Abstract

Both populism and the uncontrolled spread of disinformation threaten democratic processes. Although they belong to two different disciplines, such phenomena show a relevant affinity, both on a conceptual and empirical level. For one, the relationship between populism and disinformation concerns communication strategies. In this sense, both rhetorics fuel the same type of arguments and sometimes overlap. However, from a communicative perspective, little scholarly attention has been devoted to the intersection between the populist style and disinformative mechanisms. The limited theoretical production couples with a similar lack of empirical research. The article aims at detecting the convergences between populist communication and disinformation in the Italian political landscape. By employing Digital Methods and Content Analysis techniques, the purpose of the research is to detect the presence of populist features both within the discourses of political leaders of the main Italian parties and in the currently most followed and active disinformative pages. Firstly, we will discuss the discursive style that characterizes populist rhetoric and disinformative messages. On the one hand, we will approach populism as a gradual property of political expression and associate the use of stylistic elements of populist ideology and communication to the same communication strategy. On the other hand, we will examine in depth the characteristics of disinformation, to finally identify common features between the two phenomena related to the context in which they operate, the actors they involve, and the communicative elements they employ - concentrating on the latter the attention of the analysis. Secondly, the empirical analysis will identify the relationship between the phenomena within the digital platform environment, by comparing the communication strategies of the main Italian political leaders and disinformation pages on Facebook. The Content Analysis will detect the presence of populist elements, communication functions and message topics, while the application of a multiple correspondence analysis (Acm) will identify the common communicative traits. The results show a significant convergence between disinformation and a certain type of populism in their respective communication practices. The work thus paves the way for a future joint reflection of the two phenomena in the digital environment.