2024/12/16 by Sebastian Stier, Pascal Siegers, Johannes Breuer · 2 voices · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Demand side #Economics #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Great Rift #Law #Market economy #Media Influence and Politics #Microeconomics #Political economy #Political science #Politics #Populism #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Radical right #Supply side
paper · doi:10.1093/esr/jcae051
published in European Sociological Review 41(4), 591-606 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2024/12/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
Abstract Hostile stances towards journalists and perceptions of media bias have become cornerstones of populist radical right identity formation. Despite a lively scholarly and public debate about the relation between populism and the media, a comprehensive account of the supply side of political information—radical right populist parties’ (RRPPs) communication—and the demand side—citizens’ information selection—is still missing. Focusing on the RRPP Alternative for Germany (AfD), this paper first establishes that its Twitter communication features more negative media-related cues and links to hyperpartisan news websites compared with the other major German parties. Self-reported media use from two high-quality surveys as well as a passive web tracking allow us to comprehensively characterize the information selection of AfD supporters. In line with the party’s media-related cues, people identifying with the AfD used alternative online sources more frequently amid less exposure to public broadcasting than supporters of other parties. Beyond Germany, media-related party cues and selective exposure by citizens might play an even more critical role in more polarized societies. More generally, the identified individual-level heterogeneity in media exposure is a scope condition that research on the aggregated societal effects of media coverage, e.g. on immigration, needs to consider.