Do we have all the necessary data? The challenge of measuring populism through metaphors

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F49777513%3A23330%2F19%3A43952084" target="_blank" >RIV/49777513:23330/19:43952084 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="http://10.1007/s11135-019-00878-6" target="_blank" >http://10.1007/s11135-019-00878-6</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11135-019-00878-6" target="_blank" >10.1007/s11135-019-00878-6</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Do we have all the necessary data? The challenge of measuring populism through metaphors

Original language description

The aim of the paper is to highlight one possible method how to recognize populism in political communication. The method synthesizes frameworks of content analysis, metaphor analysis and Laclau’s perspective of populism as a style of communication that operates with empty signifiers. Laclau argues that populist statements usually contain stereotypes that are demonstrated as facts. These “facts” serve to strengthen social frustration of the masses, provoke their feeling of social injustice, and continually creating a gap between the elites and the people. All of this serves the populists, who use these “facts”, to gain popularity. Populists use terms like “nation”, “ours”, “theirs”, “migrants”, “good culture”, “bad Islam”, but they do not explain the proper meaning of these terms. The populist rhetoric is only about the style of communication, not the content. We can explain these categories through metaphors that link the reference terms to values. Populists can create implicit metaphors like CZECH NATION IS HUMANE (good) and its opposite – MIGRANTS ARE PSEUDO-HUMANE (evil). Thus they create specific mentality of evil/good. For demonstration of the step-by-step method there has been focused on the Czech political party called Freedom and Direct Democracy, especially on the speeches of its chairman Tomio Okamura. The data set is based on the discussion of the Czech parliament about the so-called “migration crisis”. According to the analysis, it is possible to distinguish populist rhetoric, and to find all populistic clauses in the examinated text.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_SC - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the SCOPUS database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50601 - Political science

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2019

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

QUALITY &amp; QUANTITY

ISSN

0033-5177

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

53

Issue of the periodical within the volume

5

Country of publishing house

NL - THE KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS

Number of pages

18

Pages from-to

2653-2670

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85064949145