The Dark Side of Inspirational Pasts: An Investigation of Nostalgia in Right-Wing Populist Communication

Media and Communication

article

Manuel Menke¹  Tim Wulf² 

[1] Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen;Department of Media and Communication

关键词: Alternative for Germany;    collective nostalgia;    German Democratic Republic;    online election campaign;    persuasion;    political communication;    populism;   

DOI  :  10.17645/mac.v9i2.3803

学科分类：医学（综合）

来源: Cogitatio Press

【 摘 要 】

In recent years, research found that populism employed a new strategy by using nostalgia, a sentimental longing for thepast, as a communication tool to persuade citizens to support their political agendas. In populist campaigns, nostalgiais used to affectively link (alleged) crises with longing for a cherished past. In this article, we applied a mixed-methodsapproach to understand how populists exploit nostalgia in their communication and how nostalgic rhetoric has the potential to persuade people to support their claims. In Study 1, we conducted a case study based on a qualitative content analysis of Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) online election campaign in the 2019 Thuringia election in East Germany. The analysisrevealed that the campaign was built around the nostalgic narrative of the 1989 peaceful revolution as a proud historicalmoment for former German Democratic Republic citizens while at the same time creating a sense of crisis supposedlycaused by false post-reunification politics. To further investigate the persuasiveness of nostalgia, Study 2 used a statementfrom the campaign and found that participants tended to agree more with populist statements if they contained nostalgicrhetoric (compared to non-nostalgic populist and control rhetoric). These findings suggest that right-wing populists caneffectively exploit nostalgia and that it may ‘sugarcoat’ populist messages.

【 授权许可】

CC BY