2022/01/12 by Marcus Maurer, Pablo Jost, Marlene Schaaf +2 · 1 voice · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Media Influence and Politics #Social Media and Politics
paper · doi:10.1177/19401612211072692
openalex publication_date 2022/01/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The rise of right-wing populist parties in Western democracies is often attributed to populists’ ability to instrumentalize news media by making deliberate provocations (e.g., verbal attacks on migrants or politicians from other parties) that generate media coverage and public awareness. To explain the success of populists’ deliberate provocations, we drew from research on populism and scandal theory to develop a theoretical framework that we tested in two studies examining the rise of German right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) between January 2015 and December 2018. In Study 1, an input–output analysis of 17 deliberate provocations by AfD politicians in German news media revealed much more coverage about their attacks on migrants than about their attacks on political elites, although all were covered in predominantly scandalizing ways. Next, Study 2, involving media database research and an analysis of Google Trends data, showed that the provocations had increased overall media coverage about the AfD and influenced public awareness of the party