Professional Media, Populist Media (Blog by Benjamin Krämer)
Right wing populist media see themselves as the mouthpiece of “the people”, but their definition of “the people” excludes significant groups of the population. Even the kind of journalism, which sees itself at professional and non-populist often represents the world and uses patterns of interpretation in ways which are compatible with a right wing populist world view. In this new blog contribution, Benjamin Krämer explains how the routines of professionality in quality journalism can play into the hands of right wing populism and points out how a return to normative bases of liberal and pluralist journalism could counter right wing populism.
Dr. Benjamin Krämer is a research associate at the Department of Communication Studies and Media Research at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
The project “TruLies – The Truth about Lies on Europe”, aided by the Stiftung Mercator and run by the Institute for European Politics (IEP) in cooperation with Das Progressive Zentrum, has two principal objectives. On the one hand, it strives to deconstruct Eurosceptic and populist prejudices, animosities, and false assertions, by means of social scientifically-grounded analysis. Thus, it aims to contribute to a rationalisation of the public discourse and debate in Germany (and beyond). On the other hand, “TruLies Europe” endeavours to publicly communicate its findings beyond the select circle of scholars to political actors, civil society, and the wider public. You may find further information on our website: http://trulies-europe.de/.
Benjamin Krämer‘s contribution can be found here.