Swedish politicians and new media: Democracy,identity and populism in a digital discourse

Introduction

Internet-based media (new media or social media) have taken on a great role in contemporary politics and international public debate. Facebook, Twitter and blogs are considered to be democratically important for permitting freer forms of political engagement and communication. The possibility of two-way communication has also been regarded as a democratic advantage.

Furthermore, new media have been attributed with a democratic potential in terms of so-called grass-roots democracy and extended democracy (Carpentier, 2011; Hands, 2011). They are regarded as increasing people’s opportunities for political mobilization through a direct impact on established politicians and by operating outside traditional political channels.

A common perception in the international scientific community is that new media enable marginalized groups to make their voices heard in public contexts in a more profound way than before (cf. Lanlois et al., 2009; see also Coleman and Wright, 2008; Koop and Jansen, 2009). Researchers also believe that new media’s democratic role is that they can be used to disseminate information without involving traditional mass media as an intermediary. It is also said that people in general are no longer ‘passive’ consumers of traditional media. Instead they have become active citizens due to the participatory potential of digital media. Media users not only create media content themselves, but the new technology also enables them to become political subjects (Jenkins, 2006). Claims have been made that journalists are no longer the gatekeepers of communication between government and civil society (Downing et al., 2001). New media are also a source for criticism of traditional media and are also used in areas previously restricted to traditional media, which, for example, have been highlighted in studies of blogs (McKenna and Pole, 2008; see also Bowers and Stoller, 2005; Kaye, 2005; Trippi, 2004).

However, there are critics who argue that the reliance on new media’s democratizing potential is overstated. The communication between politicians and voters is considered to be quite marginal, often results in ‘bad’ language and does not encourage a deeper democratic debate. These new technologies may also be used to control political dissidents, which allegedly was the case in Iran in 2009 when the regime, according to Morozov (2011), used the Internet to hunt down and jail many bloggers. Other democratic constraints are that the public sphere has been divided into increasingly disparate fields of political communication (Carpentier, 2011; Dahlgren, 2005). For example, political and cultural elites have their own blogs, which can exist relatively independently of the ‘mainstream media’. Moreover, in a political context one could speak of a ‘digital divide’ since the users of new media (such as Twitter) tend to be homogenous and consist of an ‘elite’ already engaged in politics in different ways (Larsson and Moe, 2011). New media have also been described as colonized and commodified by market forces, such as large media conglomerates (Cammaerts, 2008; Carpentier, 2007; Lee, 2006). Moreover, the democratic constraints include social media being used for social control, intimidation and threats (Cammaerts, 2008; Carpentier, 2007; Morozov, 2011). Andrejevic (2007) stresses that politics in the digital era has not only become connected to marketing strategies, but also to a surveillance apparatus facilitated by digital technology that monitors and collects data from potential voters and consumers.

Criticism is furthermore directed towards the technological optimism that is associated with new media. People are assumed to have too much faith in the technology itself. This ‘cyber-optimism’ has been described as technological determinism among politicians and decision makers, as they seem to equate the availability of information and communication technology with social, political and economic development (Carlsson and Nilsson, 2011; Fisher, 2010; Morozov, 2011; Tucker, 2007).

Studies of new media are also related to political parties’ and individual politicians’ use of such media. For example, new media have been described as platforms for politicians to create and maintain a kind of (virtual) social capital (cf. Ellison et al., 2007). O’Neill (2010) has described this in terms of a political social capital, which according to him is central to all politicians who want to achieve political success. Politicians’ personal blogging may also be of importance in this context (Lehti, 2011).

However, politicians’ use of digital information technology has also been criticized. O’Neill (2010) argues that the many opportunities to shape, change and influence political identities on the Internet could lead to a trivialization of politics. There is a risk that important policy issues are replaced by populist and manipulated images (see O’Neill, 2010). The politicians themselves identify both advantages and disadvantages of new media (Nilsson, 2012). One advantage is that they make it easy to receive information that is not edited or distorted by a journalist. Disadvantages are that new media result in decreased personal contact between politicians and voters and that politicians only reach like-minded groups of people.

Thus, democratic, technological and political aspects of new media are recurring themes in international research. These themes are relevant in the present study, where the idea is to deepen the discussion of how politicians’ approach to new media reproduces (knowledge about) democracy, technology and identity. The point of departure is interviews with politicians in Sweden, and the aim is to identify and analyse how these politicians relate to digital information technology and new media. What democratic opportunities and risks of information technology and new media are reflected in interviews with the politicians? What does this technology and these media mean for politicians’ political strategies and for their identity positions as professional politicians? A special interest is directed towards how a digital discourse influences politicians’ views of new media and identity formation.

Method

The study is based on qualitative interviews ¹ with 15 individuals who had different types of political assignments at local and regional levels in Västerbotten, a large land area in the north of Sweden. In a similar way as other sparsely populated areas in northern Europe, the inhabitants are concentrated to a few (expanding) towns, while the countryside is suffering from depopulation. This is a political problem for many politicians, including the interviewees in this study.

The majority had been elected to political office and were active members of different boards and committees. Several of them were also city council members. All of the interviewees represented established political parties in Sweden, from left- to right-wing parties. However, as will be illustrated, different ideological standpoints and political assignments played a minor role in the politicians’ views on new media.

The interviews had a semi-structured character and were based on a list of more than 40 open questions and discussion themes (cf. Bryman, 2002). Thus, the data collection had an inductive character, and the interviewer acted more like a conversation partner than as a regular interviewer (cf. Ehn and Löfgren, 1996). The interviews initially had – with one exception – a life-historical character, and we talked for example about their background, education and professional and leisure interests. Such themes were then followed up by open questions about their work and new media. The purpose was to find out how politicians generally value new media, how they use them and for what purposes.

The interviewed politicians can be described as members of a local or regional elite. Most of them had several political offices, and they emphasized their own efforts and importance regarding local and regional development. There have been methodological discussions about interviewing elites, partly because of different definitions of ‘elite’ (see Shore and Nugent, 2002, for theoretical perspectives on elites). It has, for example, been pointed out that the interviewer has to be well prepared when it comes to elite interviews because the informant can question the relevance of the actual study (Harvey, 2011).

In this study, there were no problems during the interviews. The politicians were – with one exception – interested in the subject. They talked (seemingly) freely about their lives, profession and views on new media. The interviewees are anonymized and minor language adjustments are made in citations to improve readability and comprehensibility.

The analysis is based on an exploratory and qualitative content analysis, which means that no concepts, perspectives or points of view were taken for granted. Instead they were chosen inductively by repeatedly going through the material and identifying recurrent words, ideas and beliefs. These were then coded and organized into themes (general variables) and sub-themes (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005; Neuendorf, 2002). The following empirically related themes were identified: ‘democracy’, ‘identification’, ‘information technology’ and ‘populism’. Sub-themes of ‘democracy’ were new media as democratic threats and opportunities. Subcategories for ‘identification’ were two closely related but nevertheless distinct positions: a traditional and ‘authentic’ politician versus a modern, media-orientated politician, while ‘information technology’ housed two approaches to technology, one positive and one negative. Two seemingly contradictory and populist positions were located in what is called the digital discourse.

Theory

Discourse theory is a theoretical foundation in this study. By using some selected discourse theoretical concepts the aim is to understand the contradictory opinions and beliefs that characterize the interview narratives. These concepts are discourse, floating signifier, articulation, identification (disidentification) and populism.

‘Discourse’ refers to a particular way of understanding and representing the world (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985), and can be equated with the resources that people use to understand and manage their environment (cf. Johansson, 2010: 32). The fixation of meaning is a central aspect of discourses, but this fixation is neither complete nor finished. Instead there is a constant struggle between different discourses about how different phenomena should be understood and interpreted (cf. Laclau and Mouffe, 1985).

We are especially interested in how a digital discourse, organizing the meanings of new media and information technology, was reproduced in the politicians’ narratives. According to this digital discourse, new media technology is inevitable and absolutely necessary, both to society in general and to the political realm. Interestingly, the digital discourse was repeated by the politicians regardless of their political affiliation or personal evaluation of the medium, and it hegemonized the politicians’ attempts at forming alliances between themselves as individual politicians and the voters – the people.

‘Floating signifier’ is an element open to ascriptions of meaning. It is also a target for different and antagonistic discourses trying to fixate its meaning. ‘Democracy’ is such an example of a floating signifier open for different political definitions and discourses. ‘Democracy’ was also a recurrent theme in the interviews and it was ascribed different meanings by the politicians. This was also the case with the signifiers ‘information technology’ and ‘new media’.

Floating signifiers are especially open to articulation, a practice that establishes a relationship between elements in a way that alters their previous identity (Laclau, 2005; Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). Articulation can thus be viewed as an interconnection of various elements, but where this interconnection is neither necessary nor definitive. For example, in the interviews ‘new media’ served as a central sign in the articulations of two partly contradictory identities, an authentic and an artificial political identity.

Thus, articulation is central to identifications. In this study, identification is defined as a continuous process, where the subject uses different discursive resources to form a self-image in relation to the world. Central to this process are logic of difference and the making of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ (Laclau and Mouffe, 1985). For example, the politicians used different ideas of ‘the other’, both positive and negative, in their identity formations.

‘Disidentification’ is also a way to understand processes of identification. According to Skeggs (1997), disidentification refers to how individuals ‘disidentify’ with perceptions of themselves as bearers of particular class-based character traits. Here we use ‘disidentification’ to understand how the interviewees reproduce identities in relation to and by the rejection of certain ideas about politicians in general.

Identification can furthermore be understood in relation to logic of equivalence. This logic refers to a process in which various particular and potentially oppositional positions are replaced with a common identity, a ‘we’ (Laclau, 2005). Such processes occur in populist politics in which society is divided into two opposing camps and one is articulated in terms of, for example, ‘the people’ or ‘the nation’ (Griggs and Howarth, 2008). The politicians’ approach to new media reproduced a populist position because they all, regardless of political affiliation, expressed a similar optimistic view of information technology.

Results

Discussion – populist positions in a digital discourse

Overall, one could claim that the interview narratives were made intelligible against a backdrop of a traditional liberal democratic discourse. The interviewees associated ‘democracy’ with value-based and positive judgements, and they described it as their ‘duty’ to stand up for democratic ideals such as freedom of speech and human rights in contrast to anti-democratic tendencies on the Internet. However, ‘democracy’ gave rise to quite different meanings when the politicians were asked to define it more precisely. It then had the character of a floating signifier (Laclau, 2005), whose meaning depended upon how it was articulated in relation to other signs within this traditional political discourse. When ‘democracy’ was related to the politics of other parties – the political ‘enemies’ – many aspects of society seemed to be threatened. When they talked about democracy in relation to their own politics it represented an already realized phenomenon. However, there were also differences between how they conceived democracy in relation to the state, the market and civil society. While some identified with a traditional social democratic discourse of the welfare state, others positioned themselves in a neo-liberal discourse, emphasizing the importance of a free market (cf. Moos, 2006).

The floating character of ‘democracy’ was especially prominent when it was articulated together with ‘new media’. Democracy was then not an already realized phenomenon, but something that could be expanded, deepened and improved. It was considered to be under threat and in need of defence. However, new media were also considered to be necessary resources for overcoming any lack of democracy – as long as technology was used in a ‘proper manner’. Thus, new media were described as saviours of both representative democracy and the legitimacy of elected politicians.

The interviewees’ view of information technology can be related to Fisher’s (2010) ideas on technology as a discourse. He argues that network technologies have been given the role of legitimizing a techno-political order in western contemporary societies. Furthermore, technology has become the ‘thing’ that represents the standard solution to almost any (social) problem:

[T]echnology discourse has come to play a central role in the legitimation of a techno-political order, i.e., a political order that is legitimated by technology and techniques. In this political context, technology becomes an unquestionable ‘good’, a ‘religion’ […], and a ‘myth’ […] which suggests that virtually any social problem is subject to a technical and technological fix.

Thus, technology not only represents a material base, but can also be understood in terms of ideology and discourse. Even if digital communication might appear politically neutral, it is a site for power struggles and knowledge production. In other words, the digital technological discourse tends to depoliticize technological issues while at the same time legitimize a certain social order. This is, according to Fisher, a central aspect of modern capitalism, such as the Swedish society of today.

As mentioned earlier, the majority of the politicians expressed a pro-technological and optimistic view concerning new media as democratic resources in local and regional politics. Before the expansion of new media, the interviewees said, ‘ordinary’ people did not have contact with politicians to the same extent as nowadays. Today anyone has the opportunity to participate in public political debates. Thus, according to the interviewees, digital technology was inclusive and made it possible to overcome barriers between different social groups in society. In other words, digital technology was considered to be of benefit to all people, not only certain elite groups. Therefore, arguments about different classes were no longer viable in the same way as before, and especially not in the field of social media.

Thus, the digital discourse promises a new era in which digital media technologies contribute to a decentralization of power, extended democratization and a higher level of participation in political debate in general (see Carpentier, 2011). The interviewees had a positive attitude towards citizen participation, and they claimed that new media offered new ways to encourage peoples’ political engagement. Digital technology was in other words understood as refreshing for democracy due to its alleged emancipatory potential (cf. Olsson, 2006).

The interviewees’ pro-technological approach can also be described in terms of technological determinism (Fisher, 2010; Hands, 2011). This determinism was manifested in different ways. Firstly, by claims that the development of information technology is more or less self-propelled and something people just simply have to accept. It is neither possible nor desirable to try to stop this development. Secondly, the determinist position was visible through the linkage made between, on the one side, communication technology, and on the other democratic development and economic progress. Information technology and social media were, according to the interviewees, considered to have great economic impact, for example by facilitating contacts and cooperation between businesses in an international context.

However, technological determinism is, as Fisher (2010) has pointed out, associated with problems, since it implies that technological progress appears to be inevitable and that the technological field tends to be depoliticized. Society no longer seems to be the ‘force’ that shapes communication technology. Instead it is communication technology that shapes society (see also Hands, 2011). The interviewees confirmed these beliefs through claims that either politicians, citizens or experts were able to foresee what will happen in the future. The only thing to do was to try to keep up with the development. An elected official who wanted to appear as a modern and progressive politician simply had to accept and welcome a constantly changing and highly commercialized new media landscape.

An overly strong belief in digital information technology and the celebration of its social, economic and democratic possibilities has been associated with even more problems than those mentioned above. For example, critics have argued that an exaggerated faith in digital technology tends to neglect how the life circumstances of different groups are influencing their possibilities to acquire and use digital communications technology for participation in politics. For example, ethnic, social and cultural factors might affect people’s chances of participation (cf. Tucker, 2007) and can result in a ‘digital divide’ – an unequal access to and use of the services and information that are available online (see Carpentier, 2003; Garson, 2006; Rice, 2002). Such criticism was rare in the interviews, although as we have mentioned before, some interviewees said that social class and especially age could influence people’s media habits.

However, the techno-friendly approach was not universal, since the interview data also reflected so-called counter-logics (Glynos and Howarth, 2007) or counter-discourses, representing a more pessimistic approach to the usefulness of social media in the political field. These discourses highlighted some of the downsides of social media usage, such as political triviality, harassment, fraud and political trickery. Some of the interviewees were occasionally openly critical of social media and their democratic potential. They described the political aspects of new media in terms of homogenization, emphasizing that social media favoured some groups more than others. However, none of the interviewees questioned the importance of new media technologies and social media at a general social and political level. Even though the politicians recognized several problems, they were also convinced that most of them could be solved.

The articulated positions – pro-technological and pessimistic/critical – were consistent with two political identities in the interview material. The critical position was related to an identity of ‘a real and authentic politician’, according to which new media did not represent adequate substitutes for traditional political work; neither Facebook nor Twitter could completely replace face-to-face communication. The pro-technological position represented, on the other hand, ‘a modern and progressive political identity’ according to which new media were described as important and inevitable in the process of renewing democracy. However, both these positions were consistent with the digital discourse, since even the pessimistic/critical position represented a legitimate oppositional stance based on a realistic and mature view of technology – it was not a fundamental critique of information technology itself (cf. Žižek, 1989).

The tension between the two articulated identities and positions must be related to different contextual aspects. Firstly, in 1998 Sweden introduced a new voting system according to which citizens could vote for individual candidates, not just political parties. This has been said to contribute to the individualization of politics in a Swedish context. Secondly, the introduction of social media has resulted in a new kind of competition on the political scene, with many new and non-traditional political agents. Hence, ‘traditional’ politicians have also been forced to compete with new media strategies. Thirdly, the politicians are active in Västerbotten, a land area characterized by a tension between centre (especially the town Umeå) and periphery (a countryside marked by depopulation). People living in the countryside feel discriminated, for example regarding job opportunities and the level of social services. This tension concerns many politicians, regardless of political affiliation, and it may also be one reason for the articulation of the two identities in the interviews. The politicians are expected both to perform traditional and ‘genuine’ political work directed towards the countryside, and to take novel political action in relation to an expanding centre.

A fourth factor that might be taken into account are the ideological trends in contemporary western societies described in terms of post-politics (Tesfahuney and Dahlstedt, 2008). The post-political era is characterized by the logic of efficiency, productivity and market adjustment in almost every area in society. The citizen is primarily viewed as a consumer, and rights and freedoms are related to the spending ability of the individual. Competitiveness, flexibility and entrepreneurship are key words that drain politics of ideological content and may mask inequalities in society. Political issues are reduced to technical, administrative or naturalized ones. Overall, this might weaken traditional political work in favour of dramatic enactments in order to create popular political brands attracting public attention (and votes).

If we accept the ideas of post-political tendencies in western European countries, the reduction of importance of ideologies has given rise to populist attitudes of politicians in different ways. Firstly, in line with logic of equivalence there is populism in terms of the creation of a common ‘we’, which replaces previous specific subject positions, and presupposes an imagined ‘other’ (Laclau, 2005). The interview data did not articulate a clear and strictly unified ‘we’ in a Laclaudian sense, but the making of a common identity took place when political differences were infringed for the benefit of a relatively similar approach to new media and their democratic potential. Almost all of the interviewees were in favour of information technology in general – a position they assumed to share with the public, and that was described as a sign of a true democratic – folksy – political identity. ²

Secondly, the digital discourse reinforces a strategic career populism according to which it is necessary for politicians to be personal and to create a ‘unique’ individual brand in the digital domain. It was assumed to be possible to realize this personal brand if a politician with the help of social media made dramatic moves, was the first to comment on actual events and was open on a personal level. Populism was in this case more a question of marketing strategies than a concrete political message (cf. Andrejevic, 2007). The important thing was to be publicly known.

These individual strategies may seem to contradict Laclau’s conception of populism as the constitution of equivalences between subjects, thus forming a common ‘we’. Instead they seem to represent an individualistic (liberal) position – the individual politicians seemed to be more interested in media attention than representing a political ideology. However, the interview data illustrated a difference in relation to a strictly individualistic stance, because the ways in which social media was used to highlight the individual were also explicit ‘strategies’ to link the politician with the people in Västerbotten and supposedly trendy public opinions. In other words, instead of making an individual political career through agonistic relations to other political parties, the politicians used social media to create a populist ‘we’ in which they as individual politicians and ‘the people’ could ‘join forces’, so to speak.

Thus, the effect of populism was, as mentioned earlier, a depolitization of technology, because the politicians’ belief in information technology implied a more or less deterministic stance that indirectly disclaimed their responsibility for the democratic development of this technology. However, populism was also related to a depolitization of politics in general, since politics is nowadays described to be less about ideology, and more about marketing strategies and short-lived trends. The digital discourse is an aspect that makes such a development possible.