Populism, Media and Journalism: The Guardian’s New Populism Series as an Example of Democratically Engaged Journalism

Abstract

This article aims to focus on the Guardian's New Populism series, which seems to be very instructive in demonstrating the dynamic interplay between the concepts of populism, media, and journalism. Using the Guardian’s New Populism series as a case/sample study, this paper attempts to critically analyze media discourse, paying due regard to representation, and construction of identities and relations. Within this perspective, the Guardian series’ contributions to the contested concept of populism, the mechanisms used to achieve it, and the interests it serves for are the main issues at hand. This article argues that the Guardian's initiatives in the New Populism series can be approached in terms of democratically engaged journalism. Democratically engaged journalism is first and foremost a call for journalists to respond effectively to populism and to take responsibility for it. However, the Guardian and the team of populism experts behind the project have certainly inscribed into the liberal democracy in the series, which by and large seems to be the problem not the solution. The attempts to practice democratically engaged journalism has thus failed, culminating in considering all the opponents of liberal democracy as the enemies fed by populism.