ALGORITHMIC POPULISM AND THE DATAFICATION AND GAMIFICATION OF THE PEOPLE BY FLEMISH INTEREST IN BELGIUM

ABSTRACT Populism studies tend to understand populism as a purely political phenomenon (MUDDE; KALTWASSER, 2017; MÜLLER, 2016). To categorize someone as a populist or not, is in many cases solely based on an evaluation of discourse, style or even ideology. It is much rarer to see approaches to populism that focus on the relation between politics and media and digital media in particular (welcome exceptions are CESARINO 2019 e SILVA, 2019). Throughout this contribution, I will argue that we cannot understand populism in full without focusing in detail on how populists and others actually construct the populist voice, how they communicate themselves on different platforms as the ‘true representatives of the people’. This inevitably means taking the changing media landscape into account as a key-context that shapes contemporary populism. The hybrid media system, its media logics, affordances and its culture of connectivity need to be considered when trying to make sense of populism and politics in general in the 21st century.摘要 民粹主义研究往往将民粹主义视为纯粹的政治现象（MUDDE、KALTWASSER，2017；MÜLLER，2016）。在多数情况下，对某人是否属于民粹主义者的判定，仅基于其话语、风格乃至意识形态的评价。聚焦于政治与媒体、尤其是数字媒体之间关联的民粹主义研究则相对少见（值得一提的例外是CESARINO 2019与SILVA 2019）。在本文中，笔者主张，若不细致探析民粹主义者及其他群体究竟如何构建民粹主义话语，以及他们如何在各类平台上以“人民的真正代表”身份进行自我传播，我们便无法全面理解民粹主义。这必然意味着需将不断演变的媒体生态视为塑造当代民粹主义的核心语境。在试图理解21世纪的民粹主义与整体政治格局时，我们必须考量混合媒体系统、其媒介逻辑、可供性以及连接性文化。