<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>The terminology of populism is often taken for granted, even though the very meaning of populism is quite unclear. The article approaches populism by exploring the meanings given to the term in the Nordic press during the first parliamentary elections of the 2010s in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. A combination of the quantitative content analysis and the qualitative frame analysis of the leading quality and popular papers is favoured. In the study of the use of populism in the British press the conclusion was that the term was used more or less explicitly in a pejorative way, although uses of the term varied and had no consistent logic. In the Nordic press recurring frames were found, but the meanings given to populism were only fully understood in their political and cultural contexts. The different life phases of the domestic populist parties as well as differences in Nordic political cultures especially explain the variation in the usage of the term.</p>
</abstract>

The terminology of populism is often taken for granted, even though the very meaning of populism is quite unclear. The article approaches populism by exploring the meanings given to the term in the Nordic press during the first parliamentary elections of the 2010s in Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. A combination of the quantitative content analysis and the qualitative frame analysis of the leading quality and popular papers is favoured. In the study of the use of populism in the British press the conclusion was that the term was used more or less explicitly in a pejorative way, although uses of the term varied and had no consistent logic. In the Nordic press recurring frames were found, but the meanings given to populism were only fully understood in their political and cultural contexts. The different life phases of the domestic populist parties as well as differences in Nordic political cultures especially explain the variation in the usage of the term.

Construction of Populism: Meanings Given to Populism in the Nordic Press

Nordicom Review

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

{"article-title":"Construction of Populism: Meanings Given to Populism in the Nordic Press"}

The terminology of populism is often taken for granted, even though the very meaning of populism is quite unclear. The article approaches populism by exploring...

	News articles	Editorials / columns	Letters to editors	Other	All
Sweden	26	22	2	10	60
Finland	26	18	8	8	60
Norway	4	10	8	3	25
Denmark	6	13	4	2	25
Total	62	63	22	23	170

Paper type/frame	Nationalism	Nativism	Empty rhetoric	Political movement	Voice of the people	Total (%)
Quality	17 (14)	30 (11)	38 (5)	8 (2)	7 (1)	100 (33)
Popular	6 (8)	34 (3)	34 (5)	16 (6)	10 (5)	100 (27)
Mean	12 (11)	32 (7)	36 (5)	12 (4)	9 (3)

Country/frame	Nationalism	Nativism	Empty rhetoric	Political movement	Voice of the people	Total (%)
Sweden	5 (8)	50 (5)	29 (3)	14 (3)	2 (2)	100 (21)
Finland	15 (25)	23 (9)	31 (7)	16 (7)	15 (5)	100 (53)
Norway	12	32 (8)	48 (8)	–	8	100 (16)
Denmark	28	5 (16)	52	–	5	100 (16)
Mean	15 (8)	28 (10)	40 (5)	8 (3)	8 (2)

Construction of Populism: Meanings Given to Populism in the Nordic Press

Publicado en línea: 07 jul 2020

Páginas: 147 - 161

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2016-0029

Palabras clave
populism, Nordic countries, newspapers, frame analysis, constructivism

© 2016 Juha Herkman, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Number of articles mentioning populism in the different countries and genres

Share of primary (and secondary) frames (%) in the different newspaper types

Share of primary (and secondary) frames (%) in the different countries

Construction of Populism: Meanings Given to Populism in the Nordic Press

Publicado en línea: 07 jul 2020

Páginas: 147 - 161

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/nor-2016-0029

Palabras clavepopulism, Nordic countries, newspapers, frame analysis, constructivism

© 2016 Juha Herkman, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Number of articles mentioning populism in the different countries and genres

Share of primary (and secondary) frames (%) in the different newspaper types

Share of primary (and secondary) frames (%) in the different countries

Palabras clave
populism, Nordic countries, newspapers, frame analysis, constructivism