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Populist disinformation
Mapping the discursive connections between online populism and disinformation in the US
Hameleers, M.
DOI
10.4324/9781032632940-7
Publication date
2024
Document Version
Final published version
Published in
State-Sponsored Disinformation Around the Globe
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Citation for published version (APA):

Hameleers, M. (2024). Populist disinformation: Mapping the discursive connections between
online populism and disinformation in the US. In M. Echeverría, S. García Santamaría, & D.
C. Hallin (Eds.), State-Sponsored Disinformation Around the Globe: How Politicians Deceive
Their Citizens (pp. 75-88). (Routledge studies in media, communications, and politics; Vol.
32). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781032632940-7

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Download date:28 nov 2024

5 Populist disinformation
Mapping the discursive connections between
online populism and disinformation in the
US1
Michael Hameleers

Introduction
The rapid dissemination of mis- and disinformation through digital media and
the rise of populist movements have both been regarded as key threats to con-
temporary democracy. To date, populism and mis- and disinformation have been
studied within separate research fields. However, there is a strong conceptual
affinity between these concepts (e.g., Waisbord, 2018). First, populism’s antago-
nistic worldview that frames a divide between ordinary people and corrupt elites
may also apply to a cleavage between honest people and lying elites accused
of spreading disinformation. Second, populism forwards negativity, conflict,
and incivility whilst foregrounding ordinary people’s feelings and experiences.
Such people-centric expressions of knowledge and experiences are juxtaposed
to expert knowledge and empirical evidence—which are either circumvented or
attacked.
Although this does not mean that populism is the same as disinformation, or
that populists always spread falsehoods, it does indicate that the central stylis-
tic and framing elements of populism can give rise to a type of argumentation
in which people-centric experiences are preferred over expert knowledge and
empirical evidence. In addition to this specific way of constructing knowledge,
the societal consequences of populism and disinformation may be comparable,
in the sense that they both forward a strong delegitimising message. By attribut-
ing blame to the alleged ‘corrupt’ or self-interested elites whilst emphasising the
centrality of ordinary people, populist communication may create strong societal
cleavages. Specifically, the in-group of deprived people is framed in opposi-
tion to dishonest, lying, and corrupt out-groups that are said to harm the people
(Hameleers et al., 2017; Müller et al., 2017). But why would people accept such
information?
Extant research on the political consequences of mis- and disinformation
posits that people have a tendency to accept information that aligns with their
partisan lenses, whereas they avoid or counterargue messages that attack or

DOI: 10.4324/9781032632940-7
This chapter has been made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND license.
76 Michael Hameleers

oppose their identities (Thorson, 2016). As a result of such defensive motiva-

tions, polarisation between ‘us and them’ may be amplified, potentially trapping
people in fact-free populist echo chambers that resonate with their worldviews,
irrespective of their veracity. In this chapter, we extend the conceptualisation
of the interconnectedness of populism and disinformation beyond their shared
political consequences by focusing on two central connections between these
concepts: (1) blaming the media or other elite institutions as part of a populist
communication strategy, and (2) populist disinformation as a discursive con-
struction of fact-free, anti-elitist, and people-centric discourse in which conflict
and negativity trump factually accurate and rational exchanges.
We rely on a qualitative content analysis of social media data collected in the
US to empirically explore how these two relationships are constructed online.
The main research questions guiding this endeavour are: (1) How are the media
and journalists or other knowledge institutions blamed for being dishonest and
inaccurate?; and (2) How are populist expressions reflecting a discourse that
circumvents empirical knowledge and expert analyses? As these two relation-
ships may be expressed by both populist politicians and disenchanted ordinary
citizens (e.g., Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019), the qualitative analysis focuses on
both the direct communication of a radical right-wing populist (Donald Trump)
and the constructions of reality by ordinary citizens expressing their views on
Facebook as an ‘imagined community’ of distrust and disenchantment. Taken
together, this chapter aims to offer conceptual and empirical evidence of the two
ways in which populism and disinformation are connected—both in terms of a
blame-shifting label and the discursive construction of reality.

Theory
Populist communication connected to the attribution of blame to the media
Populism essentially cultivates a central opposition in politics and society.
Specifically, the ordinary people are pitted against the ‘corrupt’ elites deemed
responsible for the problems experienced by the people (e.g., Canovan, 1999;
Mudde, 2004). Considering that populist ideas articulate that the ordinary people
are not represented by the ‘corrupt’ and self-interested elites, populism strongly
relates to attributions of blame (Hameleers et al., 2017). More specifically, hard-
ships and crises experienced by the ordinary people are said to be caused by
elites that are allegedly unwilling and unable to represent their ‘own’ people.
Thus, populism essentially blames the elites—who can be politicians, corpo-
rations, media elites, or supra-national institutions—for causing the negative
developments that are experienced by the silenced and powerless people.
To date, empirical research has explored how populist communication is con-
structed on ungated online media settings (e.g., Ernst et al., 2019; Schmuck &
Hameleers, 2019; Waisbord & Amado, 2017). Yet, we lack studies that induc-
tively explore how populism is constructed and which discursive elements are
 Populist disinformation 77

central to the construction of the divide between ‘us’ and ‘them’ (but see e.g.,
Engesser et al., 2017; Hameleers, 2019). To move forward with this, the current
chapter aims to explore how the central building blocks of populist discourse
are constructed by politicians and citizens, and how these constructions reflect
disinformation or misinformation as both a label and a style of communication
(see Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019, for a distinction between disinformation as
genre and label).
Misinformation can basically be understood as the spread of inaccurate or
false information disseminated without the intention to mislead (e.g., Nyhan &
Reifler, 2010; Wardle, 2017). Disinformation, in contrast, can be defined as the
goal-directed and deceptive use of false or fabricated information in order to
achieve profit or cause harm to individuals, groups, or democracy at large (e.g.,
Marwick & Lewis, 2017; Wardle, 2017). Although mis- and disinformation are
not the same as populist communication, we can identify a discursive connection
between both concepts. This connection applies both to the targets of populism’s
blame attribution (i.e., the fake news media) and the style of communicating
populist discourse (i.e., circumventing experts and empirical knowledge).
This relationship can, first of all, be understood as a blame-shifting tactic,
in which anti-media sentiments are expressed (also see e.g., Krämer, 2017). In
line with this, populist ideas can regard the established media outlets as part
of the ‘corrupt’ establishment that is far removed from the people’s experi-
ences. Populism’s blame attribution strategy may thus apply to the attribution
of causal responsibility to the established media and journalists, and therefore
cultivates an epistemic blame attribution that delegitimises established knowl-
edge. Therefore, we first identify a relationship between populist rhetoric and
attributions of mis- and disinformation: next to shifting blame to political elites,
populist communication can shift blame to the established press or media elites
for not representing the ordinary people’s worldview (misinformation) or for
deliberately lying to them (disinformation).
Hence, populist ideas can regard elite actors as part of a lying or dishonest
enemy that does not represent the people’s truth. In line with this, established
media, journalists, and other elites that are responsible for disseminating knowl-
edge are delegitimised as part of populism’s blame-shifting label. In line with
this conceptualisation of the populism-disinformation relationship, this article
aims to understand how politicians in the US and ‘ordinary’ people use social
network sites to express populist boundaries that blame the media for the peo-
ple’s problems. Here, we are mostly interested in how radical-right wing popu-
list actors, such as former president Trump in the US, who have theoretically
been associated with the spread of disinformation (e.g., Ross & Rivers, 2018),
attribute blame to the media by accusing them of disinformation. However, it
still remains an open question if, and if so, how, the affinity between the idea-
tional core of populism and discourses of (un)truthfulness or the radical right-
wing component is the driving force of attributions of blame to the media. For
78 Michael Hameleers

this reason, we will contrast one most likely case of media scapegoating and fake
news accusations (Trump) against other cases (left-wing populists and main-
stream politicians).
In this chapter, a ‘mostly likely’ case of polarising disinformation accusa-
tions was chosen. Hence, the high levels of polarisation, fragmentation, and
populism—combined with low trust in established institutions—make the
US a vulnerable disinformation case (Humprecht et al., 2020). As fake news
accusations may abound in a context of polarisation, fragmentation, and low
trust in established information sources, we consider the US a relevant case
for understanding the discursive relationship between populism and disinfor-
mation. Especially Trump’s communication can be regarded as a stereotypical
case of media delegitimisation that aligns with a radical right-wing populist
framing of reality (e.g., Bhat & Chadha, 2020). With regards to the assumed
relationship between populism and accusations of disinformation, we pose the
following research questions: How are delegitimising references to the media
as a scapegoat for the people’s problems constructed in social media content
communicated by Trump (RQ1) and comments expressed by citizens (RQ2)?
Considering that politicians are more likely to communicate political ideas
via Twitter and citizens more likely to express themselves via Facebook (e.g.,
Vosoughi et al., 2018), we focus on different platforms for politicians’ and citi-
zens’ discourses.

Populist disinformation as a style of fact-free communication

Next to the blame-shifting relationship, this chapter considers the affinity
between the framing of populism and the stylistic elements featured in disin-
formation campaigns. Hence, the second connection between populism and
communicative untruthfulness conceptualised in this chapter—populist mis- or
disinformation—describes the connection or discursive affinity between pop-
ulist styles of communication and the expression of fact-free sentiments that
circumvent, delegitimise, reject, and attack sources of expert knowledge and
empirical evidence. But what populist styles may align with the communication
of mis- and disinformation as false information?
Populist communication has been referred to as people-centric, conflict-
focused, emotionalised (i.e., through anger and fear expressed toward the out-
group), and based on common sense and gut feelings rather than rationality (Ernst
et al., 2019; Hameleers et al., 2017; Schmuck & Hameleers, 2019). Such styles
may also be present in disinformation, which often contains a delegitimizing
and emotionalised narrative that targets established sources of information (e.g.,
Hameleers, 2022). Extending this argument, this chapter forwards the argument
that the circumvention or attack of empirical evidence and expert-based analyses
and knowledge may align with a style of argumentation that relies on people-
centric experiences, feelings, and opinions instead of verified information.
 Populist disinformation 79

Taking into account that populism, especially when expressed in online set-
tings, shares a similar communication strategy (e.g., Aalberg et al., 2017; Jagers
& Walgrave, 2007; Krämer, 2014), the second relationship between disinfor-
mation and populism is regarded as a discursive affinity between the construc-
tions of reality through both populist and disinformation narratives. This stylistic
affinity revolves around an emphasis on people-centric experiences over empiri-
cal evidence and expert knowledge. Although this does not imply that infor-
mation without expert knowledge and empirical evidence references is always
false, or that information with such references is always true, it does connect to
a type of communication that deviates from journalistic principles that strive for
the truth (Waisbord, 2018). The people’s opinions, feelings, and experiences are
less susceptible to verification and scrutiny than information presented as empir-
ical evidence. Hence, they may not be subject to scrutiny as the true experiences
of the people should always be central in political decision-making according to
the populist master frame.
Building further on this discursive affinity between populist styles and dis-
information narratives, the second research question of this chapter explores if,
and if so, how, populist communication aligns with a communication tactic that
avoids verified empirical evidence and experts whilst prioritising conflict, emo-
tions, and people’s experiences. The corresponding research question reads as
follows: How are online populist expressions communicated by Trump (RQ3)
and ordinary citizens in the US (RQ4) reflecting the circumvention or attack of
elitist knowledge and empirical evidence whilst prioritising experiences, con-
flict, and people-centrism as the focal point of reality?

Method
The four research questions are answered through a qualitative analysis of social
media content in the US. Specifically, for this chapter, the direct communication
of Trump and other US politicians on Twitter and the communication of ordi-
nary citizens on Facebook was scraped and analysed discursively. These social
media channels were chosen for different reasons. Centrally, the affordances
perspective was used to contrast people-centric communication on Facebook
with politicians’ communication on Twitter. This perspective entails that dif-
ferent social media channels may respond to and empower different needs for
communication, interaction, and sharing (e.g., Valenzuela et al., 2018). Twitter
is mostly used to acquire novel information and can be used as a one-directional
communication channel for political actors and other elite communicators. More
specifically, followers receive updates from connections that are not necessarily
reciprocal connections or ‘friends’. Politicians frequently use (or have used in
the past) Twitter as this channel enables them to reach a large number of follow-
ers, with whom they do not have to be connected. Moreover, social media chan-
nels such as Twitter allow politicians to circumvent the gatekeeping functions
80 Michael Hameleers

and higher thresholds of established media and journalism, for which access is
restricted or mediated.
Communication among ordinary citizens or members of the public on
Facebook is more likely to be guided by strong-tie networks (e.g., Valenzuela
et al., 2018). People mostly know each other, and connections are mutual on
Facebook. In addition, Facebook interactions among citizens typically allow
for richer and more detailed discussions and less elitist interactions than the
response sections offered by Twitter. Based on these different uses connected to
Twitter and Facebook, data from politicians’ Twitter accounts in the US were
scraped. Here, the qualitative analysis focused on Donald Trump as a stereo-
typical right-wing populist actor who is known to communicate hostile blame
attributions to the media. The analysis was conducted at the time that Trump was
president of the US with access to Twitter.
To further explore whether populist delegitimisations, anti-media senti-
ments, and the proposed relationships between disinformation and populism are
essentially part of a radical right-wing populist phenomenon, Trump’s Twitter
communication was contrasted with the direct communication of the left-wing
populist actor Bernie Sanders and a mainstream politician with a different politi-
cal affinity (Hillary Clinton). The key aim of the case selection procedures was
to explore and empirically map the theoretical premise that populist disinforma-
tion mainly pertains to the radical right-wing of the political spectrum and there-
fore is less salient in the communication of other political actors.
For the sample of Facebook communities used by ordinary citizens in the US
to vent their disenchantment and populist attitudes, a most-likely strategy for the
selection of cases was also employed: publicly accessible online communities
revolving around the celebration of ordinary citizens and native people, whilst
providing a forum for anti-elitist communication, were used to get inductive
insights into the construction of populist disinformation by the ordinary people
themselves.
The sample frame reflected a key electoral event in the US in order to map the
antagonist and conflict-oriented discourse associated with populist disinforma-
tion: the presidential elections in the US. This event took place on November
8, 2016. In this setting, the four months of Twitter activity selected as relevant
for a rich and thick analysis of content yielded 1,153 tweets by Donald Trump
(excluding non-relevant entries and retweets). This sample was extended with
603 tweets posted by Bernie Sanders and 405 tweets from Hillary Clinton.
To contrast this Twitter communication with the Facebook communication
of ordinary citizens publishing their ideas in online communities, we focused
on exactly the same time period. Here, two publicly accessible Facebook com-
munity pages that reflected radical-right wing issue positions were sampled. As
they typically reflect hostility, people-centrism, and anti-establishment commu-
nication, authoritarian Facebook pages were sampled (one patriotist commu-
nity page and one nativist page were selected). The sampling strategy consisted
 Populist disinformation 81

of two stages or ‘layers’ of selection: original posts on communities as well

as replies that included engagement with these posts were selected in order to
maintain narrative constructions of ordinary citizens co-constructing meaning
online. Based on principles of maximum variation and saturation (e.g., Braun &
Clarke, 2013; Glaser & Strauss, 1967), a small sample of ten original posts in
each community was found to be sufficient for saturation (meaning that an addi-
tional sample of new posts did not yield additional findings). For every post, the
first ten replies were selected (ordered by date). In total, 20 posts and 234 replies
were analysed. To contrast these most likely community pages to negative cases,
we added one left-wing community page that reflected an anti-corporation per-
spective, whilst articulating a more inclusive understanding of the people (which
is in contrast to the authoritarian emphasis of the radical right-wing pages).
The posts and/or responses were analysed at the level of tweets, Facebook
posts, or replies. The Grounded Theory approach was used to analyse the data
in a step-by-step approach (Braun & Clarke, 2013; Charmaz, 2006; Glaser &
Strauss, 1967). The coding process was selective in the sense that only excerpts
that were relevant in light of the research questions were coded. First of all, open
coding was applied to label segments of tweets, Facebook posts, and responses
in light of the sensitising concepts that offered the building blocks of the four
research questions (i.e., discursive constructions of truth, fake, misinformation,
disinformation, populism). Furthermore, we looked at the type of argumentation
used to make claims about reality: was empirical research quoted? Were expert
analyses referred to? Did the politician or citizen refer to experiences and com-
mon sense as argumentation/evidence for their issue positions?
During the second step of focused coding, this extensive list of codes (500+)
was reduced by merging unique open codes, reformulating codes to higher levels
of abstraction, and raising codes to categories. Codes were grouped and ordered
based on their variety. In this process, piles of codes related to the construction
of truth, the attribution of blame to (mainstream) media, falsehoods, and pop-
ulism were made. These groups were used when conceptualising dimensions
that captured variety in the concepts of interest. Finally, during the step of axial
coding, connections between these groups were made. All in all, the analysis was
focused on mapping how the two theoretically proposed relationships between
populism and disinformation in the online setting were shaped discursively.
Thus, how was populist disinformation presented as a blame-shifting label ver-
sus a style that attacked, circumvented, or delegitimized expert knowledge and
empirical evidence? Although it can be noted that content was selected based
on the dependent variable, considering that communication with a high likeli-
hood to contain populism and disinformation was included, the analysis does
not strive toward representativeness or an assessment of the relative dominance
of populist disinformation. Rather, the focus on most likely cases of the targeted
expressions was intended to map—as rich and detailed as possible—the differ-
ent ways in which populism and disinformation are entangled discursively.
82 Michael Hameleers

Results
The Divide between honest people and lying ledia

Trump often used Twitter to scapegoat the traditional press for withholding
the truth from ordinary people. The media, and mainstream media in particu-
lar, were blamed for spreading lies that deprived the people of the truth. This
can be exemplified by the following Tweet containing an anti-media sentiment
expressed by Trump: “Not only does the media give a platform to hate groups,
but the media turns a blind eye to the gang violence on our streets!” . Even more
explicitly, Trump actively referred to a number of media channels he regarded
as part of the so-called ‘fake news’ media—allegedly the greatest enemy of the
American people: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews,
@ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American
People!” References to the “danger to our country” or “the American people”
explicate the discursive linkage between blame attributed to the media and
populist communication that expresses a central divide between ordinary native
citizens and the corrupt or dangerous out-groups responsible for the people’s
deprivation. In line with this, Trump expressed that because the media are not
reporting accurately on the facts that happened, and as they deliberately distort
the truth, the native people are threatened severely.
Trump further emphasised that the media’s dishonesty and inaccurate report-
ing are goal-directed and deliberate: “FAKE NEWS media knowingly doesn’t
tell the truth. A great danger to our country. The failing @nytimes has become
a joke. Likewise @CNN. Sad!” These accusations of disinformation further
point to an alleged political goal or hidden agenda of the news media: “Crooked
Hillary colluded w/FBI and DOJ and media is covering up to protect her. It’s a
#RiggedSystem! Our country deserves better!” Trump blamed different alleg-
edly ‘biased’ news outlets for disproportionately supporting Democrats, support-
ing the idea that Trump blamed the media for being hostile against his party. In
this reading, these opposed media outlets are referred to as propaganda machines
that promote and uncritically disseminate the political agenda of the Democrats
whilst disregarding, attacking, or strategically neglecting the Republicans.
The references of Trump to established media also reveal the discursive fram-
ing of an alleged “climate of dishonesty and disinformation” as a key threat to
the native ordinary people. Trump specifically used adjectives such as dishonest,
rigged, dirty, crooked, and fake to denote that the media are an enemy of the
people. Contrasting this fake news label and disinformation accusation central
to Trump’s communication with other political actors, it can be confirmed that
hostile media sentiments and accusations of disinformation do not spill over to
left-wing populists or the mainstream. Thus, Bernie Sanders did not voice hos-
tile media sentiments. Specifically, disinformation, fake news, or related accusa-
tions were not addressed to the established press or other sources of information.
The discourses of (un)truthfulness voiced by him did emphasise an antagonism
 Populist disinformation 83

between the people’s reality and the lies spread by his political opponent Trump
(at least in the pre-election period). In the pre- and post-election periods, Clinton
also did not explicitly engage in discourses of (un)truthfulness, although her
partisan communication blamed Trump for being dishonest and inaccurate in his
depiction of reality.

A populist conception of truth: ordinary people are honest

To answer the second research question, we looked at the affinity between popu-
list constructions of knowledge and truths and disinformation discourses. In the
direct Twitter communication of Trump, expert analyses and empirical evidence
are oftentimes neglected and discredited, whereas ordinary people are regarded
as the most reliable source of honest and accurate information. This type of evi-
dence that prioritises common sense and ordinary people was used to interpret
many different issues, for example, the (failing) expenditures of the government.
Trump frequently made delegitimising claims without any references to evi-
dence, statistics, numbers, or expert opinion.
More specifically, as illustrated by the following quote, Trump actively
defended the political agenda he pursues as the agenda governed by the common
sense of the American people: “Our agenda is NOT a partisan agenda—it is the
mainstream, common sense agenda of the American People”. Moreover, Trump
explicitly referred to “facts” and “the truth” without contextualising such claims
with empirical evidence to support these truths.
In these references to the truth and the centrality of ordinary people’s real-
ity, the two types of relationships—accusations of disinformation and a populist
framing of truth and reality—oftentimes co-occurred in single interpretations.
As Trump tweeted in 2018: The Fake News hates me saying that they are the
Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE. I am providing a great
service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great
division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!
Foregrounding the people’s honest and pure truth was not just a right-wing
populist idea communicated by Trump. The left-wing populist actor Bernie
Sanders also emphasised that ordinary people are right, whereas elitist outsiders
(i.e., corporations) are breaking their promises by lying to the people. This can be
illustrated by the following Tweet in 2016: “Time and again Native Americans
have seen the government break solemn promises and corporations put profits
ahead of their sovereign rights”.
Importantly, Trump’s populist disinformation narrative often contained
blame attributions and hostile claims without offering expert knowledge and
empirical evidence. Hence, when blaming experts and the media, Trump did not
offer evidence to illustrate why they were wrong, and rather referred to common
sense and his own observations to back up delegitimising labels: The so-called
experts on Trump over at the New York Times wrote a long and boring article
84 Michael Hameleers

on my cellphone usage that is so incorrect I do not have time here to correct it. I
only use Government Phones, and have only one seldom used government cell
phone. Story is soooo wrong!

Facebook users’ construction of honest ‘Us’ versus dishonest ‘Them’

The two relationships between populism and disinformation under study—the

blame-shifting label and the discursive construction of reality—were also iden-
tified in the reality constructions of US Facebook users who were part of anti-
elite communities. Here, we will mostly pay attention to the main differences
between the themes already identified in Trump’s tweets and the Facebook posts
of citizens. First of all, Facebook users sharing their disenchantment made a
less clear distinction between trustworthy versus corrupt media outlets. Ordinary
citizens frequently lumped the media, opposed partisans, and governmental
institutions together as an elitist outsider that did not comprehend the people’s
reality. As one member of a Facebook community explained: “Those that are
white getting in trouble for hate (racist) crimes and yet the far left communist
Democrat controlled media never seem to report these hate crimes against the
whites” (Facebook user, February 15, 2017).
Based on the analysis of the Facebook posts, we can conclude that the epis-
temic and moral boundary between the innocent and honest ordinary people
and the lying elites was more salient than reflected in the direct communication
of the radical right-wing populist leader. Similar to the political discourse on
Twitter, however, people referred to their understandings of a universal reality
or one truth without using empirical evidence or facts: “That’s the truth. People
with jobs don’t vote Democrat unless they just don’t understand what goes on in
this world” (Facebook user, April 6, 2017).
If we contrast these reality constructions to the reality expressions salient on
the left-wing Facebook community page, we can conclude that people-centrism
and a focus on the common sense of ordinary people are salient themes on these
community pages as well. On these pages, the reality constructions and lies of
corporate and political elites are contrasted to ordinary people’s experiences.
Here, we see a left-wing populist construction in which the hardworking ordi-
nary citizen is juxtaposed to the self-interested elites. Media critique is salient
here as well, but it takes on less hostile and uncivil forms. Although the hostile
media critique on the right-wing populist pages may be considered as accusa-
tions of disinformation or fake news—as an intentional attribution of decep-
tion and misleading information is expressed—the left-wing pages more closely
reflected attributions of misinformation.
Thus, although media critique may be a universal theme and a central element
of Facebook pages that reflect more people oriented and critical views on poli-
tics, only radical right-wing pages strongly reflected the discursive relationships
between populism and disinformation. Hence, the affinity between populism and
 Populist disinformation 85

the ‘fake news label’ (e.g., Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019) is a more defining char-
acteristic of radical right-wing and authoritarian online communities.

Discussion and conclusion

In current digital societies, the spread of dishonest or inaccurate information
may have far-reaching political consequences (van Aelst et al., 2017). Online,
the epistemic and universal status of factual information increasingly becomes
the focal point of heated debates, and people’s acceptance of information may
be driven by defensive and consistency motivations rather than the motivation
to reach the most accurate decisions (e.g., Nyhan & Reifler, 2010). At the same
time, populist movements are popular and influential online (e.g., Engesser et
al., 2017), and increasingly take centre stage in the epistemic and post-factual
debates by delegitimising elitist or established understandings of a factual real-
ity—further contributing to the erosion of a shared belief and trust in science,
empirical evidence, and expert knowledge. Amidst this epistemic crisis, this
chapter sought to conceptually and empirically identify the affinity between dis-
information narratives and populist discourse.
Against this backdrop, this chapter has proposed a two-sided relationship
between populism and mis- and disinformation: (1) the attribution of mis- and
disinformation to the (media) elites; and (2) populist disinformation as a com-
munication style that may circumvent empirical evidence and expert analysis,
whilst placing common sense and ordinary people at the centre stage of reality.
Based on the qualitative analyses reported in this paper, we found that Trump
in the US expressed a populist boundary between the dishonest, inaccurate, and
fake media and ordinary native people who were victimized by the media’s
dishonesty. These attributions can be seen as accusations of disinformation:
the media were accused of deliberately distorting reality to promote their own
biased political agendas.
Supporting the theoretical premise that populist discourse is often devoid
of empirical facts, expert knowledge, or a rational foundation (e.g., Waisbord,
2018), Trump’s anti-media discourse clearly avoided expert knowledge, sta-
tistics, verifiable facts, or evidence, and relied on common sense and the peo-
ple’s truth as evidence for the populist claims made. In that sense, a clear
evidence-driven foundation for fake news accusations was often missing.
There was little room for balance or opposing viewpoints, and the populist
discourse was generally one-sided and presented as the only reality opposed to
the fake news presented by opposing politicians and media sources. However,
this does not mean that references to experts and evidence were absent in all
accusations and delegitimising narratives. In line with the ideas of epistemic
populism, alternative sources of expertise that resonated with partisan claims
were used to legitimise accusations at times (see, e.g., Saurette & Gunster,
2011). Although these ‘experts’ and sources of evidence are not featured in
86 Michael Hameleers

legacy media or conventional knowledge disseminators, such references can

be used to enhance the legitimacy of delegitimising claims (also see Peck,
2019 on ‘Fox Populism’).
One central implication of these findings is that social network sites such as
Twitter provide (populist) politicians with a platform to express delegitimising
discourse that is devoid of a fact-based narrative. This may eventually increase
polarised divides in society, and raise levels of political distrust and cynicism
among the electorate (Marwick & Lewis, 2017). Explicit attacks targeted at the
news media were only found on the radical-right and did not spill over to the
communication tactics of left-wing populists or mainstream politicians. Left-
wing populists may, however, emphasise people’s centrality and attributed
dishonesty to their political rivals and the (corporate) establishment. Hence, dis-
courses of untruthfulness can be connected to populism in general, whereas the
explicit reliance on common sense and emotions as the focal point of reality and
blame attribution to the ‘lying’ established press is a communication tactic of
radical right-wing populists in particular.
But how is populist disinformation constructed by ordinary citizens online?
The qualitative content analysis of citizens’ discourse on Facebook largely
confirms the findings of the politicians’ discourse, pointing to a clear link
between populist interpretations expressed by right-wing populists and disen-
chanted or nativist ordinary citizens. The difference mainly revolves around
the type of moral and epistemic cleavage emphasised by the public. More spe-
cifically, citizens communicating in certain Facebook communities referred to
the political and media elites as a larger enemy threatening ordinary people,
whereas Trump articulated a more fine-grained distinction between the fake
news media and politicians of the opposing party. The analysis of the nega-
tive cases—left-wing-orientated Facebook community pages—revealed that
emphasising the people’s truth is not restricted to radical right-wing populist
interpretations. However, media critique was less hostile and focused more on
unintended false information (misinformation) than intentional deception (dis-
information). These findings indicate that citizens communicating their politi-
cal perspectives on different platforms do distinguish between attributions of
mis- and disinformation.
There are important avenues for future research on this topic. Future research
may extend the analysis to different platforms (i.e., including commentary
sections of mainstream outlets) and political actors (i.e., a clearer distinction
between populist and mainstream actors may be relevant). Second, the qualita-
tive and inductive findings presented in this article offer some important insights
into how populist disinformation manifests itself online, but may be extended
with (automated) content analytic research that also provides insights into the
relative salience of, and relationships between, different forms of populist senti-
ments targeted at the media.
 Populist disinformation 87

Note
1 This is a revised and updated version of the following open access publication:
Hameleers, M. (2020). Populist disinformation: Exploring intersections between
online populism and disinformation in the US and the Netherlands. Politics and
Governance, 8(1), 146–157.

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