysis of the tweets by Trump and Biden for supporting evidence of the the “new form”.Chapter six discusses of the effects of populism in its “new form” on American domestic politics and foreign policies,and the revelation of the American case to the West in general.Conclusion recaps the research process,summarizes the conclusions,and proposes questions for future research.