Yang Chunlin: Technological Drivers Behind the Rise of Western Populism in the Digital Age
Since the mid-1990s, Western society has experienced a wave of rapid digitalization, a period during which populism has also risen quietly. Consequently, the connection between digital technology and populism has gradually received increased attention. Particularly in recent years, digital technology has played a critical role in typical events regarded as hallmarks of the proliferation of Western populism. For example, algorithmic recommendation technology directly influenced voting outcomes in "black swan" events such as the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s election victory; the Italian Five Star Movement, a populist party, successfully rose to power and formed a cabinet while relying entirely on online operations; during the COVID-19 pandemic, fake news and anti-science rhetoric saturating new media swayed public opinion and government decision-making; after losing the election, Trump used Twitter to directly incite his supporters to storm Capitol Hill; and mass protest movements like "Black Lives Matter" in the United States and the "Yellow Vests" in France were organized and launched almost entirely through social media. Systematically tracing the relationship between digital technology and populism can provide a technological dimension for explaining the rise of contemporary Western populism. It can also establish a conceptual framework for further observing how digital technology impacts and reshapes Western democracy, as well as for assessing future trends in Western political transformation in the digital age.
I. The Problem of Equality in the Digital Age
As an ideology, populism is "thin-centered" and "hollow"; it is chaotic and fluid, lacking the sophisticated internal consistency found in other ideologies. Nonetheless, populism is explicit in its pursuit of equality based on the construction of a binary opposition between "the people" and "the elite." Whether from the "economic-class" perspective of left-wing populism or the "identity-national" perspective of right-wing populism, the pursuit of equality is positioned as a core demand. Thomas Piketty pointed out that the intensification of inequality and the lack of democracy in the West led to populism. John Judis also argued that movements like Occupy Wall Street possessed a broad popular base and brought to the fore the core of the challenges facing neoliberalism: the issues of political and economic inequality. Therefore, tracing back to the discussion of equality is an inevitable intellectual path when considering the phenomenon of Western populism.
While the new round of technological revolution [1] has driven changes in the production and lifestyles of capitalist society, it has also recalibrated the egalitarian relations within human society in political and economic terms. This reshaping of equality has served as an underlying catalyst for the wave of Western populism. The impact of the technological revolution on the evolution of the relations of production and the superstructure of human society as a whole is comprehensive, multi-dimensional, and fundamental. Major technological revolutions always significantly elevate the level of productive forces; this not only alters the production function and generates the innovative effect of "creative destruction," but also exerts a profound and fundamental influence on social structures, geopolitics, and the balance of national power. Unlike previous technological revolutions that replaced physical labor, the digital revolution is replacing repetitive mental labor while simultaneously replacing physical labor, and is intervening more deeply in the spiritual world and cultural life of human beings. It has not only recreated production but has also manifested as a "liquid technology," providing new ways for people’s work, life, consumption, shopping, social interaction, and entertainment. It has placed new demands on political development and national governance, and issued new challenges to the global political and economic order. Against this backdrop, the complex impact of digital technology on the issue of equality urgently requires reassessment.
(1) The Information Revolution created the beautiful expectation of a "Digital Democratic Utopia"
From a global perspective, the Internet constructed a vision of a harmonious and peaceful "Global Village." Since its inception, the Internet has broken down barriers of time and space, creating a digital space that spans the world. It has greatly enhanced economic and cultural exchanges between different countries and regions, fueled the emergence of worldwide pop culture and homogenized mass-market commodities, and placed ordinary people within an international informational horizon and a global concern for destiny at all times and in all places.
From a national perspective, digital technology has brought about a new industrial revolution and a revolution in public governance. The rise of the digital economy has promoted the upgrading of traditional industries, accelerated the replacement of industrial structures, and driven overall economic development. Because of its characteristics of autonomy, openness, and sharing, the Internet is considered the most democratic invention, representing "the voice of the people" and the "victory of the grassroots." New technologies have provided new tools for the disclosure of government information and public participation in governance. Social platforms have built an immediate, equal, and open field of public opinion, allowing more people to engage in larger-scale public discussion and political participation at a lower cost.
From an organizational perspective, the essence of the media revolution is that it has changed the way people connect and organize. "Technology is a social construct; it can serve the existing system of social power, or it can facilitate changes in the organization and distribution of power." Digital social life has broken down the barriers to expression and action in past organizations; factors such as hierarchy, seniority, procedures, and professional competence have been weakened. The Internet has allowed "weak ties" based on shared interests and emotional resonance to begin replacing the "strong ties" between people in traditional society, thereby shaking the monopoly of traditional groups and institutions. This has enabled isolated and homogeneous individuals scattered in an atomized society to organize freely and spontaneously via the web. These new types of organizations lack a traditional organizational framework yet possess stronger capabilities for sharing, mutual cooperation, and collective action.
From an individual perspective, the Internet has brought more equality of opportunity between people. The Internet has greatly narrowed the information gap between individuals, enabling people to acquire knowledge and information that was previously difficult to reach in a cheap and convenient manner, thereby creating more fair opportunities at the economic and educational levels. The phenomenon of "everyone is self-media" [2] has allowed ordinary individuals to break the previous monopoly on information held by traditional media and professionals, becoming original content creators and disseminators. Furthermore, the digital economy has crossed time and space barriers to provide individuals with highly personalized ways of working, consuming, and entertaining. Even when individuals go online with virtual identities, it is easy for them to overlook real-world differences between people, giving rise to a natural sense of equality.
(2) A realistic trend toward a "Technological Despotic Leviathan" exists in cyberspace
De facto inequality exists regarding individual rights in cyberspace. Huge differences in digital rights exist between people due to factors such as place of residence, wealth, and level of education, thereby forming a digital divide. "Compared with other modes of organization and communication, networks are not more equal, democratic, open, free, intimate, unconditional, or characterized by reduced social contact."
Digital power within cyberspace moves spontaneously toward concentration and monopoly. The Internet possesses an underlying logic of self-concentration; the "winner-take-all" model repeats at every level of the network. Digital platform giants and information management departments have gradually monopolized the acquisition, storage, analysis, and use of big data. Digital power has, in fact, permeated every field—from macroscopic international relations and national governance to microscopic individual production and consumption—ultimately forming "surveillance capitalism."
The boom of digital industries has been accompanied by the decline of many other industries. Dan Schiller argues that while digital technology flourishes, it also intensifies political and economic contradictions, leading to a "digital recession" in the vast majority of industries. Technological updates and progress cause wealth and power to be redistributed between different countries and classes; technological upgrades force the resocialization or elimination of labor. While it eliminates old inequalities, it simultaneously creates new ones.
Over the past decade or so, the digital field has clearly experienced a process moving from freedom and equality toward monopoly and control. The development of digital industries has accelerated toward platformization, agglomeration, and monopolization. Digital rights between individuals have diverged significantly, the digital economy has caused the decline of certain industries and a widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the private data of almost all individuals is held by digital monopoly platforms. Big data technology has become the most important tool for public management. During this process, the problem of inequality in the digital age has become increasingly apparent. Taken together, digital space simultaneously contains the bidirectional effects of "equalization" and "inequalization," "populization" and "elitization," and "liberation" and "oppression." This dialectical movement of contradictions is the logical starting point for reflecting on how digital technology reshapes Western society and fuels the rise of populism.
II. The External Support of Digital Technology for the Rise of Populism
The digital revolution has had a profound impact on world development. New technologies play complex roles at multiple levels—economic, cultural, and political—fostering a suitable external environment for the rise of populism in the West. Research indicates that: "The result of third-generation mobile network coverage moving from zero to full coverage was an increase in support for left-wing populism by 5% and for right-wing populism by 6%."
(1) The application of digital technology has exacerbated economic inequality on a global scale
While the development of the digital economy creates immense wealth, it is also redistributing wealth and resources on a global scale and between different classes. The losers in this process include both the traditional industrial elites who have fallen behind in the new round of globalization and technological revolution, as well as the middle class and blue-collar workers impacted by production automation, industrial structural adjustment, and intensified wealth disparity. These "losers" collectively constitute the typical image of populists in Western countries.
From a macro perspective, the uneven development of digital technology among nations has become a key factor in reshaping the new global political and economic order. Advantage in digital technology is the core arena of current major-power competition; the digital economy and cybersecurity have become the primary aspects of national wealth and security. The development of digital technology is uneven; the United States holds a dominant position in chips, operating systems, search engines, e-commerce, and social platforms, and possesses clear technological advantages in information control, intelligence gathering, and network surveillance. Bolstered by the mobile internet and the Artificial Intelligence revolution, although the digital economy has flourished since 2010, the major Western economies—such as the UK, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy—have seen their 2023 GDP remain largely stagnant or even regress compared to the pre-2008 global financial crisis levels, following the successive shocks of the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Other Western countries, excluding the United States, have experienced an economic "lost 15 years." Because of this, the European Union's stance on issues such as digital sovereignty and economic globalization has become increasingly tough in recent years, and these have also become important topics for West European populist parties.
From a micro perspective, only a few benefit from the monopolistic development of digital industries. Although the digital economy driven by new technology often advertises its "sharing" nature, in reality, every technological revolution and change in the instruments of production in human history has led to an intensification of the gap between rich and poor. As Marx stated: "Machinery, gifted with the wonderful power of shortening and fructifying human labor, we behold starving and overworking it. New-fangled sources of wealth, by some strange weird spell, are turned into sources of want." Going a step further than Marx’s era, the digital revolution’s integration of various fields is more profound and its degree of unification higher. Massive amounts of data have formed a new form of capital—digital capital—where the boundaries between work and leisure, and production and consumption, become increasingly blurred, and the gap between labor income and capital income further widens. The Internet has become a tool for capital and technical elites to extract wealth, while ordinary people caught in digital capitalism cannot escape the fate of being enslaved by capital. Technological revolution and globalization have jointly driven the transfer and adjustment of industrial structures, leading to a further deterioration of the situation for blue-collar workers in Western countries. Schiller points out that the wave of digital automation will turn work into a "luxury." The AI revolution has brought about massive "technological unemployment," and the "proletariat" seems to be increasingly declining into a "useless class."
A large amount of income data also proves that inequality in Western developed capitalist countries is intensifying. From 1973 to 2016, labor productivity in the United States increased by 73.7%, while hourly wages grew by only 12.3%. An International Labour Organization report noted that income distribution in high-income countries during the 2004–2017 period showed a "hockey stick" trend: the incomes of the middle class and lower-middle class fell sharply, while the incomes of high-income groups increased significantly. The wealthiest gain more wealth, and the vast majority of the rest suffer losses. This trend is very pronounced in Germany, the UK, and the USA. Some scholars have pointed out: "From the fact that a high proportion of populist supporters belong to the low-income or low-education classes, we can see that populist parties represent these 'losers' whose lives and jobs are threatened, opposing the globalization and European integration promoted by elites, and successfully gaining support."
It is a historical law that revolutionary progress in technology affects the living standards of laborers and the trends of labor mobility. "The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level." The new data regime restricts opportunities for the impoverished and the working class, dissolves their political organizations, limits their mobility, and exploits their human rights. It is against this backdrop that a large number of the white working class in the American "Rust Belt" abandoned the Democratic Party in the 2016 general election to become supporters of populism; similarly, Marine Le Pen insisted that the French National Rally is the "party of the working class" and reached the second round of voting again in the 2022 French presidential election. As the backbone of Western democratic politics, the traditional middle class has instead seen its living conditions deteriorate in the digital age, which has become a significant social reason for the proliferation of populism and the intensification of political polarization.
(2) The new media revolution has fueled populism in social culture
The push given to populism by digital technology in terms of mass culture and psychology is even more complex and hidden. The new media revolution has subverted the dominance of mass media and media professionals over the space of public opinion. The emergence of new media allows everyone to potentially become a subject of broadcasting, which is itself a "cultural populist movement." However, an online public opinion space characterized by excessive freedom, a lack of rationality, and difficulty in discerning the truth has provided convenient conditions for the generation and spread of populist intellectual trends.
First, new media has weakened the public's power of judgment. According to Marshall McLuhan's theory, low-definition "cold media" reveal less information and therefore require people to mobilize more thought to contemplate and understand. However, compared to the era of books, newspapers, and radio, today's era of new online media is filled with a vast amount of high-definition information that stimulates multiple senses; this information does not require recipients to possess high levels of comprehension or reflective capacity. From the logic of communication, content creators—under the pressure of competition for online traffic—are more likely to publish content that can quickly attract attention and generate clicks while disregarding factual evidence and social impact. From a commercial logic, digital communication content is determined by powerful capital; creating irrational impulses is the key to influencing mass consumer psychology and behavior. Over the long term, "short, smooth, and fast" [3] audiovisual content has further replaced the written word as the primary carrier of information. Even text-based information tends to use explosive headlines to grab eyeballs, while profound and serious commentary is replaced by fragmented, "fast-food" style content. Information overload has reduced public focus, the amplification effect of online communication has fueled the contagion of social emotions, and extreme or false information—manufactured to compete for attention—has interfered with the rational judgment of the people. Homogenized and entertaining video content has exacerbated the superficiality and fragmentation of mass thinking… These problems may lead people into the "age of thoughtlessness" described by Hannah Arendt.
Second, pop culture has replaced elite culture to occupy the dominant position. The new media revolution has leveled the pyramidal structure of culture. Under the dominance of the logic that "traffic is king," high culture no longer occupies a ruling position; instead, entertainment culture, consumer culture, and popular culture have begun a rapid "viral spread." The role of traditional media professionals as gatekeepers of public opinion and cultural filters no longer exists, making the disorder of social culture and the alienation of values inevitable. "The root of political failure is the excessive fusion of the market and consumer psychology. Our entire consumer culture elevates instant gratification to the primary goal of life. This culture encourages people to use the most direct and effective methods to maximize short-term satisfaction while ignoring future costs." When the logic of capital becomes the primary driver, the proliferation of anti-intellectual, superficial, and vulgar populist culture in capitalist society becomes difficult to restrain. As Aldous Huxley once predicted: "Our culture is becoming one of sensory stimulation, desire, and irregular games."
Finally, algorithmic recommendations have fueled political polarization and prejudiced divisions. Platform algorithms tailor personalized information for everyone, thereby achieving "one click, and clicks thereafter." People living in "information cocoons" find it difficult to receive different viewpoints, and the focus of attention between individuals is becoming increasingly scattered. The internet, which seems free and diverse, actually reinforces personal prejudice, causing the public opinion space—which should be used to reach consensus—to further fracture and collapse. When users lack a specific knowledge reserve, information discernment, and independent judgment, they are more easily misled and manipulated by algorithmic information. Herbert I. Schiller once warned: "The reality is that a very small portion of the population is highly critical; they know what they want and can therefore utilize massive information flows. Meanwhile, most Americans are basically unknowingly trapped in an information dilemma equivalent to having no choice." For example, during the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, social platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook—besides displaying a small amount of authoritative professional content—pushed more information that lacked professionalism and scientific rigor. Some of it deviated from the truth and was full of prejudice and discrimination, even containing specific political motives. For a time, intellectual trends such as anti-intellectualism, populism, and racism were clamorous in the West, increasing the difficulty of scientific public decision-making and policy implementation. Dialogue based on facts, consensus based on diversity, and decision-making based on science have already become luxury goods in Western society in the digital age.
(3) The anti-establishment tendency in digital space has impacted the system of representative democracy
Bryan Caplan once pointed out: "The core idea for the reason democracy fails is that the condition of voters is worse than ignorance; in short, they are irrational, and remain so when voting." New technology has not only failed to solve the problems of "ignorance" and "irrationality" in electoral politics but has instead increased public apathy and distrust toward politics, allowing anti-establishment and anti-authority populist sentiments to continuously accumulate. While social platforms allow the public to participate directly in political protests and express dissatisfaction, they also provide the conditions for people to break free from their reliance on traditional political parties and mainstream media.
First, digital life breeds a rebellious mood among the masses. Digitalization is a process in which self-media replaces public media; this inherently contains the resistance of the masses against elites, the disenchantment of commoners toward authority, and the offensive of the power periphery against the center. As early as 2002, Joseph Nye prophetically pointed out that both public media and the public sector would undergo a crisis of the deconstruction of authority triggered by the information revolution. Western representative democracy was designed to guard against the "tyranny of the majority," serving to filter and restrain populism. Today, however, those critical emotions that are difficult to express through formal institutions and channels have instead turned to anonymous virtual spaces as an outlet for venting. On one hand, many netizens are alienated from formal political life and public concerns; on the other hand, they enjoy participating anonymously in radical online criticism. In a "post-truth" public opinion environment, it is difficult for ordinary people to see the full picture of events. They are easily misled by false information and extreme speech, and easily attracted by anti-establishment and anti-elite rhetoric, thereby triggering widespread social dissatisfaction.
Second, social media fuels collective protest actions. Even before the digital age, whether it was The Passing of Traditional Society in the radio era or Amusing Ourselves to Death in the television era, there was an emphasis on how communication technology drove social restructuring. The scattered and lonely individuals shaped by neoliberal society are aggregated and restructured into political communities by social media, because social media has the capacity to gather "like-minded" groups and the ability to achieve social mobilization in an instant through inflammatory content. All of this makes leaderless, centerless, and unorganized mass protest actions easier and more common, leading to a sharp increase in the political risks faced by representative democratic regimes. From the 2011 Egyptian protests to the 2020 storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters, to the "Yellow Vest" movement in 2022 and the 2023 French general strikes, Twitter and Facebook have become the primary organizational tools for numerous populist movements.
Finally, the digital revolution has impacted the existing democratic framework. First, for a long time, the convergence of the Left and Right, political correctness, and mainstream parties taking turns in power have made Western politics dull, lacking in policy competition, and deficient in representation. Large numbers of people, unable to find a sense of presence within the formal institutional framework, have become the "silent majority." Today, however, the public can use the internet to express radical demands and organize large-scale street protests, which are gradually exceeding the carrying capacity of modern Western democratic systems. It can be said that in the digital age, the West is simultaneously facing the dilemma of "insufficient democratic supply" and "excessive democratic participation." Second, the rise of digital power has broken the pattern of checks and balances upon which democracy relies for its survival. Newly rising technical elites and information oligarchs have seized powerful digital power; "power-capital-technology" together determine the outcome of the democratic game. The rise of digital power allows populists to have potential allies outside the formal system. In this regard, Schiller pointed out: "As digital capitalism turns toward authoritarianism, the frail democratic system is being torn apart." Francis Fukuyama and others have also warned that the political threat posed by digital monopoly platforms is far more alarming than their economic impact; its true danger is not distorting the market, but threatening democracy. Third, some roles and functions of traditional political parties have been weakened. Political parties occupy a central position in Western democratic politics, undertaking political functions such as elite selection, the aggregation of public opinion, and the expression of interests. But in recent years, the public has come to expect direct expression and instant action. The elite selection function of party organizations has been impacted by spontaneous "god-making movements" on the internet; the intermediary function of parties has declined due to direct online connections between politicians and the public; and the functions of aggregating public opinion and expressing interests have been weakened by vigorous online political expression and participation. In contrast, the unmediated direct democracy demanded by populist parties has, to some extent, catered to this trend of party transformation. Accompanied by the decline of traditional parties, the party landscape in Western multi-party states shows a trend of polarization and fragmentation, providing an opportunity for populist parties to muddy the waters and maneuver public opinion.
III. The Internal Driving Empowerment of Digital Technology for the Rise of Populism
Digital technology has not only created a favorable external environment for the breeding of populism; regarding the development of populist forces themselves—from leader propaganda to party operations, and from the dissemination of ideas to campaign activities—digital technology has been widely and actively applied, driving the rise of populism from within.
(1) Relying on social platforms to boost populist leaders
The role of political leaders has been re-emphasized in the digital age. "In all liberal democracies there is a tendency for politics to become increasingly personalized… leaders play an increasingly important role." The leader is the soul of the group, the primary factor in aggregating and unifying public opinion, organizing the group, and stimulating faith. Operating around a charismatic leader is a key characteristic of populist parties. Examples include Jörg Haider of the Freedom Party of Austria, Jean-Marie Le Pen of the French National Front, Beppe Grillo of the Italian Five Star Movement, Matteo Salvini of the League, Le Pen of the French National Rally, Nigel Farage of the Brexit Party in the UK, and Geert Wilders of the Dutch Party for Freedom. Populist leaders oppose representation and prefer to have the public accept them as "one of us." They do not claim to "represent the people" but rather emphasize that "I am the people." "The relationship between leaders and their followers gives populist politics its own unique mode of identification." From this, it is evident that populism endows charismatic leaders with an "authoritative personality," casting the leader as the embodiment of the "people" as a whole—achieving a concentration of power while professing to be democratic.
Populist leaders place particular emphasis on conducting direct, effective, and concise dialogues with those segments of the populace who previously rarely participated in politics or felt undervalued. For the vast majority of supporters, there is often no fixed institutionalized bond between them and the populist leader. "The strength of the internet seems to lie in bringing together large, loose, and geographically dispersed groups to pursue common goals." The internet allows politicians to bypass existing intermediaries and organizational structures, directly using the megaphone of the web to incite emotional resonance among the masses. Facts have proven that the combination of "internet-celebrity leader + populist discourse + social media" is extremely powerful; in this respect, it is no exaggeration to say that "what populists are best at is taking power." Before the Brexit referendum, Boris Johnson, then Mayor of London, toured the UK in a bus emblazoned with the slogan "We send the EU £350 million a week," campaigning for withdrawal. However, this statement was itself a lie. It is precisely the existence of a free and chaotic cyberspace and a large number of netizens lacking the capacity for critical judgment that provides an excellent political opportunity for populists to fish in troubled waters [4] and manipulate public opinion.
Although many populist politicians are "political amateurs" or outsiders, they possess a deep understanding of the laws of media dissemination and communication skills. Donald Trump set a precedent for a president using social media to bypass the White House Press Office and public media to publish political views anytime and anywhere, conducting direct dialogues with the people; "Trump marks the beginning of the era of microblog politics." Beppe Grillo, the comedian and founder of Italy’s Five Star Movement, is adept at using humorous talk shows to satirize politics. These segments circulate widely on social platforms, where audiences unconsciously succumb to the allure of populism while being entertained, thereby deepening their disdain for real-world politics. In similar examples, "serious and important campaigns have turned into reality TV shows." There is a close correlation between the trend of political entertainment and the rise of populist leaders.
(2) Developing populist parties via the internet
For a long time, within the Western political landscape where the center-left and center-right took turns in power, populist parties occupied marginal and non-mainstream positions. Compared with traditional mainstream parties, the development of populist parties originally faced numerous difficulties—ideas that were not politically correct, sensationalist rhetoric, and attacks on mainstream politics. These difficulties meant they were not only often filtered out by the "gatekeeping" function of mass media but also had to endure significant pressure from social criticism. Operationally, these parties faced problems such as loose and weak organizational structures, low levels of institutionalization, scattered and sporadic members and supporters, and a lack of stable financial backing. However, the popularization of the internet has made flattening and decentralization new trends in the development of party organizations. It allows populist parties to cast aside complex organizational frameworks and strict institutional rules, operating and campaigning at a lower cost. This provided an opportunity for populist parties to "overtake on a bend" [5]. Furthermore, the internet provided a practical platform for populist parties to fulfill their so-called promises of "direct democracy" within the party.
Against this backdrop, populist parties that rely primarily on the internet for their operations have emerged in the West. Italy’s Five Star Movement, founded in 2009, lacked fixed office locations, hierarchical structures, and financial support, relying entirely on online operations. The party refused to be defined as a "political party," flaunting its break from traditional politics. In 2018, the party became the largest party in the parliamentary elections in one fell swoop and formed a populist government in coalition with another populist party, the "League." The party flaunted unmediated internet direct democracy, using a platform named "Rousseau" to allow members to vote directly on the party program, issue positions, administrative decisions, and electoral candidates. In addition to the web platform, the Five Star Movement released a mobile app called "Rousseau X" on Christmas Day 2019, making it convenient for members to participate in party activities anytime and anywhere. Despite flaunting democracy, there were many undemocratic aspects to this platform, mainly including the following: First, speech control; the platform would block critical comments and cover them with a message stating, "The Rousseau platform only accepts comments that agree with our ideas, not criticism." Second, a lack of transparency; the operating rights and source code of the platform were held by its founder. The winner of the 2017 internal leadership election was Luigi Di Maio, but the platform did not release specific voting data. Third, formal democracy outweighed substantive democracy; although the party flaunted that leadership appointments, candidate nominations, and policy programs were all decided by member votes, the actual voter turnout was not high—even the participation rate for the leadership election was only around 30%. Furthermore, the platform's back-end would pre-design policy options for the campaign program, giving members online multiple-choice questions, which meant the actual space for policy choice was limited. Even so, the party still gained extremely strong social mobilization and appeal by virtue of its active network platform.
(3) Disseminating populist political discourse through new media
Populists are well aware of the power of political discourse that lacks logic but attracts attention and incites political emotion in the era of fragmented information. They are adept at using "ultimate vocabulary" with blurred boundaries but which easily occupies the moral high ground to weave political discourse, such as "we the people," "democracy," "patriotism," "our ancestors," and "our culture." The characteristics of populist discourse on social media are: "ideology appears fragmented, but emphasizes popular sovereignty, attacks elites, excludes others, and uses 'heartland' terminology." In short, compared to winning people over with reason, they are better at moving them with emotion; compared to participating in complex policy debates, they specialize in inciting discontent; compared to proposing constructive solutions, they tend merely toward criticism. The style of populist discourse is highly transmissible, critical, infectious, and mobilizing. Its characteristics and functions can be briefly summarized as: using binary oppositions to divide friend from foe, using simplified popularization to approach the majority, using transgressive topics to attract public opinion, using direct democracy to bypass procedures, using political passion to dissolve rationality, using entertainment and satire to deconstruct authority, and finally using grievance and hatred to mobilize the masses.
In recent years, under the influence of a series of crises such as the global financial crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and regional conflicts, a sense of impetuous anxiety and crisis has swept through the spiritual world of ordinary Westerners. Populists understand that negative pressures or information—such as the sense of deprivation in reality, uncertainty about the future, fear of unfamiliar nations and cultures, envy of those in power, and a predisposition toward conspiracy theories and hearsay—are more likely to stimulate public concern. On one hand, populists release "unverified but more widely transmissible manipulative false content" on social media, using "negative, emotional, and populist" discourse to create a sense of insecurity. On the other hand, while constructing fear, they simultaneously blame internal or external "scapegoats," mobilizing the masses for self-liberation, striking at "enemies," and taking the opportunity to legitimize their own policy proposals. Oxford University Professor Ralph Schroeder pointed out that populists know full well that their propaganda in social media spaces is sufficient to offset the disparagement coming from traditional media.
Populists often exhibit higher levels of online activity. Although polls before the Brexit referendum showed the "Remain" camp had only a slight advantage, statistical data showed that on Twitter, the number of active Leavers was seven times that of Remainers. The official "Vote Leave" campaign spent over £2.7 million on Facebook for political advertising, which received over 169 million views. On social media, the Leave camp used intuitive information to transmit "high-arousal" emotions such as anger and resentment, promoting the viral spread of Brexit advocacy among young people and grassroots sectors.
(4) Utilizing algorithmic technology to interfere with voting and elections
Elections and voting are the symbolic links in the operation of Western democratic procedures, and also the stage for populist leaders and parties to present their image, expand political influence, hawk policy stances, and seize political power. The limitations of populist parties in elections are very obvious: they are often small, underfunded, and suppressed by mainstream media. Meanwhile, many potential supporters of populism are either dissatisfied with mainstream politics and politically apathetic, or lack political common sense and interest, or hold extreme political attitudes; they often reside on the margins, difficult for campaign propaganda to reach. However, the popularization of the internet and the emergence of algorithmic technology have provided opportunities for populist parties to break through their own limitations, find these scattered individuals, and carry out precision campaign mobilization. Populist parties have basically abandoned the strategy of campaigning through expensive mainstream media, choosing instead to spend limited funds on efficiently pushing targeted political advertisements on social media, search engines, and portal websites.
Ted Brader pointed out: "Elections are the most passionate undertaking in modern Western political life; the art of campaigning lies in personalized contact, heart-touching stories, moving words, and clever political advertising." Currently, the techniques he mentions have been integrated by populists via algorithmic pushes. Algorithmic political advertising is the most powerful and cost-effective campaign tool in Western elections today. It classifies voters by labeling them through the collection of private information such as occupation, interests, social relations, and political inclinations. For example, it can easily identify those lacking political common sense, the politically apathetic, those with unstable political inclinations, environmentalists, feminists, etc. Subsequently, the system delivers tailor-made political advertisements to different types of voters online, aiming to influence their political psychology and voting behavior. For a long time, in many Western elections, the gap between the two sides has been small and voter turnout has not been high, making it so that populists only need to interfere with or mobilize a small number of people to sway the final vote result.
In the two "Black Swan" events of 2016, data companies such as Cambridge Analytica and AggregateIQ helped the Leave camp deploy over one billion highly provocative algorithmic advertisements before the Brexit referendum, and helped Donald Trump focus algorithmic ad delivery in swing states. These actions were exposed and sparked heated debate following the Facebook "Data Gate" scandal. Before the 2017 German parliamentary elections, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) collaborated with Harris Media, which had successfully interfered in the Kenyan elections. Through Facebook user data, they divided target voters into seven groups, among which business owners, unionized workers, and mothers were identified as key targets for intervention. The frequency of the party's interaction with users on social media exceeded other parties by more than ten times; in the 2017 parliamentary elections, it became the third-largest party in Germany and the largest opposition party. Because algorithmic technology poses a major threat to electoral fairness and political security, European and American countries have successively enacted legislation to restrict targeted political advertising. Before the 2020 US election, Google and Twitter successively announced bans on competitive targeted political advertising, and Facebook announced a halt to targeted ads one week before the vote. Even so, when Trump’s campaign app was installed, it still required users to authorize the use of their location to facilitate targeted propaganda in specific districts.
IV. Conclusion
Populism is often regarded as a signal that Western society is facing systematic crises and pressure for change; yet more worthy of exploration than the phenomenon of populism itself is the generative mechanism behind it. The digital revolution has brought new ways of value creation and a new logic of interest distribution. From the impact of digital modes of life and production on the material and spiritual conditions of micro-individuals, to the digital reshaping of economic, cultural, and political spheres, and finally to the challenges facing the value foundations and institutional frameworks of Western democracy—capitalist society is undergoing a tectonic shift driven by the technological revolution. In the process of capitalism continuously increasing its productive forces, the contradictory movement between exploitation and anti-exploitation, inequality and the pursuit of equality, and elitism and democratization increasingly manifests as the eternal driving force of human social change. The rise of Western populism is a concentrated reflection of the inherent contradictions of capitalist society.
The rise of populism indicates that the old system of Western democracy has fallen into a crisis of rupture and continuity under the conditions of new technology. First, the traditional space of public opinion has already collapsed. Group values are highly fragmented and party politics are severely polarized; a new sphere of communication capable of facilitating rational public discussion and reaching consensus has yet to form. Second, traditional political elites and authorities are facing challenges, while a new digital power is rising and seeking collusion with political power and capital, presenting political risks that could spiral out of control. Third, public administration empowered by surveillance capitalism lacks value appeal and moral persuasiveness for the Western public. As noted, "the technocratic administration of industrial society makes any democratic formation of will into something without an object." The function of democracy is not merely to pursue efficiency but also to satisfy the individual's sense of participation and dignity within the political process. The rise of populism is precisely a response to the way Western democracy and mainstream political parties have long avoided problems, ignored public opinion, and suffered from a lack of representativeness. Finally, the rise of populism is also a reaction of the Western populace to the decline of "human value" in the digital age. It forces people to rethink the philosophy of "the human" in a new environment where technology develops at lightning speed, which will inevitably re-ignite the core concerns of humanism. Western democracy is facing the danger of being torn apart by new technologies, which lends greater significance to the question posed by Jürgen Habermas more than half a century ago: "The question we are posing is that of the relationship between technology and democracy—namely, how the technical power possessed by people can be turned back into the consensus of citizens engaged in production and conversation?" Technology itself is neutral; it can seek the welfare of the majority, but the prerequisite is that "human" values must be embedded into the entire process of technological development. The absence of the "human" is the very root of the rise of populism from the perspective of the philosophy of technology. Today’s Western society urgently needs a new humanist movement for the digital age.
(Author: Yang Chunlin, Institute of Contemporary Socialism, Shandong University [6]) Web Editor: Tongxin Source: Foreign Theoretical Trends [7], Issue 2, 2024.