Political ideology
Techno-populism is either a populism in favor of technocracy or a populism concerning certain technology – usually information technology – or any populist ideology conversed using digital media. It can be employed by single politicians or whole political movements respectively. Neighboring terms used in a similar way are technocratic populism, technological populism, and cyber-populism. Italy's Five Star Movement and France's La République En Marche! have been described as technopopulist political movements. 
Etymology.
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There are four principal definitions of populism used in the social sciences today: structural, economic, political-institutional, and discursive. The structuralist approach to techno-populism emphasizes its social origins and associates it with certain stages of development, especially the attempt at industrialization in countries located at the periphery of the world economy. According to this view, populist regimes are those using cross-class coalitions and popular mobilization to support import-substituting industrialization. The economic approach to populism identifies it with policy outputs—specifically, shortsighted economic policies that appeal to the poor. And the political approach sees populism as a phenomenon rooted in the basic struggle over control of government, policy, and core values of the community. Lastly the discursive definition sees populism as a Manichaean discourse that identifies Good with a unified will of the people and Evil with a conspiring elite. This definition is more common to the study of populism in Western Europe and the United States but is largely unknown to mainstream political science because of its association with anti-positivist currents within postmodernism.
—Emiliana De Bladio and Michele Sorice
The term "techno-populism" is either a portmanteau of technology and populism to derive a new combined meaning, or a portmanteau using technocracy and populism. It has been noted that broad definitions of techno-populism do not account for regional variants of techno-populism, with the result that "the empirical work on populism is almost invariably confined to specific countries or world regions. This is partly inevitable given the costs and difficulty of cross-national and cross-regional comparisons and often treats the specification of national and regional manifestations of populism as unspecific. This means that populism literature is not as cumulative as it should be, and it is prone to exception fallacy". Technopopulism or technological populism might also have the meaning of application of modern digital technologies for populist means. The latest meaning is similar to cyber-populism.
The commonly held definition of technology is "the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry", while the definition of populism that is held by most academics is "a political approach that strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups". In relation to these two definitions, techno-populism has been described as a "political ideology that appeals to a group of people whom are concerned about their lack of power and interaction with their nations political and economic discourse that is presented through technological knowledge. Techno-populism can be defined as a singular, confusing ideology with various uses in academia, with some academics rejecting the term, and others using it to analyze the growth of populist speech online. 
Technocratic populism.
Technocratic populism is a combination of technocracy and populism that connects voters to leaders via expertise, and is output-oriented. Technocratic populism offers solutions beyond the right-left division of politics, which are introduced by technocrats and benefit the ordinary people. Examples of politicians in Western Europe who deployed technocratic populism are Giuseppe Conte and Emmanuel Macron, while Ciudadanos, Corbynism, Podemos, and M5S are examples for analogous political movements. Techno-populism in the sense of technocratic populism is sometimes termed "techno-fascism", where political rights are only gained by technical expertise. Techno-fascism is a concept introduced by Janis Mimura to describe an authoritarian rule executed by technocrats.
Technological populism.
Technological populism is diagnosed in the case of blockchain platforms, which use the narrative of empowering ordinary people through decentralized decision-making process, facilitating anonymity of transactions, enabling trust without third parties and combating the monopoly of the financial system regarding money supply. Technological populism does not separate politics and technology, denies confidence in experts and moves technological decision making into public domain. According to Marco Deseriis, techno-populism in the sense of technological populism is the belief that popular self-government is achievable by means of digital media: Technopopulism is the belief that the "government of the people, by the people, for the people" (Lincoln 1953 [1863]) is achievable by means of information communications technology. ... Technopopulism can also be understood in Foucauldian terms as an emerging discourse (Foucault 1972), that is, as a body of knowledge, norms, attitudes, and practices that arise from the hybridization of two preexisting discourses: populism and technolibertarianism. Even though these discursive practices are historically separate, I contend that they have begun to converge after the global financial crisis of 2008 as widespread frustration at the ruling elites' mishandling of the crisis sparked international protest movements, and propelled a new generation of "technoparties" such as the Five Star Movement in Italy, Podemos in Spain, and the Pirate Party in Iceland.
Some sources use the word "cyber-populism" as synonym for technological populism concerning with application of information technology for government and even identify two varieties of it: "techno-plebiscitarianism" as seen in the tendency to upset the principle of pluralism", and "techno-proceduralism" as seen in the obsession with methods and the comparative neglect of substantive demands beyond the mere demand of democracy 2.0"."
History.
The combination of populism and technology to form techno-populism is a recent phenomenon to world economics and politics and has seen its developments from the end of the 20th century up to recent years. According to Daniele Caramani, "populism has been present in political processes since Plato's conception of politics and the Roman republic to the modern era. Even with the development of representative democracy and party governments after the National and Industrial Revolutions of the 19th century, populism and technocracy have continued to work in alignment with these ideals also".
With the advent of the internet and its common use in the 21st century, techno-populist movements have been particularly been enabled to the spread of social media as independent coverage of populist movements can be shared quickly and seen by millions. This has presented an ability for populist politics to access audience through the mass networking capabilities of social media which was previously unattainable before the digital age. Communication and digital media provided by advances in technologies has also given new opportunities for political inclusion for citizens in participating in democratic processes and ultimately the creation of a new public sphere centered on discursive and participatory practices.
Both populism and democracy are today widespread in different parts of the world, but due to developments in technology such as the Internet populist movements have all simultaneously developed some presence over communication on the internet despite differing issues in regional contexts. It is worth noting that techno-populism is growing among all regions in the world, but that it has as much to do with the adoption of the internet over the past two decades as it does in the spread of populist ideologies. Daniele Caramani argues that "Techno-Populist mobilization is not restricted to regional areas but can be promoted on certain topics, which either intentionally or unintentionally are not being addressed by the establishment".
Technocratic and technological populisms by region.
North America.
In the United States, techno-populism has seen development in the past decade due to a backlash against the neoconservatism and corporatist values presented by a large amount of political parties despite radical changes in economic and social issues. In particular, the financial crisis of 2007–2008 led to a growth of resentment against the 1% by the 99%. In response to the Great Recession, movements were formed to bring awareness to the growing economic issues and the Occupy movement and the Tea Party movement were both techno-populist movements that were protested for change. The populist approach of the Occupy movement made regular reference to its "people" being what it called "the 99%" while they challenged the economic and political "elites of Wall Street".
In Canada, only the Reform Party qualifies as a populist party whose initial and sustaining appeal was to "the people" as against "the elite". That the identities of both the people and the elite in Reform Party discourse were strikingly at odds with those understood in much of North American populist history and appeal has been vital to the Reform Party distinctive role in Canadian politics. As it was dissolved in 2000, it did not use aspects of digital communication to further its political movement. A recent example of a techno-populist movement that has arisen over backlash from videos and reports spread on social media is the yellow vest protests in Canada. Various aspects of populist movements have continued to be present in both Canada's government and social movements in the past decade and the role of technology in connecting people to these causes has had a role in developing this trend.
Europe.
In Europe, techno-populism is a movement of networked individuals which pursues and enacts citizens of a nation to play a critical role in conferring unity to a leading technocratic and leaderless political organisation". Techno-populist movements have had a presence in European politics since the advent of the internet, but they have also existed prior to the internet under different names and methods to campaign to the public. The latest generation of techno-populist parties in Europe include the left-wing backlashes to corruption and the growing economic elite class from the Five Star Movement in Italy, Podemos in Spain and the Pirate Party in Iceland. Whilst there has also been a growth in right-wing euroskeptic parties across Europe from the Alternative for Germany in Germany to the National Rally in France and Italy's National Alliance which have gained parliamentary seats in both their own countries as well as in the European Parliament. Through the spread of advocacy groups and campaigns on social media, techno-populist parties have been able to rally followers and spread their message to the public. In late 2018 to early 2019, the yellow vest movement challenged Emmanuel Macron in France regarding raising the cost of gas. According to Adam Nossiter, "[u]nlike other nationalistic movements the yellow vest movement sought to resolve the inequalities about economic class and the inability for working class Frenchmen to pay their bills who need their cars". The yellow vest movement was unique as a techno-populist movement in its advocacy for class equality whilst other parties across Europe have focused on presenting "the people" on their nationalistic identity, but they still utilized the common trend of spreading viral videos of their movement to promote their cause.
Presently in Central Europe, the Italian National Alliance and Northern League have held various parliamentary seats by using techno-populist rhetoric to further connect with voters. Unlike other regions, the large amount of populist political parties in Europe share a Euroskeptic manifesto. It has been argued that "these right-wing populist parties have rallied behind the Austrian government to protest the perceived illegitimate and hypocritical EU interference regarding the formation of a government that included a populist radical party in Austria" whilst they state that Silvio Berlusconi forming a coalition with Gianfranco Fini National Alliance and Umberto Bossi's Northern League was a similar formation of government that went unpunished by the European Union. It is due to this that Mudd has conferred that when "supranational institutions try to take sanctions based on democratic principles, they are not capable of overcoming national power asymmetries without granting more legitimacy to the populist forces".
Whilst in Southern Europe, the techno-populist Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy has demonstrated its populist appeal by getting nearly "25 percent of the overall vote". Similar to other populist parties, they rallied behind mobilizing "the people" to oppose what they saw as a "corrupt political class that did not put the will of the people ahead of their own self interests". Italy's former Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, who led the country from 2018 to 2021 and later became M5S leader, has been often labeled as a techno-populist.
Asia.
Across Asia, the two main political systems consist of democracies and authoritarian states. As central Asia and East Asia have maintained constant political order through providing autocratic or economic leadership in their countries, south eastern Asia has seen the greatest growth of populist and techno-populist mobilization. It has been argued that "[w]hen the richer classes are looking for leadership