Trend towards extreme right-wing populism on Twitter. An analysis of the influence on leaders, media and users

Abstract

The advance of populism in Europe and the positioning of this type of politics on the Web are both facts substantiated by scientific research. In this connection, a platform like Twitter serves as a stage for dissemination, interaction, mobilisation and building the personality of influencer/leaders and as a strategic tool for the selection of issues and for propaganda and fake news. The main objective is to know the impact that this communication model has on both digital users and the media, particularly in electoral processes. To this end, a quantitative-qualitative comparative content analysis, which studies the issue frame and the game frame, is performed on the personal Twitter accounts of Marine Le Pen (@MLP_officiel), the leader of Rassemblement National (RN) in France, Matteo Salvini (@matteosalvinimi), the leader of Liga Norte (LN) in Italy, and Santiago Abascal (@Santi_ABASCAL), the leader of Vox in Spain. In the context of the European elections held on the 26 May 2019, a sample of 2,187 tweets, user metrics (‘likes,’ retweets and comments) and their reproduction in the digital newspapers @lemondefr, @repubblica and @el_país are analysed. The initial results evince a strategic use of online tools, with a media and public response that reproduces the populist discourse of the far-right, to the point of making it go viral.