This chapter examines populism as a key analytical lens for understanding the transformation of political discourse on immigration, focusing on its dual nature as both ideology and communicative style. The chapter presents the central claim that populism operates not only through a binary ideological structure—opposing “the pure people” to “corrupt elites” and “dangerous others”—but also through a set of communicative practices that are highly compatible with the logics of digital platforms. Moving beyond a purely ideological definition, it conceptualizes populism as a flexible and pervasive communicative mode, characterized by simplification, emotionalization, and antagonism. Within this framework, the chapter argues that social media environments amplify populist discourse by rewarding affective, polarizing, and identitydriven content. It further advances the book’s second core hypothesis: that populist communication contributes to a reconfiguration of otherness, producing alternative forms of alterity in which political opponents and symbolic enemies become central targets of exclusion and delegitimisation.