The Toolkit of Nationalist-Populism in Contemporary Hungary: Symbols, Objects, and New Media

The social movement literature underscores the centrality of frames and framing in political communication. Similarly, research on populism attributes great significance to mapping the distinctive discursive logic of populist reasoning (e.g., the trope of pitting corrupt elites against the people). My paper aims to move beyond the focus on discursive structures to stress the role of symbols, objects and new media in the political communication of populist ideas, using the empirical case of Hungary. First, I show how key historical symbols (e.g., cockade of the 1848 revolution, 1956 revolution) that used to be widely shared across the political and social spectrum have been increasingly appropriated by the populist right. Second, I examine how consumer objects that are key props of a radical nationalist subculture create important material conduits for political communication. Finally, I highlight how the populist right has used new media to create an alternative public sphere beyond the confines of mainstream media. I suggest that the failure, and outright rejection, of the left and liberals to engage in symbolic communication has enabled right-wing populists to progressively monopolize definitions of cultural membership in the nation.