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Social media and the cordon sanitaire: Populist politics, the online space, and a relationship that just isn’t there

Littler, Mark; Feldman, Matthew

Authors

Mark Littler

Matthew Feldman



Abstract

© John Benjamins Publishing Company. Much research has sought to map the spread of extreme and populist political ideologies across Western Europe. Despite this, it often fails to explain how these ideologies move from the political fringes to positions of influence, subverting the traditional cordon sanitaire around extreme views. As a result of recent successes by populist actors, a more nuanced understanding of this process is required. This paper posits an explanation for this success, suggesting that the growing pluralisation of the online media environment and the impact of social media content sharing are key to understanding how fringe political actors avoid both overt and implicit barriers to popularising extreme positions. Using data from the British Election Study, this paper offers a quantitative test of this approach, finding an inconsistent relationship between social media use and extreme political opinions. Potential explanations for this are discussed alongside possible directions for future research.

Citation

Littler, M., & Feldman, M. (2017). Social media and the cordon sanitaire: Populist politics, the online space, and a relationship that just isn’t there. Journal of Language and Politics, 16(4), 510-522. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17029.lit

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 15, 2017
Online Publication Date Aug 7, 2017
Publication Date Oct 26, 2017
Deposit Date Jun 28, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of language and politics
Print ISSN 1569-2159
Electronic ISSN 1569-9862
Publisher John Benjamins Publishing
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 16
Issue 4
Pages 510-522
DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.17029.lit
Keywords Xenophobia, Immigration, Survey, Far-right, Populism, Media effects, Social media
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/452971
Publisher URL http://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/jlp.17029.lit
Additional Information Authors' accepted manuscript of article published in Journal of language and politics, 2017, v.16, issue 4.

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Copyright Statement
©2017 John Benjamins Publishing Company





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