Populist or populism has various definitions/interpretations, but in the case of the OP's intention, I would make an educated guess that in this particular case we are talking about the following:
Popularism as being the people not only choosing who makes the decisions and represents them, but also setting the agenda and sometimes the structure on policy.
This is by candidates, parties and leaders choosing to develop and focus on policies directly related or in reaction to common, popular or highly emotive issues.
That may superficially appear to many people to be what politicians and parties are supposed to be doing to represent the people.
To some extent, politicians should be listening to the people and taking account of what appears important to them.
However, potentially serious negative aspect of this sort of popularism in politics is that it is reactive and emotive in response to the public's desires at the deficit or loss of long term strategic planning on society, the economy, the law etc by professionals and experts with broader and more balanced aims.
If you attempted to run a strategic military campaign with sortees, targets, troop movements etc run on popular opinion of the public, rather than expert strategic planning ..... well you can imagine how that would play out.
That is not much different from planning society, the economy or anything else on such scales and complexity.
How I see democracy should generally work:
Strategic need to attack another country - no public support for going to war = no attack.
No Strategic need to attack another country - public support for going to war = no attack.
No Strategic need to attack another country - no public support for going to war = no attack.
Strategic need to attack another country - public support for going to war = plan an attack.
However, with Popularism it can lead to the following(or at the very least ethical/moral and irrational equivalents to lesser and greater degrees far more than would be expected under non-popularist governance):
No Strategic need to attack another country - public support for going to war = no attack. plan an attack.
With regard to the aspect of social media and it's effects upon and by popularism:
Many of us fail, due to our age, gender and circumstances may well not appreciate just how infuential and pervasive social media and the opinions it forms and propagates can be.
The demographics of these forums, especially P&E are not representative of the public at large.
There is an acute lack of young, females or those less interested thinking/learning about and discussing politics.
Ergo, we are far less likely to be influenced by or even be subject to the same experiences and social media that a considerable amount of the public are.
While we have always had influences like the media, social chat and later things like TV and radio, they have been limited by the sphere of influence, topics, regulations and lack of interaction that do not restrict social media.
The shear speed at which information and misinformation can propagate, evolve, change meaning and take on a life of it's own is exponetialy faster and more pervasive than any other medium.
Not only that, but it can be started, contributed and distributed by anyone, anywhere at any time.
It is also fundamentally different in the way respond and react to it.
The immediacy, attention and interaction demanding nature of social media has a large effect on many people that TV or print never has.
You can edit the title data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
As it stands, maybe more people click on it because they are curious?
Is social media shaping world politics and is populist agenda now more important than democracy?
To answer the question.. Yes social media is shaping the world of politics. I think Obama was the first to be congratulated on using social media in an effective way that resulted in his win.
Secondly, why do you put the populist agenda as something different to democracy? If a particular policy is popular, people vote for it and that is democracy?
Of course, you may take the stance that because the popular agenda is not something you agree with it is somehow contradicting democracy?
The downside of social media is the so called echo chamber, where everyone enforces each others views to such an extent that any one who disagrees is immediately castigated. The group is of a single mind and unfortunately encourages extremes.
This forum is pretty well balanced and there are only a couple of threads where if you disagree its best to stay clear.
That is why I stick with this forum, and don't engage with facebook or WhatsApp type discussions.
Direct democracy is democracy.
Representative democracy is democracy.
i.e there are types of democracy and many things that can be classed as democratic.
It does not follow that democracy is good therefore anything that can be classed as democratic is good.
Are you thinking on the same lines as Winston Churchill?data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
I understand what you're saying, but with respect take a different view.
Democracy means rule by the will of the people.The definitive way of doing this is by referendums, but in modern societies they are too unwieldy and too coarse a solution.Being essentially yes/no, they cannot deal with all the minutiae of a new law, and would in any case be impossible to organise for everything which comes along.At best they are a recipe for conservatism and stagnation (if there are any Swiss readers here, you must admit your country is not exactly renowned for its forward-thinking).
That is what Parliament is for.We elect delegates to act on our behalf, and if we don't like what they do we throw them out and elect replacements.In UK law, Parliament is supreme.Not the government: they just devise proposed legislation for parliament to act on. (In practice, Parliament is suborned to the whim of the party in power and has become essentially a rubber stamp of whatever the Government wants.That is not democracy, but I really don't want to open that can of worms here.For the sake of this discussion we'll go along with the constitutional position that Parliament is supreme).
We do have referendums, but they are not binding on Parliament.Governments can promise to act on them, as with Brexit, and of course a vote for the status quo, as with Scottish independence, is simply a non-event.
I do take issue with one aspect of how you see democracy should generally work.
My version: Strategic need to attack another country - no public support for going to war = plan an attack.
This is where I differ from you.It is the government's job to persuade Parliament that action is in the best interests of the country, which may be against public opinion.It is arguable that the Second World War started this way.Certainly there was at best lukewarm public support for war.Another example is capital punishment.Even today (perhaps especially today!) it is not obvious that public support is against it.
So, whilst I repeat my observation in an earlier post, and refer to @Cliff's post above, that populism is indistinguishable from democracy, it does not necessarily follow that Parliament should act on all current populist trends.It does follow, though, that populist opinion as represented in the outcome of elections, whether it be from online social media, the press, broadcast media, or whatever, represents a true democratic outcome.
A lot of what I say is agreement with you, except for the obvious point.I just wanted to make clear my take on the roles of the Government, Parliament, referendums and populist viewpoints.
I couldn't agree more which is why I have shunned social media like the plague.A good friend of mine (no sadly no longer with us) was a University Lecturer of modern politics.He foresaw this problem when sites like Facebook were in their infancy.
He said to me that while social media could be a force for good, he thought it could also be used by darker forces which could ultimately be the undoing of democracy.I think his prophecy on the second point is well and truly upon us.
I do genuinely fear for western democracies.
Yes but now it's any Tom Dick or Harry with an axe to grind and it's reach is global.
Both good and bad have equal opportunity and reach data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
It does make one, or me at least, wonder whether it's always been going on by means less open to scrutiny.