Abstract
Digital platforms have become central infrastructures of contemporary populism, shaping how actors communicate, mobilise supporters and contest democratic norms. This article offers a systematic, cross-disciplinary review of empirical research on digital populism published between 2015 and early 2025. Analysing 188 studies from political communication, media studies and political science, we map how platform affordances structure populist communication, how digital populism is conceptualised and how it is studied. The literature portrays digital populism as the communicative enactment of populist ideology in environments that privilege personalisation, affective intensity and direct leader–follower engagement. Methods span qualitative, computational and experimental designs, with research concentrated on Twitter/X and Facebook. Most studies examine exclusionary, right-wing cases in European and Western contexts and associate them with polarisation, misinformation and declining institutional trust. Evidence remains largely correlational, and inclusionary or participatory variants are underexplored. We identify key gaps and call for greater analytical precision in assessing democratic consequences.
Introduction
In today’s digital landscape, populism has gained momentum by using social media to bypass traditional media and engage directly with followers. Platforms such as X/Twitter, Facebook and TikTok shape political discourse, amplifying narratives that position ‘the people’ against ‘the elites’. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated these trends, enabling rapid political mobilisation and the spread of misinformation. In this systematic, cross-disciplinary review, we examine research on digital populism from 2015 to 2025 and identify key theoretical and methodological developments. We focus on how social media facilitates populist rhetoric and assesses its impact on democratic processes, addressing three main questions: (a) how is digital populism conceptualised in the literature?, (b) what methods are used to study it? and (c) how do populist actors use social media to influence democratic processes?. Using these questions as an organising framework, the review maps the field of digital populism research, identifies key gaps in theory and method, and considers the implications for democratic resilience in a context where digital populism increasingly shapes global politics.
Digital populism refers broadly to the use of digital platforms by populist leaders, movements or parties to communicate and mobilise around core ideological claims (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017). Social media allows populists to bypass traditional media gatekeepers and speak directly to large audiences (Engesser et al., 2016, 2017) which in turn enabled figures such as Bolsonaro in Brazil and Trump in the United States, to build direct connections with supporters while limiting critical journalistic scrutiny (Gerbaudo, 2018). Trump’s intensive use of Twitter during his 2016 campaign and presidency exemplifies this strategy, and how it allowed him to sidestep traditional media and reinforce his populist framing (Ott, 2017). Across platforms, digital communication amplifies populist rhetoric that portrays leaders as defenders of ‘the people’ against a corrupt elite and reinforces an ‘us versus them’ narrative (Moffitt, 2016).
Like much digital political communication, populist messages often evoke emotions such as fear, anger and national pride, making social media an effective channel for circulating emotionally charged content (Ernst et al., 2019; Wettstein et al., 2018). Memes, provocative posts and videos help populist actors create emotional bonds with their base. These formats, particularly memes and other digital culture artefacts, are effective at engaging younger and harder-to-reach audiences by making populist messages more relatable and easily shareable (Highfield, 2016). Platforms such as X/Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram facilitate the rapid spread of such content across geopolitical borders. By simplifying complex political issues into slogans and soundbites, populists ensure that their messages remain accessible and widely shared even without mainstream media coverage (Bos et al., 2023). In this way, social media can strengthen emotional ties with supporters, support mobilisation and contribute to heightened political polarisation.
While populist actors are often noted for their ability to circumvent traditional gatekeepers and communicate directly with followers, this tendency is not unique to populism and reflects long-term shifts towards personalised political leadership (Weyland, 2001). Digital media intensify this process by enabling politicians across the spectrum to engage in unmediated, affective and continuous interaction with supporters, reducing the role of traditional intermediaries (Postill, 2018). Populist figures often exemplify these dynamics in especially visible ways, but they do so within a broader communicative environment shaped by immediacy, personalisation and platform logics, rather than through mechanisms unique to populism. Building on this broader context, the next subsection sets out how we conceptualise populism as ideology, style and strategy, explains how this framework informs our review of digital populism and introduces the research questions that organise our analysis.
Populism as ideology, style and strategy: towards an integrative study of digital populism
Populism is variously defined as a thin-centred ideology (Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017), a political communication style (de Vreese et al., 2018; Moffitt, 2016) and a strategic approach to mobilisation (Weyland, 2001). Rather than treating these as competing definitions, we view them as complementary analytical levels. The ideological core (i.e. the moral opposition between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’) provides the foundation that populist actors express and operationalise through distinctive communicative and strategic practices. Within this framework, we see digital populism not as a separate ideological form but as the communicative realisation of populist ideology in digital environments. The concept captures how populist actors translate ideological claims into platform-specific communication that maximises visibility, emotional appeal and mobilisation. In doing so, platform logics shape how this ideological core is enacted as style and strategy, privileging immediacy, personalisation and affective resonance.
This interpretation aligns with research showing how platform logics shape populist communication in specific ways. Populist messages adapt to the interactive affordances of digital media, and digital platforms transform relations between leaders and audiences by reducing journalistic mediation and enhancing directness (Engesser et al., 2017; Krämer, 2017). The idea of ‘algorithmic populism’ captures how social media algorithms favour emotional and provocative content, extending the reach of populist rhetoric and contributing to polarisation (Gerbaudo, 2018). Studies of character assassination as a right-wing populist communication tactic further illustrate how personalised attacks, mockery and emotionally charged messages exploit these affordances to delegitimise opponents and symbolically target wider groups (Berti and Loner, 2021). These processes resonate with work on ‘dark participation’, which highlights how antagonistic and emotionally charged interactions can come to dominate online discourse (Quandt and Klapproth, 2023). They also intersect with debates on digital capitalism, where platforms prioritise engagement and profit over content neutrality, creating attention-driven environments in which populist actors can flourish (Mastropaolo, 2021). Building on these contributions, the rest of this section develops the framework we use to analyse how digital populism has been conceptualised and empirically studied over the past decade.
While much recent research on digital populism focuses on exclusionary and right-wing variants, populism also takes inclusionary and left-wing forms that articulate demands for recognition, redistribution and participation (Canovan, 1999; Filc, 2015; Laclau, 2005; Mouffe, 2018). Building on Mudde and Kaltwasser’s (2013) distinction between exclusionary and inclusionary populisms, we understand populist communication online as capable of expressing both anti-pluralist and democratic impulses, depending on ideological orientation and context. In this view, digital populism is a broad repertoire of communicative practices that can appear across the political spectrum rather than a phenomenon confined to the radical right. This plural conceptualisation suggests that populism’s relationship with democracy is contingent and mediated by ideology and communicative practice, and it provides a basis for analysing how digital populism can both challenge democratic norms and serve as a potential vehicle for democratic renewal.
Populism’s relationship to democracy is therefore not inherently antagonistic but contingent on context. A key distinction is between populism in opposition and populism in power, which shows how the same populist appeal can revitalise democratic engagement by voicing excluded demands and pressuring elites when out of office, yet erode pluralism and weaken institutional checks once concentrated in government (Mansbridge and Macedo, 2019). This duality is central to understanding contemporary digital populism, which scholarship most often associates with polarisation and democratic strain, even though in some circumstances it can also function as a corrective to perceived democratic deficits.
Earlier research on digital media emphasised their potential to enhance democratic participation and deliberation, presenting social platforms as tools for civic empowerment and more direct citizen–elite communication (Dahlberg, 2011; Tufekci and Wilson, 2012). Later work has highlighted the ambivalent nature of this relationship, arguing that social media have an ‘elective affinity’ with populism because they can act both as the people’s voice, amplifying participation and visibility, and as the people’s rally, intensifying affective polarisation (Gerbaudo, 2018). Situating digital populism within this continuum clarifies that it embodies both democratic and disruptive potentials rather than a purely anti-democratic force.
Digital populism research is rapidly evolving, reflecting its contested and dynamic nature. Key debates address whether platforms such as Facebook and X/Twitter amplify populism unintentionally through their affordances or as a structural feature of profit-driven, engagement-maximising design (Gerbaudo, 2018; Krämer, 2021). These debates raise broader questions about how to balance free expression with efforts to curb toxic online interactions, as ‘dark participation’ in the form of trolling, harassment and manipulation can reinforce populist rhetoric (Quandt, 2018; Quandt and Klapproth, 2023). A further concern is the transnational diffusion of populist styles and tactics, as movements borrow digital strategies from abroad, heightening concerns about misinformation, foreign interference and the circulation of conspiracy narratives (Van Kessel et al., 2020; Hameleers et al., 2020).
The study of digital populism spans political science, media and communication, sociology and political psychology. Political science tends to focus on rhetoric and mobilisation, media and communication examine platform dynamics and news infrastructures, and sociological and psychological work investigates social and attitudinal effects. Each discipline offers important insights, but fragmented approaches make it difficult to develop a cohesive understanding of how digital populism operates. This review addresses disciplinary fragmentation by systematically synthesising research on digital populism across fields, tracing dominant themes, theoretical trajectories and methodological patterns. It critically assesses prevailing research designs, identifying both their analytical contributions and limitations, and highlights unresolved gaps that structure future inquiry. By doing so, the review sharpens conceptual frameworks and advances a more integrated understanding of digital populism’s societal and political consequences.
Social media reshape political communication by enabling populist actors to bypass traditional media, mobilise supporters and directly shape public discourse (Gerbaudo, 2018; Krämer, 2021). At the same time, these platform affordances can intensify polarisation, misinformation and ‘dark participation’, raising broader concerns about democratic resilience and platform responsibility (Gerbaudo et al., 2023; Quandt, 2018; Quandt and Klapproth, 2023). To examine how research has theorised and empirically addressed this tension, this review synthesises the literature on digital populism through three guiding questions:
- RQ1. How is digital populism conceptualised across different studies between 2015 and 2025?
- RQ2. What methodological approaches are most commonly employed in studying digital populism?
- RQ3. How do populist actors exploit social media platforms and what are the implications for democratic processes?
Methods
This systematic review follows the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines to ensure transparency and rigour (Page et al., 2021). The PRISMA flow chart summarising the review process that we followed is presented in Figure S1 in the Supplementary Materials.
Study selection
The inclusion criteria for the review were: (a) empirical studies examining digital populism in social media contexts; and (b) studies presenting empirical findings, including both qualitative and quantitative research. The exclusion criteria were: (a) theoretical or discussion papers without empirical data; and (b) publications not available in English or Spanish. Initially, the review focused on studies published in English between 2020 and 2023. However, following peer review, we extended the timeframe to include studies published between 2015 and early 2025 to capture both foundational and recent contributions to the field. Expanding the timeframe from 2015 to 2025 increased the diversity of research foci. Earlier studies tended to link populism with religion, nationalism and cultural identity, whereas more recent work emphasises platform affordances, disinformation and affective polarisation. In addition, we extended the review to include publications in Spanish. This broader scope was important not only to capture the substantial body of Latin American scholarship (where interest in populism is particularly strong), but also to reflect region-specific dynamics and thematic concerns that might otherwise be overlooked.
Data extraction and coding scheme
For each article, we coded the research design, data source, analytical method and geographical or political context. In our coding scheme, we distinguish between empirical methods (e.g. manual content analysis, qualitative text analysis, computational text analysis and surveys) and data sources (e.g. social media posts, news articles, televised debates and interviews). In this way, labels such as ‘social media’ describe the material analysed rather than the method itself. As a preliminary step, we applied topic modelling to article titles to identify clusters of co-occurring terms. This inductive procedure identifies topics that reflect latent thematic structures in the corpus rather than predefined categories, and it is used here in combination with manual, theory-informed approaches such as thematic analysis, which can incorporate conceptually derived categories.
Literature search
We conducted a comprehensive search across major databases including Web of Science, Scopus and ProQuest. As search terms, we used ‘digital populism’, ‘social media populism’ and ‘online populism’. To capture relevant studies in both English and Spanish, search queries were translated and applied in both languages. To ensure thorough coverage, we also manually screened the reference lists of key articles and conducted targeted searches across international journals in political communication, sociology, media studies and Latin American studies. This search strategy was designed to capture the breadth of methodological approaches and regional perspectives within the growing body of scholarship on digital populism.
The search phrases were applied to article titles, abstracts and author-provided keywords within the selected databases. This scope ensured that the analysis included studies that explicitly engaged with the concept of populism, consistent with established systematic review practices. Because our inclusion criteria required explicit use of the term populism in article titles, abstracts or author-provided keywords, the dataset likely underrepresents studies of actors or movements that share populist characteristics but avoid the label. Democratic or left-populist projects often frame their communication in terms of participation, inclusion or equality without adopting a populist identifier. This terminological convention, common in Political Communication and Political Science, helps explain why our corpus is dominated by right-wing and European cases. Future work could extend searches to full texts or incorporate broader conceptual terms (e.g. anti-elite discourse, grassroots mobilisation, participatory mobilisation) to capture additional cases of democratic or inclusionary populist communication.
Analysis
We started by developing an analysis protocol in line with our research questions, focusing on how digital populism is conceptualised (RQ1), methodological approaches (RQ2), and key themes in digital populist communication, including, where possible, codes capturing the implications of such communication (RQ3). Our approach was primarily inductive, combining both automatic (computational) and ‘human-driven’ qualitative methods.
Topic modelling
We first conducted a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) analysis on the titles of all articles included in the review. This is a machine learning technique used to discover hidden themes or topics within a (relatively) extensive collection of text. LDA identifies clusters of words that frequently appear together in a corpus of documents, which are then interpreted as topics. Each document is represented as a mixture of these topics, and each topic is defined by a distribution of words. For our review, LDA provided initial insights into recurring themes across the article titles, which, in turn, provide an overview of the core focus areas in the literature. LDA operates without predefined codes or labels, enabling the discovery of unexpected or latent themes within the data and providing fresh perspectives on the research landscape. We therefore treat the LDA topics as an exploratory map of the corpus and interpret them in conjunction with the thematic analysis reported below, rather than as definitive or exhaustive categories.
Thematic analysis
To better understand the conceptualisation of digital populism and the content (and functions) of populist digital communication, we used thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns and themes within the extracted data. Thematic analysis is a widely used method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within qualitative data (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Clarke and Braun, 2016). By coding the data across multiple studies, we aimed to determine the dominant narratives that define digital populism, particularly focusing on how different scholars frame this phenomenon across political contexts and platforms.
Methodological assessment
This review systematically analysed research design trends, focusing on qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods. It examined techniques such as surveys, content analysis, interviews and ethnographic observations, assessing their alignment with research questions, sampling robustness and data validity. By identifying best practices and areas for improvement, this analysis aims to help refine research designs and guide future studies on digital populism.
Results
Overview of topics in the article titles
The review includes 188 studies published between 2015 and 2025. All studies included in the review are listed in Supplementary Table S1 (in Supplementary Materials), and a subset of these is cited in the main text as illustrative examples. The dataset was first pre-processed by removing common stop-words from paper titles, after which a document–term matrix was constructed to record the frequency of each remaining content word per title. A five-topic Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) model was then fitted, with the random number generator initialised to 188 (this ensured that the stochastic elements of the procedure, such as initial topic assignments, were identical across runs, allowing the analysis to be reproducible). The model generated, for each title, a probability distribution (γ) over topics and, for each topic, a probability distribution (β) over words. From the fitted model, two outputs were extracted: (a) the eight words with the highest β for each topic, along with the topic’s mean prevalence (average γ) across the dataset and (b) the single most probable topic assignment for each paper. The modelling produced five topics, indexed from 1 to 5, each defined by a set of high-probability terms and an average probability of assignment (average γ), indicating how common the topic was across all titles. To interpret the five topics, we examined both the most probable words in each topic and the article titles with the highest probability of belonging to that topic. This manual inspection showed that, although some vocabulary overlaps across topics (e.g. several include election-related terms), each topic forms a coherent and stable cluster of studies that focuses on a specific strand of research. We therefore treat the topics as distinct but partly overlapping themes that map the main areas of work on digital populism.
Topic 1: social-media populism and elections
This topic groups studies that ask broad questions about how populism and social media interact in electoral settings. These articles typically refer to ‘social media’ and ‘populism’ in general terms and often span multiple platforms. The topic is characterised by words such as media, social, populism, elections and communication. It includes work that examines overall patterns of online political communication, the presence and visibility of populist actors during election campaigns, and the diffusion of populist narratives in electoral contexts, without focusing on the technical features of specific platforms.
Topic 2: Spanish-language digital populism
This topic is dominated by Spanish function words (de, en, la) together with populismo and Twitter. It forms a coherent niche within the literature focusing on Spanish and Latin American cases, often analysing region-specific parties, leaders and movements. Its presence indicates the field’s linguistic and regional diversity (beyond Anglophone research), and highlights research that is often overlooked in English-language overviews of populism and digital media.
Topic 3: Twitter content and populist supporters
This topic featured terms such as populist, people, supporters, content and analysis. It brings together studies that use textual and/or network analyses to examine how populist actors communicate on Twitter and how their followers react to, endorse, or amplify this content (for example, through retweets, replies, or mentions). While Topics 1 and 4 are focused on electoral campaigns, Topic 3 focuses more on everyday interactions between populist actors and their online support networks.
Topic 4: platform politics and campaign communication
This topic includes studies that focus on platform-specific campaigning, especially comparative work on Facebook and Twitter. The dominant words are Facebook, Twitter, online, campaign and communication. The titles in this cluster focus on how the affordances of particular platforms (e.g. commenting, sharing, targeting, metrics) shape message strategies, audience reach and voter engagement. In contrast to Topic 1’s broad interest in social media and elections, Topic 4 is concerned with how campaigns are conducted through concrete platforms and with comparing these platform environments.
Topic 5: radical-right media and pandemic attitudes
This topic was associated with words such as radical, wing, pandemic, attitudes and media. It captured work linking radical-right populism to the COVID-19 information environment, including studies of pandemic-related frames in partisan media, the spread of health misinformation and the politicisation of public health measures. Many of these articles connect media use to citizens’ attitudes and behaviours during the pandemic, making this a clearly defined subfield within the broader literature.
Because LDA represents each title as a mixture of topics, some vocabulary overlap across topics is expected (for instance, several topics contain election-related terms), but this does not imply that the topics are random. Manual inspection of the highest-probability words and the titles most strongly associated with each topic shows that they map onto distinct strands of research. For instance, Topic 1 captures work on the general relationship between populism, social media and elections, while Topic 4 groups studies that focus more narrowly on platform-specific campaign communication and the affordances of Facebook and Twitter.
We found that the distribution of titles across topics was uneven. For instance, Topic 1 contained 90 titles, Topic 2 contained 48, Topic 3 contained 70, Topic 4 contained 86 and Topic 5 contained 61. These variations by topic provide several interesting interpretive points. The prominence of Topic 1 (around a quarter of all titles) indicates the centrality of research on the general relationship between populism, social media and elections. The smaller but distinct cluster in Topic 2 highlights the value of incorporating non-English scholarship, which offers geographically specific perspectives and methodological approaches. Topics 3 and 4 indicate that Twitter/X and Facebook are often examined in isolation, with studies of the former tending to focus on follower networks and content dynamics, and studies of the latter leaning towards campaign strategy and platform-specific political communication. Topic 5 points to an emergent subfield in which radical-right populism is analysed through the lens of a public health crisis (i.e. the pandemic), reflecting the broader integration of health crises into political communication research. This exploratory analysis, with the subsequent emerging topic structure, suggests that the field is both thematically cohesive (centred on shared concerns about populism, digital platforms and political communication) and methodologically diverse, with variation in language, geographic focus, and the specific platforms or political phenomena under study.
Conceptualisations of digital populism (RQ1)
Across the studies included in this review, digital populism is generally understood as the use of digital platforms, particularly social media, to communicate and mobilise around populist claims, challenge established elites and build direct ties with ‘the people’ (Santoso et al., 2020; Varis, 2020). In line with our theoretical argument, these studies treat digital populism not as a separate ideology but as the communicative realisation of populist ideology in platform environments. Our analysis of definitions and conceptual discussions shows that authors typically describe digital populism in terms of four interrelated dimensions: communication style, ideological content, strategic use of digital tools and platform affordances, and contextual adaptations to specific media systems and political settings.
Overall, these dimensions suggest that digital populism capitalises on social media to construct, personalise and amplify populist narratives more intensively than earlier mass-mediated approaches. Table 1 summarises how these characteristics appear across the reviewed literature.
A summary of defining characteristics of digital populism.
Populism as communication style
Our analysis shows that digital populism, similar to its traditional counterpart, relies on emotionally driven communication. It is built around affective intimacy and conflictual moralisation, as leaders routinely perform ‘ordinariness and proximity’ through speaking in the first person, addressing ‘the people’ directly, and inviting interaction, to signal authenticity and sameness (Gandini, 2022; Hameleers et al., 2021). Message tone skews negative and adversarial as attacks on opponents and institutions, crisis talk, and delegitimising strategies are frequently used to raise attention and increase persuasion (Alonso-Muñoz and Casero-Ripollés, 2023; Cassell, 2020; Cervi, 2020). This discourse often includes personal attacks, criticism of rivals and delegitimisation of institutions (Glazunova, 2020; Glazunova and Amadoru, 2023).
We find that, as a communication style, digital populism is multimodal and vernacular. That is, populists tend to lean on short, repeatable slogans, live video and platform-native visuals (memes, templated images, hashtag strings) that compress arguments into shareable cues (Al-Rawi, 2021; Marchal et al., 2021; Röchert et al., 2020; Zahay, 2022). Visual religio-moral cues and everyday aesthetics (family, gender roles, heroism) are used to make appeals legible and emotionally sticky across heterogeneous audiences (Ragragio, 2023; Zahay, 2022). Digital populism amplifies emotional appeals through audio-visual formats such as videos, memes and hashtags, which enhance the visibility and circulation of messages, with targeted campaigns increasingly combining multiple media formats to maximise reach (Baldwin-Philippi, 2019; Larsson, 2022; Vences and Rosales, 2023). We find that these patterns intensified in exceptional contexts (e.g. commemorative and victimhood narratives during COVID-19), where leaders mobilise supporters through mourning, blame and renewal (Schwarzenegger and Wagner, 2023).
Ideological components
Across cases, three thin-core elements recur: people-centrism, anti-elitism and nativist protectionism. In particular, we find that populists cast a virtuous people versus corrupt elites, claim unmediated representation and promise to ‘return’ sovereignty (Alonso-Muñoz, 2021; Hameleers et al., 2018; Zulianello et al., 2018). In turn, immigration and supranational governance become symbolic threats to community and control (Alonso-Muñoz and Casero-Ripollés, 2020; Belim Rodrigues, 2020; Capozzi et al., 2023; Grasso, 2022; Salgado, 2019).
A distinct dimension here is religion-inflected populism. Populist actors tend to instrumentalise religious symbols and moral vocabularies (e.g. ‘God’, virtue/decadence, purity/contamination) to sanctify ‘the people’, label enemies and legitimise their authority (Cunha, 2023; Marchetti et al., 2022; Ragragio, 2023; Siles et al., 2021). This is particularly salient where religion is politically central (e.g. Brazil’s ‘Deus acima de todos’, Hindu-nationalist contexts in India, conservative Christian claims in Central America), and also appears in Eastern European debates linking nation, faith and public order (Bolsover, 2022; Grapă and Mogoș, 2023; Shahin, 2021). It is interesting that although religion did not appear as a distinct computational topic in the dataset, our thematic analysis revealed its continued relevance across several studies. In particular, research on Brazil, India, Turkey and parts of Europe shows how populist actors embed religious narratives in digital communication to reinforce moral boundaries between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’. Our analysis confirms that religion is a meaningful strand within the broader themes of identity and nationalism.
Strategic digital practices
Content and discourse strategies
We find that digital populists exploit social media to communicate directly with supporters, combining investigative journalism with digital activism to influence public opinion (Glazunova and Amadoru, 2023; Glazunova, 2020). These actors compress narratives into soundbites and frames that travel well, such as blame-attribution for migration and crime, anti-media/anti-expert cues and sovereignty talk packaged for efficient cross-platform circulation (Alonso-Muñoz and Casero-Ripollés, 2021; Datts, 2020; Roberts, 2020; Vázquez-Barrio, 2021). Advertising follows a ‘thin ideology’ logic, with few core ideas and heavy emotional rhetoric, optimised for attention and segmentation (Capozzi et al., 2023). Journalistic hybrids (e.g. exposés styled as activism) further blur boundaries between reporting and mobilisation, reinforcing populist narratives in the news ecosystem (Berti and Loner, 2021; Fontes and Marques, 2022; Mangerotti et al., 2021).
Engagement, mobilisation and community building
Populist communication converts visibility into stable communities. Supporter spaces on Reddit, Parler, Facebook and Telegram function as affinity hubs with shared language, rituals and identity work (Capdevila et al., 2022; Jungherr et al., 2021; Santamaría, 2022; Tran, 2021). Social media algorithms prioritise emotionally charged content, which populists exploit to evoke anger and fear, amplifying their reach and reinforcing echo chambers dynamics (Varis, 2020) and selective exposure, contributing to message reinforcement and voter mobilisation (Boulianne et al., 2020; Grasso, 2022; Schaub and Morisi, 2020). Populist actors also use data-driven targeting to enhance engagement. In other words, ‘data-driven amplification’ (from targeted ads to coordinated bots) is used to propagate and strengthen narratives, especially around divisive issues (Capozzi et al., 2023; Ernst et al., 2017; Galgoczy et al., 2022). Collectively, these tactics are effective, as shown by experimental and observational studies that demonstrate that populist rhetoric can influence emotions, evaluations and votes (Cassell, 2020; Cassell, 2021a; Jost and Doğruel, 2023). By mobilising supporters through online calls to action, digital populists foster cohesive communities that sustain ideological narratives. These communities function as echo chambers, strengthening group identity and increasing polarisation. The rapid mobilisation of large groups demonstrates digital populism’s capacity to shape both online and offline political dynamics.
Platform manipulation and influencer aesthetics
Populist leaders increasingly adopt influencer-style performativity, that is, casual livestreams, backstage access and parasocial intimacy, to reduce distance and reframe politics as lifestyle/community (Di Nubila et al., 2023; Gandini, 2022). Gendered and family-centric visuals are used to broaden appeal and normalise ideology through aspirational content (Zahay, 2022). These formats are effective in increasing engagement while maintaining ideological clarity.
Contextual adaptations
Cross-cultural digital populism adapts to cultural and national contexts. In Brazil/Latin America, for instance, digital populism is characterised by strong religio-national symbolism, leader-centric ‘politainment’ (i.e. political entertainment) and movement-media cross-pollination (Cunha, 2023; Di Nubila et al., 2023; Rodrigues and Ferreira, 2020), while in China, it emphasises national identity and anti-intellectualism as the notion of ‘people’ is articulated through nation and order rather than partisan competition (He et al., 2023; Zhang, 2020). In India and South Asia, digital populism is sustained by Hindu-nationalist narratives and moral majoritarianism, closely integrated with the party–state digital machinery (Bolsover, 2022; Leidig, 2019; Martelli and Jumle, 2023). In Turkey and parts of Eastern Europe, it relies on state-aligned trolling, re-securitisation narratives and staged displays of patriotic violence (Bulut and Yörük, 2017; Dinc and Ozduzen, 2023; Grapă and Mogoș, 2023). In Spain and Western Europe, professionalised far-right operations (exemplified by VOX) combine EU-scepticism, migration-focused ideologies and dense community infrastructures to scale reach and influence (Capdevila et al., 2022; Labio-Bernal and Manzano-Zambruno, 2023; Vázquez-Barrio, 2021).
Overall, populist actors tend to tailor rhetoric to local values, maximising resonance and engagement. Studies consistently show that digital populism outperforms non-populist communication in shaping political attitudes and voting behaviour. The evidence base links these styles and strategies to increased polarisation, mis/disinformation and institutional distrust, even as they increase participation and community cohesion among sympathisers (Boulianne et al., 2020; Hameleers, 2020a, 2020b; Schumann et al., 2021). At the same time, our findings suggest that direct digital communication should not be treated as a uniquely populist feature. The rise of platform-mediated visibility has reconfigured the relationship between political actors and publics across the spectrum. Populist figures may exemplify this trend most vividly, but they operate within the same communicative logic of immediacy and personalisation that now shapes mainstream campaigning as well (Postill, 2018). By bypassing traditional media gatekeepers, populists maintain high visibility and influence public discourse. The growing effectiveness of digital populism poses risks, including misinformation, polarisation and declining institutional trust. Its reliance on social media for ideological dissemination, engagement and media circumvention raises concerns about democratic resilience and the influence of conspiracy theories. While social media enhances participation, it also amplifies challenges to democratic stability.
Methodological approaches in digital populism research (RQ2)
The reviewed articles (N = 188) were found to use a wide range of methodological approaches, reflecting both the complexity of digital populism research and its interdisciplinary scope. Research spans multiple national contexts, with a marked concentration in Europe. The most significant clusters are in Spain (n = 22), Italy (n = 16), Germany (n = 16) and the Netherlands (n = 13), followed by the United States and the United Kingdom (n = 9 each), France (n = 8), Brazil (n = 7), Austria (n = 6) and Portugal, Russia, India and China (n = 5 each). Approximately 31 studies adopt explicitly comparative or multi-country designs, enabling cross-context analysis.
Platform focus mirrors social media’s centrality to the field. Twitter and Facebook dominate, with around 54 and 52 studies respectively, followed by smaller but notable bodies of work on Instagram (approx. 11) and YouTube (approx. 5). Research on Telegram is emerging – often centred on protest or mobilisation channels – alongside studies of Chinese platforms such as Weibo and WeChat, as well as TikTok and Reddit (e.g. Cervi et al., 2021; González-Aguilar et al., 2023; He et al., 2023; Jungherr et al., 2021; Schwarzenegger and Wagner, 2023). Standard Twitter and Facebook analyses remain dominant in the literature, particularly for examining content and diffusion dynamics (e.g. Carrella, 2020; Zulianello et al., 2018). When aggregated across the dataset, Facebook (approx. 47 studies) and Twitter/X (approx. 42) remain the most frequently examined platforms, with far fewer studies addressing Instagram (approx. 9), YouTube (approx. 5), Telegram, Weibo, or WeChat (approx. 3 each), TikTok (approx. 2) and Reddit (approx. 1). This disproportion reflects the field’s reliance on platforms offering accessible trace data, typically analysed through qualitative coding and, in a smaller subset, computational natural language processing (NLP) techniques.
Recent work illustrates this methodological diversification. For example, Almodt (2022) combines semi-automated text mining with qualitative content analysis to map right-wing populist frames on Facebook in Central and Eastern Europe, while Grasso (2022) links hashtag network analysis with systemic functional linguistics to trace how Australian populist actors construct nationalist and anti-immigration narratives on Twitter. Mixed-method designs also combine content analysis with survey or experimental data to examine audience responses (Bast et al., 2022; González-González et al., 2022), and qualitative studies use digital ethnography and visual discourse analysis to explore populist mobilisation and leadership performance in specific movements (Nenjerama and Mpofu, 2021; Palau-Sampio, 2022; Szebeni and Salojärvi, 2022).
Methodologically, the literature is diverse but leans heavily towards text- and image-centred analyses. Content analysis is the most common approach (approx. 98 studies), frequently combined with computational techniques (approx. 66 studies) such as supervised classification, lexicon-based or LIWC analysis, topic modelling, and other NLP methods, and often embedded within mixed-methods designs. For example, Carrella (2020) applies computational analysis to Twitter data, while Schwarzenegger and Wagner (2023) adopt qualitative and critical approaches to examine commemorative narratives on Telegram. Network mapping of diffusion patterns and online communities appears regularly (e.g. Cervi, 2019; Romero-Rodríguez et al., 2015). Survey research and experiments are less common than digital trace-data studies but provide critical complementary perspectives. Examples include a four-wave longitudinal survey on social media news use and populist attitudes (Schumann et al., 2021) and experimental work on selective exposure and messaging effects (Mothes and Ohme, 2019).
Recent large-scale comparative work has expanded the methodological scope of digital populism research. For example, Hameleers et al. (2018) used experimental designs across 16 European countries to examine how populist communication influences political engagement, while Müller et al. (2017) employed longitudinal panel data to examine the polarising effects of populist news coverage. These studies exemplify the field’s growing sophistication in linking media content to attitudinal and behavioural outcomes. Interview-based and netnographic designs offer additional contextual depth, as exemplified in the research by Spierings and Jacobs (2019) and Lokot (2019).
A more detailed review of methodologies across all 188 articles allowed us to group them into nine non-exclusive categories as studies can appear in more than one category (see Table 2). These are: content/qualitative analysis (n = 119), social-media trace studies (n = 93), statistical/quantitative modelling (n = 74), computational text/image analysis (n = 22), survey research (n = 17), interview/ethnographic designs (n = 14), network/graph/diffusion analysis (n = 9), case studies (n = 9) and experimental designs (n = 8). A mixed-methods approach, flagged as a cross-cutting category, appears in six studies. As a whole, this distribution confirms that the field blends large-scale analyses of platform traces with targeted designs (both qualitative and quantitative) to test causal mechanisms, explore patterns of diffusion and situate digital populism within broader political and social contexts.
Method categories in digital populism research.
Table 2 distinguishes between empirical research methods (e.g. manual content analysis, qualitative text analysis, computational text analysis, surveys, experiments) and data sources (e.g. social media posts, news articles, televised debates, interviews) and provides examples of studies in each category.
How populist actors use social media and what are the implications for democracy? (RQ3)
Our analysis of the reviewed research confirms that populist actors exploit social media to bypass traditional media gatekeepers, using popular social media platforms to communicate directly with their audience and control their narrative without journalistic mediation. By employing emotional appeals and provocative language, they increase engagement and virality, while personalising their messages to cultivate intimacy with followers. Social media also enables the rapid spread of information, including misinformation and disinformation, often without any fact-checking. Overall, our analysis confirms that populists cultivate online communities that reinforce their worldview, creating echo chambers that insulate supporters from opposing perspectives. These platforms are further used to attack and delegitimise democratic institutions, particularly the mainstream media, while facilitating the mobilisation of supporters and the organisation of political actions more efficiently than traditional methods. Our analysis identifies several key themes regarding the implications of this form of social media use.
Direct communication through bypassing traditional media
We find consistent evidence across studies that populist actors are increasingly sophisticated in using social media to gain direct and unfiltered access to their audiences (Hameleers, 2020a, 2020b; Hameleers et al., 2018). Research on Facebook and Twitter shows leaders compressing messages into concise narratives and interaction cues that invite direct response and moral positioning (Casero-Ripollés et al., 2017; Zulianello et al., 2018). This approach has been particularly evident in contexts such as Brazil and India, where populist leaders have extensively used these platforms to amplify their reach and influence (Di Nubila et al., 2023; Sharma, 2023). In this way, populists maintain tight control over narratives delivered directly to supporters, maximising their impact while diminishing the mediating role of traditional journalism in public debate.
Emotional appeal and polarisation
Our analysis shows that populist communication on social media frequently relies on emotional appeals, particularly anger and fear, to resonate with audiences (Gerbaudo et al., 2023). Provocative language and emotionally charged content increase engagement and virality, as users are more likely to react to and share such material (Alonso-Muñoz and Casero-Ripollés, 2023; Carrella, 2020). While these strategies are effective in capturing attention and mobilising supporters, they also tend to intensify polarisation by reinforcing ideological boundaries and heightening social and political tensions. Accordingly, comparative research links social media news use to increased polarisation and identity-consistent interpretation of political information (Hameleers, 2018, 2019a, 2019b, 2020a, 2020b, 2022a, 2022b; Hameleers et al., 2018). This dynamic contributes to the fragmentation of public discourse, as emotionally driven narratives often overshadow more deliberative forms of communication. In addition, studies of dis/misinformation across crises (e.g. COVID-19) detail how populist narratives exploit uncertainty and grievance to mobilise attention (Hameleers, 2020a, 2020b; Magos and Pureco, 2024).
Personalisation and influencer politics
Social media enables populist leaders to cultivate a personal and relatable image, fostering a sense of intimacy and authenticity with their followers. Instagram, and, to a lesser extent, TikTok, support a staged authenticity that tightens parasocial bonds and leader-centric identification. Mixed-methods and longitudinal research show a rising reliance on visual intimacy and lifestyle cues around European parties/leaders (Larsson, 2020, 2023), and measurable attitudinal effects among followers, including electoral gains during political campaigns (Bast et al., 2022; Moir, 2023). Visual analyses of leaders’ feeds (e.g. Orbán) document a consistent personalist aesthetic aligned with populist style (Szebeni and Salojärvi, 2022). TikTok studies highlight ‘spectacularisation’ and personalisation, alongside risks of hate speech (Cervi et al., 2021; González-Aguilar et al., 2023). This strategy enhances leaders’ appeal by portraying them as approachable and genuine, aligning with the anti-elitist rhetoric central to populism. However, the emphasis on personalisation can also engender a cult of personality, concentrating political focus and loyalty on the individual leader rather than broader ideological principles (Ernst et al., 2017; Szebeni and Salojärvi, 2022; Trillò and Starita, 2023).
Mobilisation of communities, echo chambers and the spread of mis/disinformation
We find that populist actors cultivate online communities that reinforce their worldviews, creating echo chambers that restrict exposure to alternative perspectives and intensify ideological divides (Boulianne et al., 2020). This fragmentation weakens the public sphere as individuals become increasingly isolated within self-reinforcing networks (Schaub and Morisi, 2020). Social media further enables populists to spread misinformation, exploiting weak fact-checking mechanisms to disseminate unverified claims before corrections can take effect (Chen et al., 2023; Lewandowsky et al., 2020). The rapid spread of false information erodes shared factual foundations, amplifies societal distrust and undermines democratic governance (Hameleers, 2022b). Studies of Telegram document crisis-driven mobilisation and the effects of populist appeals in channel ecosystems, while research on ‘patriotic violence’ performances illustrates how platformed nationalism structures participation (Grapă and Mogoș, 2023; Jost and Doğruel, 2023).
Attacks on traditional institutions
Social media empowers populist actors to delegitimise democratic institutions and mainstream media (Egelhofer et al., 2021; Varis, 2020), eroding public trust and democratic norms (Hameleers, 2022a, 2022b). Platforms facilitate supporter mobilisation and political action, as evidenced in Turkey and the United States (Baloğlu, 2021; Galgoczy et al., 2022), while simultaneously enabling rapid dissemination of extremist ideology, particularly during crises such as COVID-19 (Jost and Doğruel, 2023). Comparative analyses trace how populist actors construct ‘truth’ claims against journalism, often via pseudo-media that mimic news forms (Eberl et al., 2021; Hameleers, 2020a). Many studies link populist digital communication to declining institutional trust, disinformation and polarisation. However, the evidence across this literature is largely correlational. Broader factors (including widening economic inequality, representational dissatisfaction and neoliberal restructuring) likely underpin the erosion of trust that populist actors then articulate and amplify. Consequently, it is plausible that digital populism reflects and exploits these structural crises rather than directly causing them.
Implications and intersecting themes
Our review indicates that the transnational reach of digital populism allows different movements to share strategies and spread misinformation across borders without traditional gatekeeping constraints. This phenomenon creates regulatory challenges for national governments seeking to protect democratic processes. Furthermore, as the studies reviewed show, social media’s echo chambers and misinformation networks undermine the foundations of democratic debate, while populist rhetoric intensifies societal polarisation. By circumventing journalistic oversight and fact-checks, populist actors can rapidly spread unfiltered and potentially harmful extremist content. The resulting personalisation of politics prioritises individual leaders over institutions, destabilising democratic governance while promoting polarised political participation.
Overall, the evidence in the review indicates that social platforms (especially Twitter and Facebook, with Instagram/YouTube/TikTok/Telegram playing more niche roles) enable populists to control narrative supply, prioritise affect over deliberation, consolidate identity-based communities and erode institutional mediation. The democratic risks cluster around polarisation, the uptake of mis/disinformation and declining institutional trust, even as these dynamics increase participation and mobilisation among sympathisers.
Our review confirms that most recent studies of digital populism concentrate on its disruptive and anti-democratic dimensions – disinformation, polarisation and declining trust in institutions. This emphasis reflects a broader shift in digital media scholarship – that is, early research tended to highlight the participatory affordances of online platforms and their potential to support civic engagement (e.g. Dahlberg, 2011; Tufekci and Wilson, 2012), whereas post-2016 research has increasingly focused on democratic risks. At the same time, democratic theorists remind us that populism can also perform corrective functions by articulating grievances and mobilising neglected publics (Canovan, 1999; Mansbridge and Macedo, 2019). Seen in this light, digital populism appears analytically ambivalent: in digital contexts, populist communication may both strengthen participation and intensify division, depending on ideological orientation, institutional context, the affordances of specific platforms and whether populist actors operate in opposition or from positions of power.
The predominance of right-wing and exclusionary populism in digital populism research reflects patterns of scholarly attention rather than the full scope of populism itself. Inclusionary and left-populist movements remain comparatively underexplored in digital contexts, in part because they are less likely to self-identify as ‘populist’ and therefore appear less often in database searches. Our findings should thus be read as a synthesis of a dominant strand of the literature, not as an exhaustive account of all relationships between digital media and populist mobilisation. At the same time, research in adjacent fields points to alternative, more democracy-promoting interpretations. For instance, Cohen’s (2025) study of US left-activist networks shows that digital populism can be experienced as expanding democratic voice and countering the perceived corrosive effects of legacy media. Taken together, these patterns suggest that the skew in our corpus might signal a substantive gap in the field – that is, namely, limited attention to inclusionary and activist forms of digital populism, rather than a shortcoming of the review itself.
Accordingly, the findings of this review should be interpreted as mapping a dominant research trajectory rather than capturing the full diversity of populist communication online. The literature synthesised here is heavily weighted towards exclusionary and right-wing movements, particularly in European and Western contexts, which are more frequently labelled as ‘populist’ and have attracted disproportionate scholarly scrutiny. While this focus has generated valuable insights into democratic risks, it leaves open the possibility that other forms of digital populism, especially participatory and inclusionary projects, may have different democratic implications.
Within our analysis, we identified several intersecting themes within the findings across the research questions RQ1 and RQ3 (see Table 3). For instance, the communication style documented in RQ1 (affective, adversarial, multimodal) drives virality and deepens divisions on social media (Hameleers, 2019a, 2019b, 2020a, 2020b, 2022a, 2022b; Hameleers et al., 2018; Carrella, 2020). Core ideological components (such as people-centrism and anti-elitism) benefit from gatekeeper bypass, reinforcing distrust (Alonso-Muñoz et al., 2021). Digital strategies of personalisation and influencer-style outreach (Larsson, 2023; Szebeni and Salojärvi, 2022) cultivate closeness and loyalty. Engagement and mobilisation are sustained in platform communities and Telegram channels that reproduce party discourse and accelerate on- and offline action (Capdevila et al., 2022; Jost and Doğruel, 2023). Contextual variation remains substantial – EU-focused campaigns, Brazil’s politainment broadcasts, India’s leader-centred outreach and China’s nation-centred populist articulations all illustrate local tailoring (Di Nubila et al., 2023; He et al., 2023; Sharma, 2023; Zulianello et al., 2018).
The intersection of themes identified when addressing RQ1 and RQ3.
Discussion
This review highlights the complex and evolving nature of digital populism and its expanding influence on political communication. Digital populism is complex, adapting to diverse political and cultural contexts through varied communication styles and platforms. Consistent with earlier findings (e.g. Engesser et al., 2017; Gerbaudo, 2018), this review shows that digital populism research increasingly focuses on how platform affordances shape populist discourse. In particular, our analysis shows how digital populism exploits social platforms to bypass journalistic gatekeeping, mobilise affect and build enduring supporter communities. Across the studies we reviewed (188 from 2015 to early 2025), we find that research attention is concentrated on Twitter/X and Facebook, with Instagram and YouTube as secondary, and TikTok/Telegram as emergent. Findings converge on three key dynamics: (a) affective, multimodal style (short, platform-native cues that privilege outrage and identity); (b) gatekeeper bypass and personalisation (leader-centred, informal communication that strengthens parasocial bonds); and (c) community consolidation (traceable echo chamber patterns and rapid mobilisation). Together, these dynamics raise participation among sympathisers while increasing polarisation and eroding confidence in democratic institutions.
Emotional engagement is a central feature of digital political communication in general, not a phenomenon limited to populist actors. Papacharissi (2016), for instance, describes networked audiences as affective publics, in which emotion structures political discourse, visibility and participation. Within this environment, populist communication draws on and amplifies existing affective currents (such as anger, fear or pride) to reinforce the moral distinction between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’. Populist actors construct narratives that create intimacy and grievance, often combining personal attacks, crisis talk and institutional criticism with multimodal content (videos, memes, templated images) to broaden reach and emotional impact. In this sense, populists do not invent emotional mobilisation but adapt the affect-driven logics of digital media to their ideological framing.
A distinct theme within the body of research that we reviewed is religion-inflected populism, in which populist actors instrumentalise religious symbols and moral vocabularies to legitimise ‘the people’ and construct cultural boundaries. This dynamic is especially salient where religion occupies a central political role, such as in Brazil and India, or where faith-based populist appeals are used, as in the United States and parts of Europe. In these contexts, digital media is used to amplify religious signifiers and mobilise believers through emotionally charged online networks.
Methodologically, the research integrates qualitative and quantitative approaches. Computational methods (e.g. topic modelling, sentiment analysis) increasingly complement manual coding and automated content analysis of large datasets. Surveys and experiments examine effects on public opinion, while digital ethnography and case studies provide contextual depth. Comparative and longitudinal studies track the evolution of populist strategies across countries and timeframes.
Two points qualify broad generalisations from the literature. First, platform effects appear highly context-specific: most evidence derives from Twitter and Facebook trace data. In contrast, platforms such as YouTube and TikTok are sparsely represented, making system-wide claims about their impact premature. Second, although many studies identify associations between populist cues and audience engagement, causal evidence is limited, with relatively few experimental or longitudinal panel designs. The findings suggest that research on digital populism predominantly interprets it as a threat to democratic norms, yet the causal mechanisms underlying this relationship remain underexplored. Although online populist rhetoric is often associated with disinformation and polarisation, such outcomes are not inherent to digital media use but depend on underlying political discontent and structural inequalities; in other contexts, digital platforms have been shown to support civic participation and engagement (e.g. Gibson et al., 2021; Penney, 2017). Given this contextual and contested evidence base, our review therefore maps dominant framings in the field rather than providing definitive causal evidence that digital populism undermines democracy.
There is, however, a small but growing body of cross-national experiments and panel studies (e.g. Hameleers et al., 2019a; Müller et al., 2017) which signal increasing methodological ambition and a shift from merely describing patterns of digital populist communication to testing proposed causal pathways between media exposure, political engagement and democratic attitudes. Although such designs remain less common than qualitative and computational approaches, they play a crucial role in complementing predominantly descriptive evidence with stronger inferences about effects.
Future research directions
This review highlights key gaps and opportunities for future research. One critical area is the long-term impact of digital populism on democratic resilience. While populist rhetoric fosters polarisation and erodes trust in institutions, further research is needed to assess how these dynamics evolve across different political contexts (Hameleers, 2022a, 2022b; Varis, 2020). Longitudinal studies could clarify whether these effects stabilise, intensify, or diminish over time, particularly as platforms modify their policies on misinformation and hate speech.
The role of platform algorithms in amplifying digital populism also warrants further investigation. While research has examined content dissemination, more empirical work is needed on how algorithms prioritise populist messaging relative to other political communication (e.g. Gerbaudo, 2018). Understanding how algorithms shape echo chambers and spread disinformation would provide insights into the influence of platform design on political behaviour and inform policy interventions that promote balanced discourse. Cultural and regional variations in digital populism remain underexplored. While studies have examined cases in Brazil, China and the United States, systematic cross-cultural comparisons are limited. Research should analyse how sociopolitical factors shape populist narratives across different political systems (He et al., 2023; Alonso-Muñoz and Casero-Ripollés, 2020). Such comparisons could refine theoretical frameworks by identifying common patterns and regional divergences.
Emerging platforms such as TikTok and Telegram also require greater attention. These platforms differ in functionality, user demographics and communication styles, potentially shaping populist messaging in distinct ways. Future studies should examine how populists adapt their strategies for different platforms and how these spaces influence youth mobilisation (Larsson, 2023; Santamaría, 2022). Interdisciplinary methodologies could enhance research on digital populism. While mixed methods are standard, integrating computational approaches with qualitative techniques, such as digital ethnography, would deepen understanding of populist narrative construction, dissemination and reception (Grasso, 2022; McLamore and Uluğ, 2020). Expanding methodological frameworks could also address ethical challenges, including privacy concerns and algorithmic transparency.
In addition to methodological shifts, the emergence of religion as a salient theme in digital populist discourse represents a noteworthy conceptual development. The integration of religious narratives into populist messaging (primarily through digital media) needs further investigation, particularly in regions where religion intersects with nationalist or authoritarian currents. Understanding how digital populism exploits religious language and authority can enrich the analysis of its cultural and emotional resonance, and its broader implications for pluralism and secularism in democratic societies.
The sample composition of the studies in the review seems to mirror a broader imbalance in digital populism research, which has focused mainly on exclusionary movements in European and Western contexts. We believe this reflects a gap in the literature rather than an artefact of the search strategy. Addressing this gap will require expanding conceptual and disciplinary boundaries to incorporate studies of participatory or inclusionary digital populism that are currently classified under digital activism or civic mobilisation rather than populism. In this sense, this review reflects the field’s current bias towards cases where digital populism is framed as a democratic threat. Future work could address this lacuna by expanding search terms and disciplinary coverage to include research on ‘digital activism’, ‘anti-elite discourse’ or ‘participatory mobilisation’, and by engaging more systematically with democracy-promoting perspectives such as Cohen’s (2025) analysis of imagined democratic affordances.
Finally, research should assess policy responses to digital populism, particularly the balance between free speech and content regulation. Rigorous evaluation of platform policies and their unintended consequences is crucial for informing effective governance (Chen et al., 2023; Egelhofer et al., 2021). A combination of longitudinal, comparative and interdisciplinary research is essential to understanding the long-term implications of digital populism and developing strategies to mitigate its effects on democratic systems.
Conclusion
This review synthesises research on digital populism by examining how it is conceptualised, studied and linked to democratic processes. Across the literature, digital populism emerges as a communicative phenomenon shaped by platform affordances, affective narratives and direct leader-follower engagement. Methodologically, the field is characterised by considerable pluralism, combining computational, qualitative and comparative approaches across disciplines.
Empirically, most studies focus on how populist actors use platforms such as Facebook and X/Twitter to personalise politics, bypass journalistic mediation and mobilise affective communities. These practices are consistently associated with polarisation, misinformation and declining trust in institutions. At the same time, the evidence base remains largely correlational, and causal links between online populist communication and democratic backsliding are still underdeveloped. Overall, our findings suggest that digital populism is neither inherently democratic nor inherently anti-democratic, but contingent on ideological orientation, institutional context and position vis-à-vis power. While online populist communication can amplify participation and voice, it can also undermine pluralism and institutional constraints, particularly when it crystallises around exclusionary projects in government. The predominance of such cases in the literature reflects current patterns of scholarly attention rather than the full range of digital populist practices.
The policy implications of this review should be interpreted accordingly. Existing research tends to foreground risk and regulation, yet adjacent work highlights more participatory and democracy-enhancing uses of networked communication. Rather than endorsing prescriptive solutions, this review points to the need for context-sensitive approaches that address demonstrable harms while preserving the openness and pluralism of digital political communication.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-nms-10.1177_14614448261420218 – Supplemental material for Populism in the age of social media: A systematic review of recent digital populism research
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-nms-10.1177_14614448261420218 for Populism in the age of social media: A systematic review of recent digital populism research by Ihsan Yilmaz, Ana-Maria Bliuc, Robb Norrie, Chloe M Smith, James Smith, Cerys Evans, Daniel S Courtney and Daniel Barnett in New Media & Society
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-2-nms-10.1177_14614448261420218 – Supplemental material for Populism in the age of social media: A systematic review of recent digital populism research
Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-nms-10.1177_14614448261420218 for Populism in the age of social media: A systematic review of recent digital populism research by Ihsan Yilmaz, Ana-Maria Bliuc, Robb Norrie, Chloe M Smith, James Smith, Cerys Evans, Daniel S Courtney and Daniel Barnett in New Media & Society
Footnotes
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support received for the research and publication of this article from the Australian Research Council (DP220100829 and DP230100257).
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