Replacing an absent Left : Media and Identity-politics - Podemos and Neo-Fascist discourses of transgression “beyond Left and Right”
(2017) MKVM13 20171Media and Communication Studies
- Abstract
- The present investigation will set out to examine the new phenomenon of social/participative media-based populist parties that has appeared in Europe over the last five years. In order to illustrate and understand this trend, a qualitative data analysis case-study of the Spanish Political party Podemos and the surrounding media-political phenomenon has been carried out. As this phenomenon is strongly influenced by identity-politics, theories put forward by Michel Clouscard regarding the nature of identity-political groups and neo-fascist ideologies of desire have been taken into consideration in the analysis. This has been done through the prism of the mediatisation theory and the notion of Media as a vehicle for sub-cultural... (More)
- The present investigation will set out to examine the new phenomenon of social/participative media-based populist parties that has appeared in Europe over the last five years. In order to illustrate and understand this trend, a qualitative data analysis case-study of the Spanish Political party Podemos and the surrounding media-political phenomenon has been carried out. As this phenomenon is strongly influenced by identity-politics, theories put forward by Michel Clouscard regarding the nature of identity-political groups and neo-fascist ideologies of desire have been taken into consideration in the analysis. This has been done through the prism of the mediatisation theory and the notion of Media as a vehicle for sub-cultural “re-embedding” discussed by Hjarvard&Peterson in 2013, taking into account a prior study of the nature of Podemos as a phenomenon of “two-way-street” mediatisation by Casero-Ripollés et al. in 2016. Given that these new parties have mainly been damaging to the electoral performance of the parties of the traditional Left, Domenico Losurdo’s work concerning the fate of the Left post-1991 and notably the implications of its absence from important mainstream media-platforms will be considered. The substitution of class interests for civil society issues of “common sense” and questions of identity in Podemos is an important feature discussed here, not least with regards to how the party’s discourse mutates over time and takes advantage of the social function of the “new” social media identified by Pascual Serrano, who also outlines the tendency of these media to favour communicative brevity and lack of precision. The outcome of the research paints a pessimistic picture as it reaches the conclusion that the Podemos phenomenon is neither salutary for the nature of political democracy nor for that of social media-based political communication. Rather than promoting increased possibilities for democratic communication, these new parties have arrested communication. The research also concludes that certain private interests, notably those of a number of corporate media organisations, are promoting this media/political phenomenon directly or indirectly. Finally, it has reached the conclusion that a number of parties of the traditional Left have attempted to emulate the communicative and discursive “beyond Left and Right” style of these new social media-based parties, running the risk of total electoral obsolescence among their core voters. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8906821
- author
- Törnblom Duthu, Mikael LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MKVM13 20171
- year
- 2017
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Podemos, Spain, Social Media, Print Media, Online Media, Identity-Politics, Leftist Politics, Neo-Fascism, Class, Civil Society, Qualitative data analysis
- language
- English
- id
- 8906821
- date added to LUP
- 2017-10-11 12:45:28
- date last changed
- 2017-10-11 12:45:28
@misc{8906821,
abstract = {{The present investigation will set out to examine the new phenomenon of social/participative media-based populist parties that has appeared in Europe over the last five years. In order to illustrate and understand this trend, a qualitative data analysis case-study of the Spanish Political party Podemos and the surrounding media-political phenomenon has been carried out. As this phenomenon is strongly influenced by identity-politics, theories put forward by Michel Clouscard regarding the nature of identity-political groups and neo-fascist ideologies of desire have been taken into consideration in the analysis. This has been done through the prism of the mediatisation theory and the notion of Media as a vehicle for sub-cultural “re-embedding” discussed by Hjarvard&Peterson in 2013, taking into account a prior study of the nature of Podemos as a phenomenon of “two-way-street” mediatisation by Casero-Ripollés et al. in 2016. Given that these new parties have mainly been damaging to the electoral performance of the parties of the traditional Left, Domenico Losurdo’s work concerning the fate of the Left post-1991 and notably the implications of its absence from important mainstream media-platforms will be considered. The substitution of class interests for civil society issues of “common sense” and questions of identity in Podemos is an important feature discussed here, not least with regards to how the party’s discourse mutates over time and takes advantage of the social function of the “new” social media identified by Pascual Serrano, who also outlines the tendency of these media to favour communicative brevity and lack of precision. The outcome of the research paints a pessimistic picture as it reaches the conclusion that the Podemos phenomenon is neither salutary for the nature of political democracy nor for that of social media-based political communication. Rather than promoting increased possibilities for democratic communication, these new parties have arrested communication. The research also concludes that certain private interests, notably those of a number of corporate media organisations, are promoting this media/political phenomenon directly or indirectly. Finally, it has reached the conclusion that a number of parties of the traditional Left have attempted to emulate the communicative and discursive “beyond Left and Right” style of these new social media-based parties, running the risk of total electoral obsolescence among their core voters.}},
author = {{Törnblom Duthu, Mikael}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Replacing an absent Left : Media and Identity-politics - Podemos and Neo-Fascist discourses of transgression “beyond Left and Right”}},
year = {{2017}},
}