Looking for the Guilty? The Discursive Strategy on Twitter of the European Populist Political Actors in Times of Crisis
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Published:
Nov 21, 2021
Keywords:
Populism, Political Communication, Social Media, Twitter, Europe
Main Article Content
Abstract
Western democracies live a populist momentum. In this context, the consolidation of the digital technologies plays a key role because of their possibilities to widespread easier the populist messages. This research examines how European populist political actors introduce in their discursive strategy on Twitter the exclusion of groups, the Euroscepticism and the existence of a crisis and how they frame it with the aim to know if there are significant differences regarding their ideology. The sample are composed by the messages shared by four European political parties (Podemos, 5 Stars Movement, National Front and UKIP) and their leaders (Pablo Iglesias, Beppe Grillo, Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage and Paul Nuttall) during three temporary periods, out of electoral campaigns. 9,128 messages have been analyzed. The main findings show that, despite not being inherent characteristics of the populist phenomenon, the narrative of the crisis, the exclusion of groups and Euroscepticism is present in the discourse of all the populist political actors analyzed on Twitter. All of them base their discursive strategy looking for the guilty in order to introduce themselves to the people as the only political option capable of defending them and restoring the sovereignty that has been taken from them. In this context, the ideology is a key element.
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Alonso-Muñoz, L., & Casero-Ripollés, A. (2021). Looking for the Guilty? The Discursive Strategy on Twitter of the European Populist Political Actors in Times of Crisis. Culture, Language and Representation, 26, 29–45. https://doi.org/10.6035/clr.5827
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ARTÍCULOS / ARTICLES
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Funding data
-
Spanish National Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation
Grant numbers CSO2017-88620-P -
Universitat Jaume I
Grant numbers UJI-B2020-14
References
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Alonso-Muñoz, Laura y Andreu Casero-Ripollés. 2020. «Populism Against Europe in Social Media: The Eurosceptic Discourse on Twitter in Spain, Italy, France, and United Kingdom During the Campaign of the 2019 European Parliament Election». Frontiers in Communication, 5. doi:10.3389/fcomm.2020.00054
Araújo, Bruno y Elder Prior. 2021. «Framing Political Populism: The Role of Media in Framing the Election of Jair Bolsonaro». Journalism Practice, 15(2): 226-242. Doi:10.1080/17512786.2019.1709881
Biancalana, Cecilia. 2014. «Il populismo nell’ era di internet. Retorica e uso del web nel Movimento 5 Stelle». Il Mulino, (1): 53-62. doi: 10.1402/75752
Caiani, Manuela y Paolo Graziano. 2016. «Varieties of Populism: Insights from the Italian Case». Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, 46(2): 243–267. doi:10.1017/ipo.2016.6
Canovan, Margaret. 1999. «Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy». Political Studies, 47(1): 2–16. doi:10.1111/1467-9248.00184
Casero-Ripollés, Andreu. 2007. «Inmigración e ilegalidad: la representación mediática del «otro» como problema». Cultura, Lenguaje y Representación, 4(4): 33-47.
Casero-Ripollés, Andreu, Marçal Sintes-Olivella y Pere Franch. 2017. «The Populist Political Communication Style in Action: Podemos’s Issues and Functions on Twitter During the 2016 Spanish General Election». American Behavioral Scientist, 61(9): 986-1001. doi: 10.1177/0002764217707624
Casero-Ripollés, Andreu, Ramón A. Feenstra y Simon Tormey. 2016. «Old and New Media Logics in an Electoral Campaign. The Case of Podemos and the Two-Way Street Mediatization of Politics». The International Journal of Press/Politics, 21(3): 378-397. doi: 10.1177/1940161216645340
Chiaramonte, Alessandro, Vincenzo Emanuele, Nicola Maggini y Aldo Paparo. 2018. «Populist Success in a Hung Parliament: The 2018 General Election in Italy». South European Society and Politics, 23(4): 479-501. doi:10.1080/13608746.2018.1506513
de Vreese, Claes H., Frank Esser, Toril Aalberg, Carsten Reinemann y James Stanyer. 2018. «Populism as an expression of political communication content and style: A new perspective». The International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(4): 423-438. doi:10.1177/1940161218790035
Di Tella, Torcuato S. 1997. «Populism into the Twenty-first Century». Government and Opposition, 32(2): 187–200. doi:10.1111/j.1477-7053.1997.tb00157.x
Fuchs, Christian. 2017. «Donald Trump: A Critical Theory-Perspective on Authoritarian Capitalism». tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 15: 1-72. doi: 10.31269/triplec.v15i1.835
Gagliardone, Iginio, Danit Gal, Thiago Alves, y Gabriela Martínez. 2015. Countering Online Hate Speech. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2018. «Social media and populism: an elective affinity?». Media, Culture & Society, 40(5): 745-753. doi: 10.1177/0163443718772192
Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2017. «The populist era». Soundings, 65: 46-58.
Germani, Gino. 1978. Authoritarianism, fascism, and national populism. New Brunswick: Transaction Books.
Goodwin, Matthew J. (2015). «UKIP, the 2015 General Election and Britain's EU Referendum». Parliamentary Insight, 6(3): 12–15. doi:10.1111/2041-9066.12107
Ivaldi, Gilles. 2018. «Contesting the EU in times of crisis: The Front National and politics of Euroscepticism in France». Politics, 38(3): 278–294. doi:10.1177/0263395718766787
Jagers, Jan y Stefaan Walgrave. 2007. «Populism as political communication style: An empirical study of political parties’ discourse in Belgium». European Journal of Political Research, 46(3): 319–45. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.2006.00690.x
Kriesi, Hanspeter. 2007. «The role of European integration in national election campaigns». European Union Politics, 8(1): 83–108. doi: 10.1177/1465116507073288
Larsson, Anders-Olof. 2015. «Comparing to prepare: Suggesting ways to study social media today—and tomorrow». Social Media & Society, 1(1): 1-2. doi:10.1177/2056305115578680
Leconte, Cécile. 2010. Understanding Euroscepticism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mammone, Andrea. 2009. «The eternal return? Faux populism and contemporarization of neo-fascism across Britain, France and Italy». Journal of Conemporary European Studies, 17(2): 171-192. doi: 10.1080/14782800903108635
Matthes, Jörg y Desirée Schmuck. 2017. «The effects of anti-immigrant right-wing populist ads on implicit and explicit attitudes: A moderated mediation model». Communication Research, 44(4): 556-581. doi:10.1177/0093650215577859
Mazzoleni, Gianpietro. 2008. «Populism and the media». En Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy, ed. Daniele Albertazzi y Duncan McDonnell. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Mazzoleni, Gianpietro. 2003. «The Media and the Growth of Neo-Populism in Contemporary Democracies». En The Media and Neo-Populism, eds. Gianpietro Mazzoleni, Julianne Stewart y Bruce Horsfield. Londres: Praeger.
McLaren, Lauren M. 2006. Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Moffitt, Benjamin. 2016. The global rise of populism: Performance, political style, and representation. Stanford: Stanford Univeristy Press.
Moffitt, Benjamin y Simon Tormey. 2014. «Rethinking populism: Politics, mediatisation and political style». Political Studies, 62(2): 381-397. doi:10.1111/1467-9248.12032
Mudde, Cas. 2007. Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mudde, Cas. 2004. «The Populist Zeitgeist». Government and Opposition, 39(3): 541–563. doi: 10.1111/j.1477-7053.2004.00135.x
Panizza, Francisco. 2005. «Introduction: Populism and the Mirror of Democracy», En Populism and the Mirror of Democracy, ed. Francisco Panizza. Londres: Verso.
Reinemann, Carsten, Toril Aalberg, Frank Esser, Jesper Strömbäck y Claes H. de Vreese. 2017. «Populist Political Communication: Toward a Model of Its Causes, Forms, and Effects». En Populist Political Communication in Europe, eds. Toril Aalberg, Frank Esser, Carsten Reinemann, Jesper Strömbäck y Claes H. de Vreese. Nueva York: Routledge.
Rendueles, César y Jorge Sola. 2015. «Podemos y el “populismo de izquierdas”: ¿Hacia una contrahegemonía desde el sur de Europa?». Nueva Sociedad, 258: 29-44.
Rodríguez-Aguilera de Prat, Cesáreo. 2015. «Semejanzas y diferencias entre el Movimento 5 Stelle y Podemos». Società Mutamento Politica, 6(11): 51-74. doi:10.13128/SMP-16400
Rooduijn, Matthijs. 2018. «What unites the voter bases of populist parties? Comparing the electorates of 15 populist parties». European Political Science Review, 10(3): 351-368. doi:10.1017/S1755773917000145
Rooduijn, Matthijs. 2014. «The nucleus of populism: In search of the lowest common denominator». Government and Opposition, 49(4): 537-599. doi:10.1017/gov.2013.30
Rooduijn, Matthijs y Tjitske Akkerman. 2017. «Flank Attacks: Populism and Left Right Radicalism in Western Europe». Party Politics, 23(3): 193–204. doi:10.1177/1354068815596514
Rovira-Kaltwasser, Cristóbal y Paul Taggart. 2016. «Dealing with Populists in Government: A Framework for Analysis». Democratization, 23(2): 201–220. doi:10.1080/13510347.2015.1058785
Saward, Michael. 2011. «Slow Theory: Taking Time over Transnational Democratic Representation». Ethics and Global Politics, 4(1): 1-18. doi:10.3402/egp.v4i1.6416
Schmitt, Carl. 2005. Concepto de lo político. Madrid: Alianza.
Sintes-Olivella, Marçal, Andreu Casero-Ripollés y Elena Yeste-Piquer (2020). «The Inclusionary Populist Communication Style on Facebook: The Case of Ada Colau in Barcelona». Communication & Society, 33(2): 193-208. doi: 10.15581/003.33.2.193-208
Taggart, Paul. 2000. Populism. Concepts in the Social Sciences. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Taguieff, Pierre-André. 1997. «Le populisme et la science politique. Du mirage conceptuel aux vrais problems». Vingtieme siecle. Revue d'histoire, 56: 4-33. doi:10.2307/3770596
Usherwood, Simon. 2019. «Shooting the fox? UKIP’s populism in the post-Brexit era». West European Politics, 1–21. doi:10.1080/01402382.2019.1596692
van Dijk, Teun A. 1997. Racismo y análisis crítico de los medios. Barcelona: Paidós.
van Elsas, Erika J., Armen Hakhverdian y Wouter van der Brug. 2016. «United against a common foe? The nature and origins of Euroscepticism among left-wing and right-wing citizens». West European Politics, 39(6): 1181–1204. doi:10.1080/01402382.2016.1175244
van Klingeren, Marijn, Hajo G. Boomgaarden y Claes H. de Vreese. 2013. «Going soft or staying soft: have identity factors become more important than economic rationale when explaining euroscepticism?». Journal of European Integration, 35(6): 689–704. doi: 10.1080/07036337.2012.719506
Vasilopoulou, Sofia. 2018. «The radical right and Euroskepticism». En The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, ed. Jens Rydgren. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wodak, Ruth. 2015. The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. Londres: Sage.
Aalberg, Toril y Claes H. de Vreese. 2017. «Introduction: Comprehending Populist Political Communication». En Populist Political Communication in Europe, ed. Toril Aalberg, Frank Esser, Carsten Reinemann, Jesper Strömbäck yClaes H. de Vreese. Nueva York: Routledge.
Albertazzi, Daniele y Duncan McDonnell. 2008. «Introduction: The Sceptre and the Spectre». En Twenty-First Century Populism, eds. Daniele Albertazzi y Duncan McDonnell. Nueva York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Alonso-Muñoz, Laura. 2020. The ‘More is more’ effect: a comparative analysis of the political agenda and the strategy on Twitter of the European populist parties. European Politics and Society, 21(5): 505-519. doi:10.1080/23745118.2019.1672921
Alonso-Muñoz, Laura y Andreu Casero-Ripollés. 2018. «Communication of European populist leaders on Twitter: Agenda setting and the ‘more is less’ effect». El Profesional de la Información, 27(6): 1193-1202. doi: 10.3145/epi.2018.nov.03
Alonso-Muñoz, Laura y Andreu Casero-Ripollés. 2020. «Populism Against Europe in Social Media: The Eurosceptic Discourse on Twitter in Spain, Italy, France, and United Kingdom During the Campaign of the 2019 European Parliament Election». Frontiers in Communication, 5. doi:10.3389/fcomm.2020.00054
Araújo, Bruno y Elder Prior. 2021. «Framing Political Populism: The Role of Media in Framing the Election of Jair Bolsonaro». Journalism Practice, 15(2): 226-242. Doi:10.1080/17512786.2019.1709881
Biancalana, Cecilia. 2014. «Il populismo nell’ era di internet. Retorica e uso del web nel Movimento 5 Stelle». Il Mulino, (1): 53-62. doi: 10.1402/75752
Caiani, Manuela y Paolo Graziano. 2016. «Varieties of Populism: Insights from the Italian Case». Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, 46(2): 243–267. doi:10.1017/ipo.2016.6
Canovan, Margaret. 1999. «Trust the People! Populism and the Two Faces of Democracy». Political Studies, 47(1): 2–16. doi:10.1111/1467-9248.00184
Casero-Ripollés, Andreu. 2007. «Inmigración e ilegalidad: la representación mediática del «otro» como problema». Cultura, Lenguaje y Representación, 4(4): 33-47.
Casero-Ripollés, Andreu, Marçal Sintes-Olivella y Pere Franch. 2017. «The Populist Political Communication Style in Action: Podemos’s Issues and Functions on Twitter During the 2016 Spanish General Election». American Behavioral Scientist, 61(9): 986-1001. doi: 10.1177/0002764217707624
Casero-Ripollés, Andreu, Ramón A. Feenstra y Simon Tormey. 2016. «Old and New Media Logics in an Electoral Campaign. The Case of Podemos and the Two-Way Street Mediatization of Politics». The International Journal of Press/Politics, 21(3): 378-397. doi: 10.1177/1940161216645340
Chiaramonte, Alessandro, Vincenzo Emanuele, Nicola Maggini y Aldo Paparo. 2018. «Populist Success in a Hung Parliament: The 2018 General Election in Italy». South European Society and Politics, 23(4): 479-501. doi:10.1080/13608746.2018.1506513
de Vreese, Claes H., Frank Esser, Toril Aalberg, Carsten Reinemann y James Stanyer. 2018. «Populism as an expression of political communication content and style: A new perspective». The International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(4): 423-438. doi:10.1177/1940161218790035
Di Tella, Torcuato S. 1997. «Populism into the Twenty-first Century». Government and Opposition, 32(2): 187–200. doi:10.1111/j.1477-7053.1997.tb00157.x
Fuchs, Christian. 2017. «Donald Trump: A Critical Theory-Perspective on Authoritarian Capitalism». tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique, 15: 1-72. doi: 10.31269/triplec.v15i1.835
Gagliardone, Iginio, Danit Gal, Thiago Alves, y Gabriela Martínez. 2015. Countering Online Hate Speech. Paris: UNESCO Publishing.
Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2018. «Social media and populism: an elective affinity?». Media, Culture & Society, 40(5): 745-753. doi: 10.1177/0163443718772192
Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2017. «The populist era». Soundings, 65: 46-58.
Germani, Gino. 1978. Authoritarianism, fascism, and national populism. New Brunswick: Transaction Books.
Goodwin, Matthew J. (2015). «UKIP, the 2015 General Election and Britain's EU Referendum». Parliamentary Insight, 6(3): 12–15. doi:10.1111/2041-9066.12107
Ivaldi, Gilles. 2018. «Contesting the EU in times of crisis: The Front National and politics of Euroscepticism in France». Politics, 38(3): 278–294. doi:10.1177/0263395718766787
Jagers, Jan y Stefaan Walgrave. 2007. «Populism as political communication style: An empirical study of political parties’ discourse in Belgium». European Journal of Political Research, 46(3): 319–45. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-6765.2006.00690.x
Kriesi, Hanspeter. 2007. «The role of European integration in national election campaigns». European Union Politics, 8(1): 83–108. doi: 10.1177/1465116507073288
Larsson, Anders-Olof. 2015. «Comparing to prepare: Suggesting ways to study social media today—and tomorrow». Social Media & Society, 1(1): 1-2. doi:10.1177/2056305115578680
Leconte, Cécile. 2010. Understanding Euroscepticism. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mammone, Andrea. 2009. «The eternal return? Faux populism and contemporarization of neo-fascism across Britain, France and Italy». Journal of Conemporary European Studies, 17(2): 171-192. doi: 10.1080/14782800903108635
Matthes, Jörg y Desirée Schmuck. 2017. «The effects of anti-immigrant right-wing populist ads on implicit and explicit attitudes: A moderated mediation model». Communication Research, 44(4): 556-581. doi:10.1177/0093650215577859
Mazzoleni, Gianpietro. 2008. «Populism and the media». En Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European Democracy, ed. Daniele Albertazzi y Duncan McDonnell. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Mazzoleni, Gianpietro. 2003. «The Media and the Growth of Neo-Populism in Contemporary Democracies». En The Media and Neo-Populism, eds. Gianpietro Mazzoleni, Julianne Stewart y Bruce Horsfield. Londres: Praeger.
McLaren, Lauren M. 2006. Identity, Interests and Attitudes to European Integration. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan
Moffitt, Benjamin. 2016. The global rise of populism: Performance, political style, and representation. Stanford: Stanford Univeristy Press.
Moffitt, Benjamin y Simon Tormey. 2014. «Rethinking populism: Politics, mediatisation and political style». Political Studies, 62(2): 381-397. doi:10.1111/1467-9248.12032
Mudde, Cas. 2007. Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mudde, Cas. 2004. «The Populist Zeitgeist». Government and Opposition, 39(3): 541–563. doi: 10.1111/j.1477-7053.2004.00135.x
Panizza, Francisco. 2005. «Introduction: Populism and the Mirror of Democracy», En Populism and the Mirror of Democracy, ed. Francisco Panizza. Londres: Verso.
Reinemann, Carsten, Toril Aalberg, Frank Esser, Jesper Strömbäck y Claes H. de Vreese. 2017. «Populist Political Communication: Toward a Model of Its Causes, Forms, and Effects». En Populist Political Communication in Europe, eds. Toril Aalberg, Frank Esser, Carsten Reinemann, Jesper Strömbäck y Claes H. de Vreese. Nueva York: Routledge.
Rendueles, César y Jorge Sola. 2015. «Podemos y el “populismo de izquierdas”: ¿Hacia una contrahegemonía desde el sur de Europa?». Nueva Sociedad, 258: 29-44.
Rodríguez-Aguilera de Prat, Cesáreo. 2015. «Semejanzas y diferencias entre el Movimento 5 Stelle y Podemos». Società Mutamento Politica, 6(11): 51-74. doi:10.13128/SMP-16400
Rooduijn, Matthijs. 2018. «What unites the voter bases of populist parties? Comparing the electorates of 15 populist parties». European Political Science Review, 10(3): 351-368. doi:10.1017/S1755773917000145
Rooduijn, Matthijs. 2014. «The nucleus of populism: In search of the lowest common denominator». Government and Opposition, 49(4): 537-599. doi:10.1017/gov.2013.30
Rooduijn, Matthijs y Tjitske Akkerman. 2017. «Flank Attacks: Populism and Left Right Radicalism in Western Europe». Party Politics, 23(3): 193–204. doi:10.1177/1354068815596514
Rovira-Kaltwasser, Cristóbal y Paul Taggart. 2016. «Dealing with Populists in Government: A Framework for Analysis». Democratization, 23(2): 201–220. doi:10.1080/13510347.2015.1058785
Saward, Michael. 2011. «Slow Theory: Taking Time over Transnational Democratic Representation». Ethics and Global Politics, 4(1): 1-18. doi:10.3402/egp.v4i1.6416
Schmitt, Carl. 2005. Concepto de lo político. Madrid: Alianza.
Sintes-Olivella, Marçal, Andreu Casero-Ripollés y Elena Yeste-Piquer (2020). «The Inclusionary Populist Communication Style on Facebook: The Case of Ada Colau in Barcelona». Communication & Society, 33(2): 193-208. doi: 10.15581/003.33.2.193-208
Taggart, Paul. 2000. Populism. Concepts in the Social Sciences. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Taguieff, Pierre-André. 1997. «Le populisme et la science politique. Du mirage conceptuel aux vrais problems». Vingtieme siecle. Revue d'histoire, 56: 4-33. doi:10.2307/3770596
Usherwood, Simon. 2019. «Shooting the fox? UKIP’s populism in the post-Brexit era». West European Politics, 1–21. doi:10.1080/01402382.2019.1596692
van Dijk, Teun A. 1997. Racismo y análisis crítico de los medios. Barcelona: Paidós.
van Elsas, Erika J., Armen Hakhverdian y Wouter van der Brug. 2016. «United against a common foe? The nature and origins of Euroscepticism among left-wing and right-wing citizens». West European Politics, 39(6): 1181–1204. doi:10.1080/01402382.2016.1175244
van Klingeren, Marijn, Hajo G. Boomgaarden y Claes H. de Vreese. 2013. «Going soft or staying soft: have identity factors become more important than economic rationale when explaining euroscepticism?». Journal of European Integration, 35(6): 689–704. doi: 10.1080/07036337.2012.719506
Vasilopoulou, Sofia. 2018. «The radical right and Euroskepticism». En The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right, ed. Jens Rydgren. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wodak, Ruth. 2015. The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. Londres: Sage.