The Reinvention Of Populist Rhetoric In The Digital Age

This highly original work considers the rhetoric of political actors and commentators who identify digital media as the means to a new era of politics and democracy. Placing this rhetoric in a historical and intellectual context, it provides a compelling explanation of the reinvention and thematic recurrence of democratic discourse. The author investigates the populist sources of rhetoric used by digital politics enthusiasts as outsiders inaugurating new eras of democracy with digital media, such as Barack Obama and Julian Assange, and explores the generations of rhetorical and political history behind them. The book places their rhetoric in the context of the permanent tensions between insiders and outsiders, between the political class and the populace, which are inherent to representative democracy. Through a theoretical and conceptual research that is historically grounded and comparative, it offers rhetorical analysis of candidates for the 2016 presidential election and discusses digital democracy, particularly discussing their origins in American populism and their influence on other countries through Americanization. Uniquely, it offers a sceptical assessment of epochal claims and a historical-rhetorical account of two of the defining figures of twentieth-century politics to date, and reveals how modern rhetoric is grounded in an older form of anti-politics and mobilises tropes that are as old as representative democracy itself.

The Rhetoric of Donald Trump identifies and analyzes the nationalist and populist themes that dominate the rhetoric of President Trump and links those themes to a persona that has evolved from celebrity outsider to presidential strongman. In the process Robert C. Rowland explains how the nationalist populism and strongman persona in turn demands a vernacular rhetorical style unlike any previous modern president—a style that makes no attempt to lay out a case, requires constant lies, and breaks every norm for how a presidential candidate or president should talk. In stark contrast, our most effective presidents have used rhetoric to present a positive vision of what the nation could achieve. The three most effective presidential uses of rhetoric in the past century—FDR, Reagan, and Obama—all presented a coherent ideological message that, while focused on problems of the moment, was also rooted in a fundamental optimism. In contrast, Trump’s message is fundamentally negative. The Rhetoric of Donald Trump explores how the nation could so abruptly shift from a president such as Barack Obama, who emphasized the audacity of hope, to one who in his inaugural address spoke about “American carnage.” At its core, Trump’s message is well designed to appeal to voters with an authoritarian personality structure, especially in the white working-class, who feel threatened by the pace of societal change, especially demographic change. Rowland’s work illustrates how President Trump’s ceremonial speeches violate norms calling for a message of national unity and instead present a divisive message designed to create strongly negative emotions, especially fear and hate. It further reveals how Trump sustains those strong visceral reactions with his use of Twitter to make the rally atmosphere a daily reality for his supporters, a prime example being the Coronavirus Task Force briefings, which he transformed from an exercise in desperately needed public health education into a partisan rally. The Rhetoric of Donald Trump is essential reading for scholars, students, and the informed citizen to understand how Trump’s rhetoric of nationalist populism with a strongman persona undermines basic principles at the heart of American democracy.

Written by leading scholars of political communication, this book provides a comprehensive accounting of the campaign communication that characterized the unprecedented 2016 presidential campaign. The political events leading up to election day on November 8, 2016, involved unprecedented events in U.S. history: Hillary Clinton was the first woman to be nominated by a major party, and she was favored to win the highest seat in the nation. Donald Trump, arguably one of the most unconventional and most-unlikely-to-succeed candidates in U.S. history, became the leading candidate against Clinton. Then, an even more surprising thing happened: Trump won, an outcome unexpected by all experts and statistical models. An Unprecedented Election: Media, Communication, and the Electorate in the 2016 Campaign presents proprietary research conducted by a national election team and leading scholars in political communication and documents the most significant-and in some cases, the most shocking-features of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The information presented in this book is derived from national surveys, experiments, and textual analysis and helps readers grasp the truly unique characteristics of this campaign that make it unlike any other in U.S. history. The chapters explain the underlying dynamics of this astonishing election by assessing the important role of both traditional and social media, the evolving (and potentially diminishing) influence of televised campaign advertisements, the various implications of three historic presidential debates, and the contextual significance of convention addresses. Readers will come away with an appreciation of the content and effects of the campaign communication and media coverage as well as the unique attributes of the electorate that ultimately selected Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States.

This book explores the most important aspects of populism as a significant social phenomenon. It recapitulates the approaches to defining populism in the social sciences, singles out the most important concepts in the definition of populism, and presents them to the readership. Specific to this book is that it seeks to promote an approach that sees populism as a meta-ideology, that is, an ideology that uses other political ideologies instrumentally. In addition, the book Populism as Meta Ideology identifies the most important factors that have contributed to the growth of populism in recent times. Modernization, globalization, the crisis of political parties, and the transformation of the public sphere have been identified as such factors. A chapter is devoted to each of these factors in the book. The book concludes by examining the interaction between populism and liberal democracy, both theoretically and practically.

This book adopts a critical youth studies approach and theorizes the digital as a key feature of the everyday to analyse how ideas about youth and cyber-safety, digital inclusion and citizenship are mobilized. Despite a growing interest in the benefits and opportunities for young people online, both ‘young people’ and ‘the digital’ continue to be constructed primarily as sites of social and cultural anxiety requiring containment and control. Juxtaposing public policy, popular educational and parental framings of young people’s digital practices with the insights from fieldwork conducted with young Australians aged 12–25, the book highlights the generative possibilities of attending to intergenerational tensions. In doing so, the authors show how a shift beyond the paradigm of control opens up towards a deeper understanding of the capacities that are generated in and through digital life for young and old alike. Young People in Digital Society will be of interest to scholars and students in youth studies, cultural studies, sociology, education, and media and communications.

This proceedings book reflects the alternative way of development of the modern global economic system. It sets evolutionary development in opposition to revolutionary leap. The search for the best way to develop the world economy in the present and future is carried out. The social environment and the human-centered development of the modern global economic system have been explored. The features of training of personnel for the modern global economic system through the development of vocational education and training have been studied. Sustainable development, energy and food security have been identified as significant milestones of the progress of the modern global economic system. Innovations and digital technologies have been suggested as the drivers of growth and development of the modern global economic system. Consideration has been given to the institutional framework and legal groundwork for the development of the modern global economic system. The fundamentals have been identified and recommendations have been put forward for improving governmental regulation, financial and capital investment support for integration in the modern global economic system. The book includes the best works based on the results of the 22nd International Research-to-Practice Conference “Current Issues of the Global Economy” which was held on June 19, 2020, at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (PFUR) (Moscow, Russia) and the 14th National Research-to-Practice Conference “A New Paradigm of Social and Economic Development in the Age of Intelligent Machines,” which was held on May 14–16, 2020 (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia), VIII International Research-to-Practice Conference “Multipolar Globalization and Russia,” which was held on May 21–23, 2020 (Rostov-on-Don, Russia), III All-Russian Research-to-Practice Conference “Power, Business, and Education: The Ascent to Man,” which was held on May 21–22, 2020 (Krasnoyarsk, Russia), International Research-to-Practice Conference “Current Issues and Ways of Industrial Development: Engineering and Technologies,” which was held from September 28, 2020, till October 1, 2020 (Komsomolsk-on-Amur), and the 15th National Research-to-Practice Conference “New Models of Behavior of Market Players in the Conditions of Digital Economy,” which was held on October 29–30, 2020, at Ufa State Oil Technical University, Institute of Economics and Service (Ufa, Russia). The target audience of the book consists of scholars studying the features of development of the global economic system at the present stage and the prospects for its future progress.

Tamás Nyirkos provides a timely and essential reassessment of the concept of the "tyranny of the majority" for the study of democracy today. The analysis is divided into three parts: the first discusses the "prehistory" of majority tyranny; the second reviews the elements of the "standard theory" in the modern era; while the third deals with the current "postmodern" challenges to the prevailing order of liberal democracy. Combining different elements of theories dating from the Middle Ages to the present, Nyirkos theorizes that while the term "the tyranny of the majority" may be misleading, the threat that tyrannical governments justify themselves by reference to the majority will remain with us for the foreseeable future. He shows how some of the greatest political philosophers of the past – democrats and antidemocrats alike – shared the same fears about the majoritarian principle. The Tyranny of the Majority will offer all those who read it a better understanding of what is meant not only by this term, but also by related terms like democratic despotism, populism, or illiberal democracy. It will be of interest to scholars of politics and international relations, political philosophy, political theology, and intellectual history.

This book examines the multi-media explosion of contemporary political satire. Rooted in 18th century Augustan practice, satire’s indelible link with politics underlies today’s universal disgust with the ways of elected politicians. This study interrogates the impact of British and American satirical media on political life, with a special focus on political cartoons and the levelling humour of Australasian satirists.