IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/meanco/v9y2021i2p237-249.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

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

Author

Listed:
  • Manuel Menke

    (Department of Communication, University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

  • Tim Wulf

    (Department of Media and Communication, LMU Munich, Germany)

Abstract

In recent years, research found that populism employed a new strategy by using nostalgia, a sentimental longing for the past, as a communication tool to persuade citizens to support their political agendas. In populist campaigns, nostalgia is used to affectively link (alleged) crises with longing for a cherished past. In this article, we applied a mixed-methods approach 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 analysis revealed that the campaign was built around the nostalgic narrative of the 1989 peaceful revolution as a proud historical moment for former German Democratic Republic citizens while at the same time creating a sense of crisis supposedly caused by false post-reunification politics. To further investigate the persuasiveness of nostalgia, Study 2 used a statement from the campaign and found that participants tended to agree more with populist statements if they contained nostalgic rhetoric (compared to non-nostalgic populist and control rhetoric). These findings suggest that right-wing populists can effectively exploit nostalgia and that it may ‘sugarcoat’ populist messages.

Suggested Citation

  • Manuel Menke & Tim Wulf, 2021. "The Dark Side of Inspirational Pasts: An Investigation of Nostalgia in Right-Wing Populist Communication," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 237-249.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v9:y:2021:i:2:p:237-249
    DOI: 10.17645/mac.v9i2.3803
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/3803
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/mac.v9i2.3803?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v9:y:2021:i:2:p:237-249. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.