Where populist citizens get the news: An investigation of news audience polarization along populist attitudes in 11 countries

Abstract

This article presents a secondary analysis of two multi-national cross-sectional surveys conducted in 2015 (11 countries, N = 10,570) and 2017 (4 countries, N = 2165) to examine the relationship between populist attitudes and media use. The results indicate that populist citizens are more likely to consume news than non-populist citizens. Specifically, populist citizens exhibit a preference for commercial television (TV) news, as well as a tendency to read tabloid newspapers. While they use fewer quality newspapers, public TV news are not systematically avoided. Regarding the online news environment, populist citizens prefer Facebook over Twitter as a source of political information. This selective pattern will be discussed in light of the debates on news audience polarization and political polarization.