Pseudo-journalistic political communication. An analysis of the content, production and reception of the use of journalistic genres in populist radical right party political communication in Germany and Austria (FWOTM1135)

The proposed study analyzes the use of journalistic genres in political
communication, focusing on Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and
Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ) as populist radical right (PRR)
parties that are key players in the contemporary hybridization of
political communication. Bridging journalism studies and political
communication, it proposes the term pseudo-journalistic political
communication to capture hybrid genres that emerge through the
integration of journalistic genre resources into political
communication. Taking into account complex interactions between
content, production and reception in the negotiation of genres, it
examines three interrelated levels. On a content level, it constructs a
typology of uses of journalistic genres in PRR political
communication, and then performs an in-depth multimodal genre
analysis on a subset of content that makes substantive and structural
use of journalistic genres. On a production level, a social network
analysis constructs a detailed map of the production context of such
pseudo-journalistic political communication. On a reception level, it
performs a digital ethnography of how audiences engage with
pseudo-journalistic political communication. Through its focus on
pseudo-journalistic political communication the research fills a
significant gap in the literature on political communication, on the
contemporary politics-journalism nexus more broadly, as well as on
PRR parties

Keywords:journalism, political communication, populist radical right

Disciplines:Political communication, Journalism studies, Digital media, Media discourse reception