Call for Papers for a Special Issue of Information, Communication & Society “Populist Online Communication” Guest‐Edited by Sven Engesser, Nayla Fawzi, and Anders Olof Larsson Populism is on the rise. It has recently been associated with right‐wing parties in Europe, left‐wing governments in Latin America, US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte and many other political actors. All these actors have in common that they operate within democratic systems (in contrast to extremists) but put important elements of liberal democracy into question, such as the separation of power and a pluralist society. In relation to this, there is an ongoing scientific discussion about what exactly makes them populist. Indeed, populism can be conceived as ideology, communication style, or politi‐ cal strategy. Most scholars agree that advocacy for the people and attacks on the elite are constitu‐ tive elements of populism, but opinions differ if elements like the exclusion of others, the emergence of a charismatic leader, or the occurrence of a politic al crisis are of equal importance. Nevertheless, there is a broad consensus that the media play an important role in the transmission, attenuation, and amplification of populist messages. There has been a multitude of studies on popu‐ lism in party manifestos, political speeches, the press, and TV broadcasts. However, there has been much less research on populism in the online world. This is surprising because online mass media have been said to be more user‐oriented than their offline counterparts which may also imply an in‐ creased susceptibility to populist messages. It has also been argued that populist actors seek the most direct linkage to the people and are thus inclined to use social media. Against this backdrop, this special issue is dedicated to state‐of‐the‐art research on populist online communication. We invite scholars from all regions of the world and from a broad range of disci‐ plines. The issue aims at gathering profound theoretical analyses and sound empirical studies (prefer‐ ably combinations of both). We are interested in manuscripts that deal with online mass media but also with social media and other online outlets. We hope to cover the production, content, and ef‐ fects of populist online messages by focusing on political actors, journalists, and users. All manuscripts have to be submitted through Scholar One and will be subjected to rigorous peer re‐ view. The submissions also have to comply to the general guidelines of Information, Communication & Society (iCS) and to be marked as contributions to this special issue in the submission form. For manuscripts that pass the peer‐review process and cannot be included in the special issue due to lim‐ ited space there is the option to be published in a regular issue of iCS. We envisage the following schedule: Deadline for submissions: 30 November 2016 Conclusion of the review process: 31 March 2017 Publication online: May 2017 Publication in hard copy: June 2017 Early submissions are highly encouraged. For questions, please feel free to contact Sven Engesser from the University of Zurich (
[email protected])
