What do we mean when we talk about populism? Local politics,global movements and ‘the people’ in political coverage of the 2016 Australian federal and United States presidential elections

Abstract

In a moment where public and media discussion in some Western democracies is concerned with labelling particular political parties, movements and ideas as ‘populist’, this article seeks to understand what is signified by the act of labelling. It undertakes an analysis of political and media discussions of populism during and following the 2016 Australian federal election and United States Presidential election. The article first conducts a discourse analysis of print and online news coverage in the two election cycles, analysing who and what is labelled populist in political journalism in these spaces. It then turns to an analysis of why: what is it about the current political moment that inspires the application of this label? The article explores how populism operates as shorthand for the identification of – and often, dismay about – the importation of the discourses, logics and technologies of cultural populism into the realm of ‘serious’ politics. It argues that the label masks a deeper conversation which diagnoses and delegitimises specific politicians and those who support them, as part of a broader project to explain the complexities of the present.

Keywords

Australia discourse analysis election campaigns political journalism populism United States

Introduction

On Tuesday, 8 August 2017, the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, one of Australia’s metropolitan broadsheet dailies, featured the headline ‘Revealed: the politicians we secretly admire’ (Wright, 2017). The story reported the results of focus groups with undecided voters in marginal electorates in Sydney and Melbourne, run by the newspaper’s publisher Fairfax in conjunction with market research company Ipsos. The participants had been ‘universally scathing’ when talking about conservative Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Labor Party Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, but more enthusiastic when discussing independent and minor party politicians who seemed willing to speak their minds. This enthusiasm was separate from ideological support; the participants didn’t necessarily agree with the (often controversial) political views of the independent and small party politicians named,¹ but rather they respected their approach to politics. In these same focus groups, United States President Donald Trump was also positively mentioned for being different to other politicians. Journalist Tony Wright (2017) contextualised the respondents’ answers within the global political landscape:

In an echo of the attitudes that have produced Donald Trump as US president and a win to the supporters of Brexit in Britain, the politicians most enthusiastically nominated were thought to sit outside the established political class.

The article was accompanied by an image of a many-headed mythical serpent with Trump and the Australian politicians (Pauline Hanson, Corey Bernardi and Derryn Hinch) all faces of the same beast. An explicit connection was made between Australian and US politics to tell a story about voter disenchantment with the political establishment and the grassroots search for political leaders authentically connected to their constituency. The article didn’t use the term ‘populism’ but rather engaged with the underlying political feelings seen more broadly to be stimulating the global success of populist parties, leaders and movements; feelings that were constructed visually as resulting in something monstrous and threatening. This gives insight into the ways that journalistic discourse defines and explains the current political moment for voters, but also opens up a broader question: what does it mean for political coverage to construct voter disaffection and political support for non-mainstream candidates in Australia and the United States as both interconnected and part of a broader global phenomenon (e.g. Lewis, 2017)? These are vital considerations at a moment where public and media discussion in some Western democracies regularly and consistently turns to the label ‘populist’ to grapple with perceived changes in politics, government and citizen engagement. For example, Benjamin Moffitt (2016: 1) argues that ‘we are seemingly living in populist times’, pointing to an ‘alleged … crisis of faith in democracy’ that is the outcome of phenomena such as the global financial crisis and Eurozone sovereign-debt crisis. This, then, means that ‘the time is ripe for canny political actors who can speak effectively in the name of “the people” to make great political gains’ (Moffitt, 2016: 1).

This article explores the use of the ‘populist’ label in Australian and US political journalism to describe particular political parties, leaders, movements and ideas. It argues that the label is used to analyse broad political trends and dissect election results; to discuss and attempt to make sense of political successes and failures and to predict, reflect on and contextualise political journalism itself. Rather than seek to assess whether the label is used appropriately (asking whether those things called ‘populist’ align with historical or theoretical definitions), the article explores what is signified by the act of labelling, asking what do we mean when we talk about populism? To do so, it will first ask who and what is labelled populist in mainstream legacy newspaper and online news coverage, before moving on to why, considering what it is about the current political moment that inspires the application of this label in political coverage.

These are questions relevant internationally, as conversation and concern about political movements labelled ‘populist’ extends well beyond the United States and Australia. The past decade has been experienced across a range of Western liberal democracies as a time of particular disruption in political journalism, in media industries more broadly, and in the social, cultural, economic and political environments in which journalism operates (Inglehart and Norris, 2016: 2). A range of interconnected trends impact on the political landscape: the seemingly unprecedented pace of social, cultural and technological change; the unease engendered by the pressures of globalisation, economic volatility or instability, armed and other conflicts and radical and fundamentalist terrorism; the voluntary and involuntary movement of great numbers of people across borders and the lived impacts of and public debates about climate change (see McNair et al., 2017: 18). In this context, media industry and scholarly analysis points to a seeming rise of distrust in political and other institutions of ‘establishment’ or ‘elite’ power, connecting this to the rise of alternative, independent or fringe political movements or candidates across the ideological spectrum. Europe has been a particular focus of concern and analysis (Aalberg and De Vreese, 2017: 3), and Latin America is emerging as another (Muggah and Winter, 2017; Zovatto, 2017).²

At the same time, media and political actors and scholars are grappling with the impacts of digital (Engesser et al., 2017) and cultural logics on formal politics and their significance for democratic political representation. While the influence of ‘new’ media formats and popular culture on formal political processes have long been a point of discussion and concern, these debates are seemingly heightened in an era in which the spaces in which politics is conducted and discussed are increasingly porous. The logics and discourses used to report on and engage with politics cannot be easily separated from those associated with other areas of social life and experience. These are both enabled by and supportive of the blurred and fluid spaces of social and digital media (McNair et al., 2017: 26) that host an array of carefully managed interpersonal social interactions and provide some of the foundation for the challenges of ‘information disorder’, which Claire Wardle and Hossein Derakhshan (2017) diagnose as resulting in part from ‘contemporary social technology’.

This is the context in which this article undertakes comparative discursive analysis of the use of the term ‘populism’ in coverage of the 2016 Australian federal election and US presidential election. National-level elections in these two developed Western democracies (with close historical, trade, cultural and political ties) in the same year offer a valuable opportunity to assess the ways in which political and campaign journalism paid attention to, and expressed concerns about, the perceived ‘rise’ of populism. This article maps the application of the ‘populist’ label in news media discourse, both in routine campaign coverage in legacy newspapers and more broadly in digital news, incorporating feature, long-form, explanatory and analytical political coverage. It argues that the label diagnosed a perceived problem in Western democratic politics and delegitimised the political involvement and ideas of specific political candidates and movements and their supporters.

Literature review

Scholarly definitions of populism are varied and numerous; Moffitt (2016: 2; see also Engesser et al., 2017) maps this research and points to the recent ‘revival’ of populism to become one of the ‘most contentious and widely discussed concepts’ in political science. This research is undertaken from the perspective of journalism and media studies; its conceptual framework was developed in reference to those fields. Of particular relevance is work that analyses how political journalism covers populist political actors and ideas, as well as that which considers more broadly the complex and performative nature of the news media’s role in constructing populism in particular places and at particular times. Rather than map political science research,³ therefore, this article engages with work that has taken a particular interest in the intersection between journalism and populism and explores how political coverage operates to mobilise, construct and constitute populist political movements, leaders and appeals.

Aalberg and De Vreese (2016: 3; see also Moffitt, 2016: 2) note that the communicative aspects of populism have been ‘underexplored or often ignored’. They argue that ‘the study of populist political communication has never been more important’ than at this moment ‘in light of the current large-scale social, political and economic turmoil of recent populist backlash against governments, and of the changing media environment’. In this context, they identify that ‘systematic knowledge is sparse in questions related populist actors as communicators, to the role of the media, and to the impact of populist communication strategies on citizens’. Addressing the most relevant for this article, the role of the media, means asking questions about the media dependence of smaller populist parties, or the news media’s appetite for the headlines generation by tabloids (Aalberg and De Vreese, 2016: 3–4), as well as exploring the complex relationship between media institutions, institutional culture and coverage of populist (and other) candidates (e.g. Akkerman, 2011; Bos et al., 2011). In this context, Aalberg and De Vreese (2016: 6–7) propose a range of key questions around political actors, the media and citizens, the most relevant being: ‘What are the typical features of the media discourse on populism?’

Similarly, Moffitt (2016: 2) identifies a range of political and journalistic responses to populism, from ‘being portrayed as an imminent danger for democracy’ to being ‘painted as a panacea for our broken democratic systems’. He argues that in order to ‘rethink contemporary populism’, researchers must ask ‘the most basic question of all – what are we actually talking about when we use the term “populism” today’:

While still based on the classic divide between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, populism’s reliance on new media technologies, its relationship to shifting modes of political representation and identification, and its increasing ubiquity have seen the phenomenon transform in nuanced ways that need explaining … we need to move from seeing populism as a particular ‘thing’ or entity towards viewing it as a political style that is performed, embodied, and enacted across a variety of political and cultural contexts. This shift allows us to make sense of populism in a time when media touches all aspects of political life, where a sense of crisis is endemic, and when populism appears in many disparate manifestations and contexts. (Moffitt, 2016: 3)

It is useful to think about populisms in this way: Moffitt (2016: 5; also Engesser et al., 2017) maps literature that identifies it as ‘an ideology, strategy, discourse or political logic’, while Kazin (1998: 77) locates populism in US political history in three distinct but overlapping manifestations: a ‘discourse’, a ‘movement’ and a ‘critique’. Kazin (1995: 1) also highlights another key characteristic: the way that the ‘language of populism’ sets up a distinction between ‘ordinary people’ and ‘their elite opponents’. In an Australian context, Tiffen (2011) argues that populist parties share a key tendency to ‘draw a sharp line between in-group and out-group’, which ‘commonly… manifests itself in hostility towards immigrants and minority groups’.

Alongside the broader history of research interested in defining and understanding political populism and its relationship to journalism, there has been a recent emergence of scholarly studies and reports (e.g. Hartcher, 2016b; Young et al., 2017) dedicated to considering the 2016 elections in the context of populism. For example, Oliver and Rahn (2016) tested whether presidential election rhetoric was indeed populist; Inglehart and Norris (2016) considered Trump as context for analysis of populist parties in Europe; while Groshek and Koc-Michalska (2017) explored the link between social media use and support for populist presidential candidates. This article takes a different approach, interrogating how and why the populist label is employed in political reporting. A useful guide is Crawford’s (2011: 626) analysis of ‘whether, and if so how, the label nationalist’ was used by British journalists:

… to identify deviants or others in contrast to the normal, acceptable community of nation states. If, as Billig asserts, established nation state elites no longer call themselves nationalists – who exactly is the term reserved for and for what purpose?

In this vein, Tiffen’s (2011) essay on the ‘populist strain’ in Australian media and politics offers insight into the use of the label in popular and media discourse. Tiffen (2011) investigates what it means for a politician to be labelled – or criticised – as ‘populist’. He identifies four key discursive strands: ‘pandering to what is popular’; ‘reinforcing public prejudices irrespective of their quality’; ‘over-simplifying and distorting policy options’; or ‘taking the politically expedient … course’ rather than that which is best or most morally acceptable. Paying particular attention to metropolitan newspapers in Sydney, Tiffen (2011) argues that ‘populist’ appears ‘as a self-evident term of criticism’ (at both ends of the ideological spectrum). Much like populism itself, which he argues ‘takes on different shapes, according to whatever grievances are animating the movement’, the populist label has a ‘similarly long lineage and convoluted mix of meanings’. These meanings have their roots in ‘an upper-class distrust of democracy and distaste of popular culture’ and in both political and cultural uses can ‘easily slide into a smug superiority towards anything popular’ (Tiffen, 2011).

This identification of a combined concern about democracy and popular culture underlying the populist label echoes in Hay’s (2011: 662) analysis of the emergence of a ‘new political populism’, 4 years before Trump’s formal candidacy for the Republican nomination. He emphasised that the populist label was regularly applied both to Barack Obama and also the ‘grassroots’ support supposedly underpinning the Tea Party movement. Hay (2011: 659) argued that what was ‘new’ in the increasing prominence of political populism in the United States since the 2004 presidential election was ‘its articulation to and through a “media revolution”’. Acknowledging that ‘current political populisms are mediated’ was therefore a first step ‘towards mapping the historically specific technologies and networks of organisation, funding, and management through which the current political populism is activated, acted on, and made rational’ (Hay, 2011: 663). Significantly, it is through media technologies and outlets that the project to ‘organise and mobilise specific populations into specific populisms’ is structured (Hay, 2011: 679): this ‘acts on the technology, networks and media of converting expressive media consumers in activists’ and mobilises media markets as populations.⁴ Further insight into the role of journalism can be gained from Corner’s (2000: 387) work on mediated political persona, in which he advocates for a location of ‘the formal and narrow field of the “political” within the broader settings of public and private life which are its resources’ and ‘its strategic targets’. This framework sees politicians as working both in the formal ‘sphere of political institutions and processes’ and that of ‘the public and the popular’, the ‘fully mediated complex of settings in which politicians are seen as “public figures”’ (Corner, 2000: 391–392). Corner (2000: 392, 393) argues that politicians need to ‘reach into the wider parameters of the popular’, which is the ‘the space of demonstrable representativeness’. While the first sphere offers the support and validation of the political administrative class, the second provides the ‘stage’ on which political reputations and the support of those constructed as ‘the people’ can be sought. The media is instrumental in connecting the two through political publicity, news and ‘journalistic revelation’ (Corner, 2000: 395).⁵ Political journalism can therefore be understood as playing a vital role in the identification, construction and mobilisation of populist discourse and politics: in the organisational processes of ‘population management’ identified by Hay, the extension of the sphere of representation highlighted by Corner and in the way it explicitly works, in these contexts, to label certain political actors, ideas, campaigns and constituencies as populist.

Methodology

This article undertakes a discursive analysis of the use of the term ‘populism’ in political journalism in Australia and the United States during their 2016 election cycles. A sample for each country was developed from two complementary elements. The first included legacy newspaper coverage on three days: election day and the day immediately before and immediately following in each country. This was collated through a Factiva database search for the terms ‘populist’ or ‘populism’ in 16 newspapers (Table 1) selected to represent the eight highest circulating or most-read newspapers in each country across print and digital platforms. This search yielded 22 Australian articles and 73 from the United States and included news, opinion, editorial, analysis and blog posts. The second element broadened the scope of the sample and was developed through a Google search for the terms ‘populism’/‘populist’, ‘election 2016’ and the name of the relevant country including dates a year before and after each election. From these results, news articles were included that previewed or reflected on the campaign, assessed or reported on the election or its outcomes and specifically referred to populism. This element included online news magazines, public broadcasters’ websites, and other digital-first, independent or alternative sources of political news, analysis, opinion and commentary. A further 22 Australian and 31 US articles were added, bringing the full sample to 44 Australian and 104 US articles.

Table 1.

Australian and US newspapers in element one of the sample.

Newspaper	Location	Owner/publisher
The Sydney Morning Herald	Australia – Sydney, NSW	Fairfax
The Daily Telegraph	Australia – Sydney, NSW	News Corp
Herald Sun	Australia – Melbourne, VIC	News Corp
The Age	Australia –Melbourne, VIC	Fairfax
The Australian	Australia – national	News Corp
The Courier-Mail	Australia – Brisbane, QLD	News Corp
Australian Financial Review	Australia – national	Fairfax
The West Australian	Australia – Perth, WA	Seven West Media
USA Today	United States–national	Gannett Company
The Wall Street Journal	United States–national	News Corp
The New York Times	United States – New York, NY	The New York Times Company
LA Times	United States – Los Angeles, CA	Tronc
New York Post	United States – New York, NY	News Corp
Newsday	United States – New York, NY	Altice/Dolan
Chicago Tribune	United States – Chicago, IL	Tronc
The Washington Post	United States – Washington, DC	Nash Holdings LLC

The full sample was then subjected to discourse analysis modelled on Anabela Carvalho’s (2008: 162) framework which provides a ‘methodological programme for the analysis of journalistic texts’ whether written, broadcast or online. The framework offers ‘critical discourse moments’ to focus analytical samples, defining these as ‘periods that involve specific happenings which may challenge the “established” discursive positions’ (Carvalho, 2008: 167). Election campaigns align with this as moments of potential change and disruption not only to government and administrative processes but also to the public, political and media discourses used to talk about and understand social, cultural and political structures. The framework analyses textual and contextual elements. This study paid attention in particular to two textual elements: ‘objects’ and ‘actors’. It asked, first, what objects were constructed in the text, a question which draws attention to the notion ‘that discourse constitutes rather than just “refers to” the realities at stake’ (Carvalho, 2008: 167). Second, it explored what actors were mentioned in the text and how those actors were represented, acknowledging that ‘texts play a major role in constructing the image of social actors’ (Carvalho, 2008: 168). On a contextual level, the study focused on the ‘comparative synchronic axis’ to explore alternative representations at the same time (Carvalho, 2008: 171).

Results

Three key discursive constructions used the ‘populist’ label across the sample. The first employed ‘populism’ to describe a trend or phenomenon in domestic politics: to construct particular leaders, parties, campaign styles and appeals, and policy proposals and ideas. The second linked these domestic developments to broader international political and cultural shifts, identifying a ‘global populist moment’ as a way of making sense of a (supposedly) significant change. The third identified and described ‘the people’ at the heart of populist appeals and movements, positioning them either as the grassroots drivers of the phenomenon or the vulnerable targets of cynical political strategies.

‘Unashamedly a populist’: populism, political leaders and campaign strategies

The first construction mobilised the ‘populist’ label to discursively construct both actors (political leaders and parties) and objects (political ideas, appeals and strategies) in campaign and political coverage. In the Australian sample, while occasionally used to describe Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten’s policies or electoral appeals (for example, Labor’s ‘populist Medicare scare campaign’ (Kelly, 2016: 16) or ‘populist big-government agenda’ (Australian Financial Review, 2016b: 46)), the populist label was more consistently applied to the minor parties and independents predicted to be successful in the campaign. It was mobilised to label, discuss and understand the support (or criticism) afforded these candidates; to explain the ways their opponents and constituents responded to them and to make sense of their perceived popularity in the political landscape. In these discourses, the ‘populist’ label was applied consistently to four key actors: South Australian minor party senator Nick Xenophon, Queensland minor party senator Pauline Hanson, Victorian independent senator Derryn Hinch and Tasmanian minor party senator Jacqui Lambie. Xenophon, for example, was constructed as ‘unashamedly a populist’ (Tillett, 2016: 9); a ‘firebrand populist’ (Sheftalovich, 2016); and a ‘populist thorn in the side of the major parties’ (Reynolds, 2016), a discursive positioning that carried negative connotations even as it positioned him as an actor at the fringes of establishment politics. Alongside these were more general references to ‘populist independents’ or ‘populist minor parties’ who, it was predicted, might hold the balance of power if the election resulted in a hung parliament. These constructions had consistently negative connotations, positioning populist candidates as diverting support from major parties (Chandran, 2016; Kenny, 2016: 2) and taking advantage of their failure (Charlton and Harris, 2016; Mitchell, 2016: 15) to appeal to vulnerable groups in society.

Early in the US campaign cycle, both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders were consistently constructed in daily news coverage and explanatory pieces as running ‘populist’ campaigns, albeit at opposite ends of the political spectrum. While this persisted in reflective and analytical pieces after Sanders lost the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton, the use of the label contracted significantly to be applied to Trump, his campaign strategies and communications. Donald Trump was constructed as a populist actor and his political appeals and ideas as a populist objects.

Coverage in the sample constructed Trump as a populist actor almost exclusively in ways that discursively positioned him (and his style) as a negative or illegitimate political force. Trump was a ‘populist strongman’ (Gerson, 2016) or ‘angry populist’ (Tsang, 2016); he was an ‘unapologetic’ (Flegenheimer and Barbaro, 2016) or ‘fearless’ populist who would operate as a ‘battering ram against the arrogant establishment’ (Goodwin, 2016: 6). Trump emerged, in these constructions, as a popular but illegitimate force whose claim to represent ‘the people’ was based on his own particular past rather than on detailed policies or political experience: a ‘colourful celebrity populist-nationalist’ (Poniewozik, 2016) who would appeal to the anger and disillusionment (Tsang, 2016) of Americans who felt ignored or ill-served by mainstream politics. Alongside these constructions, ‘populism’ also appears as an object in the sample, consistently applied to Trump’s ideas, movement and appeals. These varying constructions are significant as the descriptors attached to the populist label signal something of its origins and meanings to readers. Discourses that position Trump’s appeal to voters as based on ‘economic’ (Drezner, 2016; Hook et al., 2016) or ‘conservative’ (Drezner, 2016) populism point to specific ideological or financial rationales for its appeal, while labels of ‘rowdy’ (Costa, 2016: A04) and ‘angry populism’ (Norris, 2016) draw in perceived emotional motivations. In a different way, describing Trump’s approach as ‘new’ (Taub, 2016) or ‘cockeyed populism’ (Rubin, 2016) positions it and those it appeals to as distinct from the forces that traditionally impact on US politics and draws on the notion that the campaign was both unique and reactionary. This, then, was a ‘brash, populist campaign’ (Korte, 2016: 1) appealing to voters who responded to Trump’s ‘explosive, populist and polarising’ (Flegenheimer and Barbaro, 2016) approach.

These discourses first diagnosed the reasons for the Trump campaign’s perceived appeal and then delegitimised the political significance of both the campaign itself and the ways in which it sought to connect with voters. This was also clear in the way the campaign was constructed as reliant on race or national identity-based appeals: positioned as a form of ‘white populism’ (Burns, 2016; Taub, 2016) or related to a ‘nastier strain of cultural populism’ (Drezner, 2016). In these constructions, Trump’s populism was an object explicitly linked to other political objects like bigotry and ‘casual racism’ (Drezner, 2016) or described as ‘racially-charged’ (Weigel and Costa, 2016); linked to ‘nationalism’ (Drezner, 2016) and protectionism (Langley, 2016) and contextualised through references to demagogues, nativist politics and dictators (e.g. Baker, 2016). The campaign was constructed as reactionary (New York Post, 2016: 40), anti-establishment (Goodwin, 2016: 6; Ip, 2016) and anti-global (Ip, 2016). Trump’s populism was also delegitimised by calling it into question at a deeper level; either by positioning him as an ‘unlikely populist’ (Lehmann, 2016) or as someone who ‘selling himself’ as a populist (Fisher, 2016), thereby challenging the authenticity of his political identity.

‘Global populist insurrection’: linking local politics to global populist movements

The second dominant use of the term ‘populist’ in the Australian and US samples located domestic political developments in the international political landscape. This discourse evaluated the domestic significance and impacts of populist movements and politicians by connecting them to a global populist moment: for example, asking ‘how does post-election Australia navigate a Brexit and Trumpian world’? (Mitchell, 2016: 15)

Two key discursive strategies emerged in Australian coverage which sought to contextualise the perceived domestic emergence of political populism. While both emphasised that the changes were part of a broader global trend, they differed in their assessment of its significance for Australia. The first strategy identified the emergence of populism in Australia as significant and connected to a global ‘voter revolt’ against elites and established political systems and institutions (e.g. Charlton and Harris, 2016; Gartrell, 2016: 3). These articles often identified particular international actors, places or movements representative of the perceived ‘resurgence’ of populism: Donald Trump (e.g. Hartcher, 2016a: 34; Mitchell, 2016: 15); Brexit (Hartcher, 2016a: 34; Kelly, 2016: 16) or Europe (Innis, 2016). Alongside these international resonances, some articles in the sample highlighted that the ‘populist moment’ looked different in Australia, noting in particular that populist sentiment and support was shared across a diverse field of small parties and independents rather than a single candidate (The Age, 2016: 2; Wroe, 2016) (something attributed to the structure of the electoral system). The second strategy also connected Australia to a broader global phenomenon, but downplayed its significance. Here, Australia was identified as experiencing some of the same disruptions that had inspired support for populist parties, ideas and candidates elsewhere, but to a lesser extent (e.g. Flitton, 2016). In some constructions, this was simply because Australia’s populist movements were still in their infancy (Hartcher, 2016b); while in others, something particular to Australian politics or culture had insulated the nation. Australia had therefore ‘averted the populist backlash’ (Australian Financial Review, 2016a) because of strong border protection policies and sound economic management (Wroe, 2016), both of which may have led to less resentment and feelings of vulnerability among the electorate.

Echoing the Australian coverage, there was an attempt in some US articles in the sample to link what was happening in domestic politics to the global context, with Brexit, France and Europe recurring touchstones. This occurred predominantly in longer form or explanatory articles rather than daily news coverage and attributed Trump’s success (at least in part) to the populist ‘wave’ (Hook et al., 2016). A key difference from the Australian coverage, however, was a further attempt to place Trump’s rise into the context of American history, whether likening him to former president Andrew Jackson (Sanger, 2016) or to previous moments where populism was a significant element of the electoral landscape.

‘Despair with the major parties’: the ‘people’ in Australian and US election coverage

The third key use of the populist label was in identifying, describing and attempting to understand the motivations of ‘the people’ to whom populist leaders and strategies were hoping to appeal (and who were simultaneously constructed as a constituency by those same appeals). For the most part, ‘the people’ were sidelined or invisible in the Australian sample, rarely appearing as either objects or actors. Rather it was the politician, their party, or their campaign and ideas constructed as ‘populist’. The ‘people’ are most often implied but undefined. Where they are mentioned, those Australians attracted to populist leaders or appeals were constructed in predominantly negative ways in the sample. They are a ‘male-dominated, blue-collar, digitally disrupted’ constituency (Black, 2016: 19) disillusioned in the face of economic hardship (e.g. Charlton and Harris, 2016); a group taking part in a revolt, insurgency or backlash (e.g. Kelly, 2016) against an establishment they feel has abandoned or failed them (e.g. The Age, 2016). Their strong negative emotions are their dominant characteristic: these voters are constructed as angry (Hartcher, 2016a: 34), resentful (The Age, 2016), frustrated (Mitchell, 2016: 15), aggrieved (Charlton and Harris, 2016), and discontent (Innis, 2016). In the same way, populist movements and ideas are themselves consistently constructed as inherently dangerous or negative. Their perceived rise was positioned as a genuine warning sign about the health of Australian democracy and the failings of traditional political institutions to connect with voters, who feel ‘an increased level of despair with the major parties’ (Hartcher, 2016a: 24). Populism also appeared as a disingenuous but dangerous political movement taking advantage of the most vulnerable in society.

In stark contrast to the Australian coverage, ‘the people’ are a dominant presence in the US sample, explicitly constructed as key to understanding the nature and extent of Trump’s appeal. Much like Trump’s populism itself, the constituents to whom he is thought to appeal appear in two dominant ways in the discourse: in terms of economics and class or race and ethnicity. For the most part, they appear as objects rather than actors, whose circumstances and motivations are to be understood and evaluated by readers (who are themselves positioned by this coverage as separate to ‘the people’ of Trump’s populist constituency). As a result, Trump supporters appear in various economic guises as ‘lower wage’ (Przybyla, 2016), ‘middle-class’ (Woodrow Cox and Terris, 2016), ‘blue-collar’ (Burns, 2016: 1) or ‘working class’ (e.g. Hook et al., 2016: 1), but with striking consistency in racial or cultural terms, only ever described as ‘white’ (e.g Burns, 2016: 1; Taub, 2016). At other moments, ‘the people’ are constructed in terms of their ordinariness; they are ‘everyday’ or ‘ordinary’ Americans (Mahler and Turkewitz, 2016).

These elements overlapped throughout the US sample, and the characteristics were combined with reference to the dissatisfaction or disenfranchisement these voters felt with establishment of political parties and institutions. Here, Trump’s success was founded on his appeal to the ‘anxieties of a struggling, typically white working class’ (McAuley, 2016) or the ‘raw frustration of blue-collar and middle-class white voters’ (Burns, 2016: 1). A key characteristic of the voters referred to here was the reliance on what they feel as a basis for political decision-making, echoing Australian journalistic discourse. One article described those likely to support Trump as ‘low information voters’ (Drezner, 2016) with an assumption that it was their lived experiences and emotions (rather than intellectual or rational engagement with political information) that informed their voting choices. As with the Australian sample, these were constructed as predominantly negative emotions: ‘anger’, ‘rage’ (e.g. Burns, 2016: 1; Gerson, 2016) or grievance (e.g. Tumulty et al., 2016: A01) directed at a ‘rigged system’; the feeling of being isolated or alienated, whether in economic or geographical terms (e.g Costa, 2016: A04; Mahler and Turkewitz, 2016). Trump’s key support base is anxious (McAuley, 2016) or afraid (Taub, 2016); their construction in these terms delegitimised their potential power, pushing their movement’s perceived rise to the fringe by positioning it as reactionary: a ‘revolt’ (e.g. Brooks, 2016: 19), rebellion or ‘backlash’ (Taub, 2016).

What do we mean? Disruption, connection and emotion in campaign coverage

What, then, do we mean when we talk about populism; and what is it about the current political and cultural moment that inspired the application of this label so consistently in political coverage in the sample? The 2016 US and Australian election campaigns took place at a time where political and media actors were faced a seemingly ever-more complex present, characterised by challenges to established institutional and cultural orders, national borders and sovereignty, taken-for-granted locations of authority and knowledge and common-sense ways of knowing. These are conversations further complicated by (and characteristic of) the era of ‘info-glut’ (Andrejevic, 2013: 2, 5) which inspires strategies to shortcut ‘the need to comprehend proliferating narrative or referential representations’. Contemporary election campaigns operate in a fluid, complex and always-on media environment in which political conversation extends beyond the (already porous) realms of formal politics or legacy mainstream news, and in which ‘politics is increasingly influenced, shaped and colonised by media logic’ (Moffitt, 2016: 74). Understanding the ‘affinity between the increasing mediatisation of politics and contemporary populism’ (Moffitt, 2016: 74, 76–77) illuminates its contemporary salience in a range of international settings. It also highlights potential repercussions for democratic politics and representation; for example, it may work to compel political actors to embrace elements of ‘the populist style’ to appeal to the internal logic of the news media whose attention seems vital to success.

Moffitt’s analysis provides a useful foundation for consideration of why the populist label was so consistently applied across the political and campaign coverage in the sample. If media logics compel political actors to align their ideas and approaches with ‘populist style’, how might cultural and political logics impact on political journalism? The communication strategies and styles of a cultural populism associated with celebrity, reliant on affective connection and valorising particular notions ‘the popular’ emerge as significant factors. There is a complex and ambivalent relationship between ‘the popular’ and ‘populism’ in politics; between attempts to inspire democratic popularity (celebrated as an expression of attentiveness to the ‘wisdom of the people’) and the willingness to ‘pander to what is popular’ (critiqued as empty or hollow ‘populism’; Tiffen, 2017). Interrogating the relationship between these is, Tiffen (2017) has argued, one of the central difficulties in responding to contemporary debates about political populism as the former ‘elicits a very different value judgement’ to the latter.

The ‘populist’ label operates in this context as discursive shorthand for unease about change. In the political journalism in the sample, it was used to identify (and often express dismay about) the importation of the logics, discourses and technologies of cultural populism and ‘everyday emotion’ into the realm of formal politics. In the US coverage, populism was primarily mobilised as a way of constructing Donald Trump as a populist actor and his political style, ideas, communication style and use of his celebrity profile as populist objects. At a deeper level, it also expressed discomfort at the simple fact of his candidacy, posing the implicit questions: ‘what is he doing here, and why are people supporting him’? This resonated in Australian journalistic discourse, which although focused on independent and small party candidates rather than a single leader also mobilised the populist label to give historical, cultural and economic context to the contemporary political moment. ‘Naming’ a range of actors and ideas as ‘populist’ in this way offered space to discuss them within the routine and familiar structures of legacy media coverage. This discursive positioning both minimised potentially radical aspects of their agenda, but also more deeply operated as a cognitive shortcut, removing the need for deeper engagement from those addressed as the audience of these legacy print and digital news outlets (who, it was assumed, have a stake in maintaining the political and cultural status quo). The populist label offered a way to understand ‘the people’ who are drawn to populist ideas and leaders while simultaneously operating as ‘a term of denigration and dismissal’ as if ‘the label excuse[d] the commentator from giving the person or the party further serious consideration’ (Tiffen, 2017). At the same time, these discourses delegitimised populist actors and objects by locating them (Hanson, Xenophon, Trump and others) outside the boundaries of political business as usual. These populist actors pose a threat to democratic politics and established systems because of their unwillingness to follow convention about what it is appropriate to do (and how to do it) in the sphere of formal politics; how to interact with other politicians, political professionals, the news media and citizens; what it is appropriate to say and where to say it. These are the same tendencies that appear in the sample as providing a foundation for the formation of a strong affective bond with constituents who, it is imagined across the sample, feel disaffected and disenfranchised. This was reliant, in the US sample in particular, on the importation of the logics of Trump’s media celebrity as a mechanism for inspiring that support and ensuring both mainstream media coverage and a visible, viral presence in the fluid and dynamic digital networks that provide space for political information to be shared and discussed.

Conclusion

What emerges in analysis of journalistic discourse across both countries in the sample is that the ‘populist’ label was consistently used to signal concern about the incursion of objects and actors that did not belong in formal politics. Whether through attention to local political trends or a global movement, the label identified and managed political objects and actors through journalistic discourse. Hay (2011) describes the way that a ‘nexus of interactive networks’ activate, encourage citizens to act on and make rational current political populisms. This illuminates how ‘the popular’ is processed through media technologies: in Hay’s terms, organising and mobilising specific populations into specific populisms. The focus in this article was on the ways in which particular groups were placed into the populist constituency that supported Trump, or constructed as looking to Australian independents and minor parties as a means of expressing and relieving their economic, cultural and political discontent. Significantly, the populist label operated in the discourse as a way of understanding and labelling these populations, ideas and movements according to a key characteristic: the use of an appeal to emotion. In this construction, the bond between leader and led is based on an affective connection to what the populist leader or party seems to be and represent rather than a particular set of rational and deliverable policy promises. In the sample, coverage of a local or global populist ‘wave’ served to mask a deeper dismay about the implications of populist actors and objects moving into formal politics, one that expressed (implicit) concern about both the deeply held negative emotions about establishment politics and other sources of elite authority among certain parts of the electorate. Further research would fruitfully extend this analysis beyond a two-country case study; while the insights developed here shed light on developments in other places, critical analysis of the use of the populist label in journalistic discourse could be adapted specifically for application to a range of international contexts, including Europe and Latin America. A historical focus broader than the 2016 election campaigns would also be of value, allowing for the interrogation of these trends in both international-comparative and longitudinal studies.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Dr Brookes would like to thank Monash University for the research time and funding provided by the Outside Studies Programme, which was used to complete this project. She would also like to thank the participants at the 2017 ‘Democracy, Politics and the Popular’ symposium and Queensland University of Technology for their feedback on an early presentation of this research; the Digital Media Research Centre for supporting her attendance at the symposium and the anonymous reviewers of this article for their feedback.

Funding

Funding was provided by Monash University through their Outside Studies Program.

Notes

ORCID iD

Stephanie Brookes

References

Aalberg

De Vreese

(2016) Introduction: comprehending populist political communication. In: Aalberg

Esser

Reinemann

et al . (eds) Populist Political Communication in Europe. New York: Routledge, pp. 3–11.

Akkerman

(2011) Friend or foe? Right-wing populism and the popular press in Britain and the Netherlands. Journalism 12(8): 931–945.

Andrejevic

(2013) Infoglut: How Too Much Information Is Changing the Way We Think and Know. New York: Routledge.

Australian Financial Review (2016a) On guard against easy populism. Australian Financial Review, 2 July, p. 38.

Australian Financial Review (2016b) The PM’s message has struck a chord. Australian Financial Review, 1 July, p. 46.

Baker

(2016) Donald Trump’s victory promises to upend the international order. The New York Times, 9 November. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/world/donald-trumps-victory-promises-to-upend-the-international-order.html

Black

(2016) How to arm yourself for an educated, lubricated sit-in. Australian, 2 July, p. 19.

Bos

van der Brug

de Vreese

(2011) How the media shape perceptions of right-wing populist leaders. Political Communication 28(2): 182–206.

Brooks

(2016) Let’s not do this again. The New York Times, 8 November, p. 19.

10.

Burns

(2016) Clarion of white populist rage who vowed ‘I am your voice’. The New York Times, 9 November, p. 1.

11.

Carvalho

(2008) Mediated discourse and society: rethinking the framework of critical discourse analysis. Journalism Studies 9(2): 161–177.

12.

Chandran

(2016) Australia’s federal election gridlock set to weigh on super, tax reforms. CNBC Online, 3 July. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/03/australias-federal-election-gridlock-set-to-weigh-on-super-tax-reforms-consumer-and-business-confidence.html

13.

Charlton

Harris

(2016) A pox on both your houses. The Monthly, December. Available at: https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2016/december/1480510920/andrew-charlton-and-lachlan-harris/pox-both-your-houses

14.

Corner

(2000) Mediated persona and political culture: dimensions of structure and process. Cultural Studies 3(3): 386–402.

15.

Costa

(2016) In Pennsylvania, steely resolve for, and against, Trump. The Washington Post, 7 November, p. A04.

16.

Crawford

(2011) Them and us: why they are nationalists and we are not. An analysis of journalists’ language in relation to others. Journalism 13(5): 620–638.

17.

Drezner

(2016) The many problems with Donald Trump’s closing argument. The Washington Post, 8 November. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/11/07/the-many-problems-with-donald-trumps-closing-argument/?utm_term=.9a6feacda948

18.

Engesser

Fawzi

Larsson

(2017) Populist online communication: introduction to the special issue. Information, Communication and Society 20(9): 1279–1292.

19.

Fisher

(2016) How Donald Trump broke the old rules of politics – and won the White House. The Washington Post, 9 November. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-donald-trump-broke-the-old-rules-of-politics–and-won-the-white-house/2016/11/09/f3190498-a5e1-11e6-8fc0-7be8f848c492_story.html?utm_term=.71a6ea562836

20.

Flegenheimer

Barbaro

(2016) Trump Triumphs [Online: Donald Trump is elected president in stunning repudiation of the establishment]. The New York Times, 9 November, p. 1.

21.

Flitton

(2016) Election 2016: how far-right politics crashed and burned in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 June. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2016/election-2016-how-farright-politics-crashed-and-burned-in-australia-20160603-gpan6l.html

22.

Gartrell

(2016) Xenophon, Hanson to dominate crossbench. Sun Herald, 3 July, p. 3.

23.

Gerson

(2016) The country may have to depend on stubborn Republicans. The Washington Post, 9 November. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-country-may-have-to-depend-on-stubborn-republicans/2016/11/09/1c06350e-a6b6-11e6-8fc0-7be8f848c492_story.html?utm_term=.8f586c3f27b6

24.

Goodwin

(2016) Election 2016 Brawler KOs elite for the little guy. New York Post, 9 November, p. 6.

25.

Groshek

Koc-Michalska

(2017) Helping populism win? Social media use, filter bubbles, and support for populist presidential candidates in the 2016 US election campaign. Information, Communication and Society 20(9): 1389–1407.

26.

Hartcher

(2016a) Two messages drew blood in the campaign. The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 July, p. 34.

27.

Hartcher

(2016b) Part two: the rise of the demagogues. The Sydney Morning Herald, 31 July. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/interactive/2016/us-election-impact-australia/populism/

28.

Hay

(2011) Popular culture in a critique of the new political reason. Cultural Studies 25(4–5): 659–684.

29.

Hook

McCain Nelson

Reinhard

(2016) President Trump: populist surge lifts Republican to upset. The Wall Street Journal, 9 November, p. 1.

30.

Inglehart

Norris

(2016) Trump, Brexit and the rise of Populism: economic have-nots and the cultural backlash. Paper for Rage against the Machine: Populist Politics in the US, Europe and Latin America Roundtable, Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, PA, 2 September.

31.

Innis

(2016) In Australian election, discontent is the front-runner. The New York Times, 29 June. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/30/world/australia/australian-election-malcolm-turnbull-bill-shorten.html?_r=0

32.

(2016) Donald Trump’s win underscores divide in global economic order. The Wall Street Journal, 10 November. Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/trumps-surprising-victory-brings-uncertainty-to-global-economy-1478704784

33.

Kazin

(1995) The Populist Persuasion: An American History. New York: Basic Books.

34.

Kazin

(1998) Democracy betrayed and redeemed: populist traditions in the United States. Constellations 5(1): 75–84.

35.

Kelly

(2016) Malcolm bets the house on victory. Australian, 2 July, p. 16.

36.

Kenny

(2016) Major parties rocked in the heartland. Sun Herald, 3 July, p. 2.

37.

Korte

(2016) Trump scores crucial victories in Florida, Ohio. USA Today, 9 November, p. 1.

38.

Langley

(2016) Donald Trump captured desire for change. The Wall Street Journal, 9 November. Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-captured-desire-for-change-1478707434

39.

Lehmann

(2016) Donald Trump and the long tradition of American populism. Newsweek, 22 August. Available at: http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-populism-365052

40.

Lewis

(2017) With the populist fringe trying to tear down the system, can the centre hold? Guardian Australia, 18 July. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2017/jul/18/with-the-populist-fringe-trying-to-tear-down-the-system-can-the-centre-hold

41.

McAuley

(2016) WorldViews: the French president seems to be suggesting Americans vote against Donald Trump. The Washington Post, 8 November. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/08/hollande-urges-americans-to-vote-for-their-principles-wonder-what-that-means/?utm_term=.62d949f82dd1

42.

McNair

Flew

Harrington

et al . (2017) Politics, Media and Democracy in Australia. New York: Routledge.

43.

Mahler

Turkewitz

(2016) Donald Trump’s extremist supporters feel like winners either way. 6 November. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/07/us/politics/donald-trump-extremist-supporters.html

44.

Mitchell

(2016) Australia should steer clear of protectionist populism. Australian Financial Review, 2 July, p. 15.

45.

Moffitt

(2016) The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

46.

Mudde

(2017) Populism isn’t dead. Here are five things you need to know about it. The Guardian, 8 July. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/07/populism-dead-european-victories-centrists

47.

Muggah

Winter

(2017) Argument: is populism making a comeback in Latin America? Foreign Policy, 23 October. Available at: http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/23/populism-is-coming-for-latin-america-in-2018/

48.

New York Post (2016) Yuuuge. New York Post, 9 November, p. 40.

49.

Nolan

Brookes

(2015) The problems of populism: Celebrity politics and citizenship. Communication, Research and Practice 1(4): 349–361.

50.

Norris

(2016) Monkey Cage: it’s not just Trump. Authoritarian populism is rising across the West. Here’s why. The Washington Post, 11 March. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/11/its-not-just-trump-authoritarian-populism-is-rising-across-the-west-heres-why/?utm_term=.53de21c89c4c

51.

Oliver

Rahn

(2016) Rise of the Trumpenvolk: populism in the 2016 election. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 667: 189–206.

52.

Poniewozik

(2016) A Rudderless night, as news networks struggle with a surprise victory. The New York Times, 10 November. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/arts/television/a-rudderless-night-as-news-networks-struggle-with-a-surprise-victory.html

53.

Przybyla

(2016) After devastating loss, democrats left searching for answers. USA Today, 9 November. Available at: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/11/09/hillary-clinton-loss-democrats-trump/93563634/

54.

Reynolds

(2016) The X factor: Nick Xenophon could be the election kingmaker. News.com.au, 28 June. Available at: http://www.news.com.au/national/federal-election/the-x-factor-how-nick-xenophon-could-become-the-kingmaker/news-story/15f461073ccede1aea45ec5564b771e6

55.

Rubin

(2016) Right-turn: Whither conservatives and conservatism? The Washington Post, 9 November. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/11/09/whither-conservatives-and-conservatism/

56.

Sanger

(2016) ‘Strange new land’: America in a time of Trump. The New York Times, 9 November. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/us/politics/donald-trump-presidential-agenda.html?_r=0

57.

Sheftalovich

(2016) 5 political lessons from down under. Politico, 11 July. Available at: https://www.politico.eu/article/5-political-lessons-from-down-under-australia/

58.

Shuster

(2016) The Populists: Europe’s populist revolt. TIME, December. Available at: http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-populism/?iid=toc

59.

Stanyer

Salgado

Stromback

(2016) Populist actors as communicators or political actors as populist communicators: cross-national findings and perspectives. In: Aalberg

Esser

Reinemann

et al . (eds) Populist Political Communication in Europe. New York: Routledge, pp. 353–393.

60.

Taub

(2016) The Interpreter: Trump’s victory and the rise of white populism. The New York Times, 9 November. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/world/americas/trump-white-populism-europe-united-states.html?_r=0

61.

The Age (2016) Australian federal election 2016: instability grips nation amid surge in populism. The Age, 3 July. Available at: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-editorial/australian-federal-election-2016-instability-grips-nation-amid-surge-in-populism-20160703-gpxlwh.html

62.

Tiffen

(2011) We, the populists. Griffith Review Edition: Ways of Seeing 31. Available at: https://griffithreview.com/articles/we-the-populists/

63.

Tiffen

(2017) In the name of the people. Inside Story, 27 April. Available at: http://insidestory.org.au/in-the-name-of-the-people/

64.

Tillett

(2016) Senate to get more unwieldy. West Australian, 2 July, p. 9.

65.

Tsang

(2016) Dealbook/morning agenda: election day, paying for crime, whistle-blowing in Korea. The New York Times, 8 November. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/09/business/dealbook/presidential-election-white-collar-crime-korea.html?_r=0

66.

Tumulty

Rucker

Gearan

(2016) Razor-sharp margin hints at voter scorn for status quo. The Washington Post, 9 November, p. A01.

67.

Wardle

Derakhshan

(2017) Information Disorder: Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policymaking. Council of Europe Report, 31 October. Available at: https://rm.coe.int/information-disorder-toward-an-interdisciplinary-framework-for-researc/168076277c

68.

Weigel

Costa

(2016) Inside a divided GOP, ‘real anguish’ over the way forward. The Washington Post, 9 November. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2016/11/09/adcefa80-a205-11e6-8d63-3e0a660f1f04_story.html?utm_term=.39cb4b1d9d59

69.

Woodrow Cox

Terris

(2016) At Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington, his delirious supporters celebrate. The Washington Post, 9 November. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/at-donald-trumps-hotel-in-washington-delirious-election-night-supporters-celebrated/2016/11/09/9155dbb8-a605-11e6-ba59-a7d93165c6d4_story.html?utm_term=.d485bde9fa3c

70.

Wright

(2017) Revealed: the politicians we secretly admire. [Online: Fairfax-Ipsos focus groups: the politician who voters trust the most]. The Sydney Morning Herald, 8 August. Available at: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/fairfaxipsos-focus-groups-the-politician-who-voters-trust-the-most-20170807-gxqp4e.html

71.

Wroe

(2016) Brexit, Trump … Xenophon? Australia’s modest populist backlash. The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 June. http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/brexit-trump-xenophon-australias-populist-backlash-nowhere-near-britain-and-us-experts-say-20160627-gpt00o.html

72.

Young

Gonzalez

Boyon

et al . (2017) The Rise of Populism: A Global Approach. Ipsos, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Available at: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/2017-07/IpsosPA_TheRiseOfPopulism.pdf

73.

Zovatto

(2017) Latin America’s super election cycle is wide open. Brookings: Order from Chaos Blog, 6 November. Available at: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2017/11/06/latin-americas-super-election-cycle-is-wide-open/