The rise of populism
‘No middle ground on social media’
Door Ingrid Ştefan
By Ingrid Ştefan
Ingrid Ştefan
It was 1993, and young Rashid had just started first grade in Uzbekistan. He was given a book about Lenin and the Kremlin and the teacher told him to draw the flags on the Kremlin. Then, one week later, he received a new book, and this time his teacher instructed him to tear apart the picture of Lenin, because he was bad.
‘As a social scientist, these were defining events that showed me how quickly things can change’, he says. ‘Yesterday’s hero is tomorrow’s enemy, and today we are ripping him apart and moving on to new books. That was fascinating.’
Now, Rashid Gabdulhakov is an assistant professor at the UG’s Research Centre for Media and Journalism Studies. He specialises in social media, disinformation and populist politics, especially in the context of Russia and Central Asia.
In many ways, he thinks, it was growing up in Uzbekistan in the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union that influenced his desire to find answers. That’s why he went on to study political science and security, in an attempt to make sense of the world around him. It was in 2015, while he was doing a master’s degree in Geneva, that something else sparked his interest: the media.
Media coverage
‘It was the peak of the so-called refugee crisis in Europe, and I started noticing different kinds of frames that were used to paint refugees as invaders’, he explains. The language was hyperbolic, with terms like ‘herd’ or ‘tsunami’ being used. ‘That’s when I realised how important the media is in portraying events, securitising them (editor’s note: transforming regular political issues into matters of ‘security’), and how their coverage can even lead to certain political outcomes.’
We see frozen conflicts getting defrosted
Shifting his focus to populism came naturally as well, probably because he has been studying Russia from early on. ‘I observed the different interference schemes, the manipulation mechanisms, the role of propaganda, and the return, in many ways, to the Soviet realities’, he says. ‘Even in Uzbekistan, I see how they present the legacy of drifting apart from the Soviet Union as a historical accident.’
Now, more than ever, he says, it’s important to study the role of the media in populism. ‘Like never before, we see frozen conflicts getting defrosted and Russia’s active involvement in Georgia, Moldova, Romania.’
Last week, massive protests erupted in Georgia as the pro-Russian governing party – that won the parliamentary elections in October – suspended negotiations for the country’s entry into the European Union. And in Romania, the first round of presidential elections saw the sudden victory of a pro-Russian candidate, who just recently gained momentum through a TikTok campaign.
Fertile soil
Gabdulhakov is worried. And not just because of Russia, but because populism is spreading throughout Europe. ‘Information is a weapon and a powerful one. But hard weapons are now used as well, and their use is justified through information campaigns’, he says. ‘That crazy idea of a nuclear war in the middle of Europe may not sound so crazy anymore when certain propaganda techniques are applied.’
It’s a domino effect of Russian interference and propaganda, he explains. ‘It works now because it lands on fertile soil.’ Meaning, minds that have been influenced by populism. ‘If we look at the context of Europe or the United States, many people are disenchanted with democracy, and that’s the real global threat.’
To him, as populism is taking over, the promise of democracy is dying. Even tossing the term democracy around seems odd, when so many European parliaments are far-right, nativist and racist in nature, he says. That inevitably leads to a decrease in democratic values. ‘If we arrive there, there’s nothing to stand for anymore. The world becomes a gloomy state of authoritarian, autocratic rule.’
Power to the people
He sees this shift in the Netherlands too. ‘I moved here eight years ago and I’ve witnessed a 180-degree transition. In many ways, when populists come to power, they unlock certain Pandora’s boxes’, he says. It’s a slow process of normalising topics that would once have seemed bizarre, unacceptable, or even racist.
I moved here eight years ago and I’ve witnessed a 180-degree transition
To understand this, it’s crucial to comprehend how populism works. If you look at populist discourse, it has two purposes, Gabdulhakov explains: to discredit the ruling elites and to give power to the ‘people’. But who are the people? What populists do very well, he says, is divide society into the real, authentic, deserving ‘people’ and the invaders.
This is what’s happening now with the demonising of internationals in the Netherlands, he says. ‘We are blaming them for every shortcoming in the country. But doing that directly impacts us as well. With the assault on education and the proposed budget cuts, we harm the knowledge economy of the country.’
Where does social media come into all this, though? And why is it that populists do best on social media, as Romania’s example seems to show?
Echo chambers
‘Social media leaves no room for middle ground, for a moderate approach. It’s ideal for polarising societies’, he explains. ‘Everyone can now become their own broadcaster, their own newspaper. They project the message, and with the use of algorithms, that message is tailored to specific audiences.’
That’s how we end up living in echo chambers, where our own ideas and opinions are the only things we hear. ‘We’re not challenged anymore.’
Social media are ideal for polarising societies
It’s a political tool that suits populists very well, because they can make loud promises, quickly, and they can give simple explanations to complex issues. ‘People don’t have the attention span and time to invest in nuanced explanations. They want quick solutions, and that’s what populists give them’, Gabdulhakov says. Many of these are lies, but by the time they’re debunked, they world has moved on. ‘They create a lot of damage very fast.’
As we are less and less exposed to each other offline, media polarisation online can spill into the real world more easily. ‘Even when we do encounter others, it’s mostly the same type of people, circulating the same ideas’, he says. Change that, though, and you might be surprised what happens.
Exposure to others
Gabdulhakov witnessed that firsthand when he was a student in Spokane, a very conservative town in the US. ‘For many people, I was the first person from Uzbekistan they ever saw.’ But even for those with very strong sentiments against immigration, his presence there changed something.
‘Once they got to know me, I wasn’t a threatening “other” anymore. Suddenly, they saw I’m also just a student going to university. In many ways, they realised we have more in common than that there are differences between us’, he says, smiling. He’s convinced that increasing our exposure to diverse people can help us bridge the ‘us versus them’ divide that populists have so successfully created.
He’d like to see the world become more like his own little neighborhood in the south of Rotterdam: a mini utopia, where people from all corners of the world come together and get along. A world where you can step out of your home and be greeted by the scent of Turkish baklava, a Polish bakery, or a Surinamese market. ‘That’s what I want my four-year-old son to grow up with.’
Until then though, he’ll keep teaching his son why diversity is important and how he can spot populism early on. That’s also why he brought him to the national protest against budget cuts in The Hague last week, he says, proudly looking at the pictures. ‘I tried to explain to him what the budget cuts mean and he asked me if the government are thieves’, he says, laughing. ‘I told him not really, but sort of, because they can steal the future of our education.’