Populist Discourse in the Polish Media Edited by Agnieszka Stępińska Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań Faculty of Political Science and Journalism Poznań 2020 Editor: Agnieszka Stępińska Faculty of Political Science and Journalism Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland The publication is funded by the Ministry of Science and Higher of the Republic of Poland as a part of the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities in 2016-2019. Grant no. 0131/NPRH4/H2b/83/2016. NARODOWY PROGRAM ROZWOJU HUMANISTYKI Reviews by Delia Balaban (Chapters 1-10) and Samuel Bennett (Chapter 7, 9-10) Translation by Michał Biela Cover design by Bartosz Stępiński Copyright©: The Editor and The Authors (2020) Open Access: All chapters are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The publication is available online at: http://populizm.amu.edu.pl/publikacje ISBN 978-83-65817-87-7 (printed version) ISBN 978-83-65817-89-1 (electronic version) The publisher: Adam Mickiewicz University Faculty of Political Science and Journalism Address: Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego 5, 61-614 Poznań, Poland Computer composition – „MRS”, 60-408 Poznań, ul. P. Zołotowa 23, tel. 605087690 Printing and binding – Zakład Graficzny UAM, 61-712 Poznań, ul. H. Wieniawskiego 1 Contents List of Tables .......................................................... V List of Figures ......................................................... VI List of Graphs ......................................................... VII 1. Theoretical Background and Methods of the Study on Populist Discourse in the Media ....................................................... 1 Agnieszka Stępińska, Marta Wrześniewska-Pietrzak, and Jacek Wyszyński PART I Populism in Print Press . 23 2. Who Covers Populism? Types of Populism in Print Media Outlets . 25 Kinga Adamczewska and Agnieszka Stępińska 3. Who ‘Speaks Populism’ in Print Media? The Populist Discourse of Political Actors and Journalists . 45 Agnieszka Stępińska and Maria Wąsicka-Sroczyńska 4. What Populism is About? Topics in Populist Discourse in Print Media . 61 Jakub Jakubowski, Agnieszka Stępińska, and Denis Halagiera PART II Coverage and Debate: Populist Discourse on Television . 81 5. Indicators of Populist Discourse in News Tickers on Wiadomości TVP1 ........ 83 Marcin Piechocki and Jacek Wyszyński 6. Journalist Populist Discourse: Journalists as the Originators of Populist Messages . 97 Dorota Piontek and Małgorzata Tadeusz-Ciesielczyk PART III New Space for Populism: Populist Discourse in Social Media . 111 7. Theoretical Background of Studies on Populist Political Communication in Social Media . 113 Jakub Jakubowski 8. Populism and Social Media. Analysis of the Political Communication Activities of Paweł Kukiz and Citizen Social Media Users During the 2015 Electoral Campaigns ........................................................ 127 Jakub Jakubowski and Kinga Adamczewska IV Contents PART IV ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in the Polish Populist Discourse . 141 9. The ‘Us-Them’ Antinomy: A Category of Grammatical Person in the Polish Language and Its Function in Populist Discourse .......................... 143 Marta Wrześniewska-Pietrzak and Małgorzata Kołodziejczak 10. Constructing ‘The Others’ as a Populist Communication Strategy. The Case of the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Discourse in the Polish Press . 155 Artur Lipiński Contributors . 181 List of Tables 1.1. Characteristics of the media outlets under the study ............................. 10 2.1. Populist discourse in the printed press: overview ............................... 31 2.2. Statements containing indicators of populist discourse per media outlet ............. 34 2.3. Strategies referring to ‘the people’ in populist statements per media outlet ........... 35 2.4. Strategies referring to ‘the elite’ in populist statements per media outlet ............. 37 2.5. Strategies referring to ‘out-groups’ in populist statements per media outlet ........... 39 2.6. Specific strategies of the Polish populist discourse .............................. 40 2.7. Correlation in pairs of three basic dimensions of the populist style: references to ‘the people’, anti-elitism, and exclusion of ‘the others’/‘out-groups’ ..... 41 2.8. Relationships between publications containing different types of populism among media outlets ........................................................... 42 3.1. Categories of speakers: sources of statements including at least one indicator of populist discourse ..................................................... 52 3.2. Frequency of political actors’ statements per media outlets ....................... 53 3.3. Political actors as (populist) speakers ........................................ 54 3.4. Frequency of indicators of populist discourse in statements made by selected political actors ................................................................. 55 3.5. Journalists’ statements including at least one indicator of populist discourse per media organization ............................................................ 57 3.6. Journalists as sources of statements including at least one indicator of populist discourse ..................................................... 58 3.7. Frequency of indicators of populist discourse in statements made by selected journalists ............................................................. 60 4.1. General categories of materials containing reference to Polish political actors ........ 71 4.2. Detailed topics in materials in the ‘domestic politics’ category with references to Polish political actors .......................................................... 71 4.3. General topics discussed in materials containing at least one indicator of populist discourse .......................................... 73 4.4. Detailed topics discussed in materials from the ‘domestic politics’ category containing at least one indicator of populist discourse .................... 73 4.5. Indicators of populist discourse in articles containing the most frequent topics from the ‘domestic politics’ category ................................................ 75 4.6. Elements of the populist discourse in materials containing the most frequent topics outside the ‘domestic politics’ category ...................................... 75 4.7. Topics accompanied by the highest presence of populism ........................ 81 6.1. The list of TV programs with the date of broadcast and the list of participants ........ 110 7.1. Populist communication activities and the corresponding features of social media ..... 123 8.1. Presence of indicators of populist discourse in Paweł Kukiz’s Facebook posts ........ 137 8.2. The presence of types of populism in the Paweł Kukiz’s Facebook posts ............ 137 List of Figures 2.1. Configurations of indicators of populist discourse . 32 2.2. Configurations of the elements of the populist discourse per media outlet ............ 33 2.3. Types of ‘the people’ in populist statements ................................... 36 2.4. Types of ‘the elite’ in statements containing at least one indicator of the populist discourse .............................................................. 38 2.5. Types of ‘out-groups’ in statements containing at least one indicator of populism ..... 39 2.6. Relationship between publications containing references to ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ among media outlets ..................................................... 42 2.7. Relationship between statements containing empty populism and anti-elitist populism among media outlets ..................................................... 43 2.8. Relationship between statements containing excluding populism and complete populism among media outlets ............................................. 44 2.9. Populism index calculated for individual media outlets .......................... 44 3.1. Presence of indicators of populist discourse and types of populism in political actors’ statements ............................................................. 54 3.2. Presence of indicators of populist discourse and types of populism in journalists’ statements ............................................................. 58 3.3. Journalists’ attitudes towards populist statements per media outlet ................. 61 4.1. ‘Populist potential’ of topics in media discourse ................................ 66 4.2. ‘Populist potential’ of topics in the media discourse in Poland (2015–2017) .......... 82 7.1. Anti-elitism in the post of a discussion participant on Facebook ................... 126 7.2. Referring to the category of ‘the people’ in the post of a discussion participant on Facebook . 126 7.3. Exclusion from the community (of the politicians of Law and Justice) in the post of a discussion participant on Facebook ...................................... 126 8.1. Percentage of posts referring to individual candidates in the 2015 presidential campaign .............................................................. 139 8.2. Percentage of posts concerning the leaders of political parties in the 2015 parliamentary electoral campaign ........................................... 139 8.3. Percentage of social media posts referring to presidential candidates during the presidential campaign, containing indicators of anti-elitist populism ............. 140 8.4. Percentage of social media posts referring to leaders of political parties during the parliamentary election campaign, containing indicators of anti-elitist populism .... 141 List of Graphs