Media representations of populism: towards a complexified discursive analysis

This paper analyses media representations of populism through a discursive analysis of the words populism(s) and populist(s) (hereafter populis*). Media discourse on populism has received considerable attention in research (see, e.g., Goyvaerts & De Cleen, 2020 regarding Belgium), highlighting the predominantly negative portrayal of this phenomenon in the media. However, existing research has mainly focused on collocation analysis. In order to complement this approach and reflect on the imaginaries conveyed by the media, this paper proposes to deepen the analysis of discourse on populism by looking at the metaphorical uses of populis*, agentivity, and argumentation. We first reflect on how each media contributes to constructing imaginaries of populism, relying on Shchinova et al. (2024) to identify the frequency of the term populis*, and the main patterns of use in four Belgian French-speaking media (Le Soir, La DH, RTBF and Metro) in 2019. Building on this, we conduct an empirical case study of the strongest collocates of populis* by investigating the metaphorical uses, agentivity and argumentation. In doing so, we complement previous research on populis* by approaching the imaginaries conveyed by the media from different linguistic perspectives.