Populism in Context: A Cross-Country Investigation of the Facebook Usage of Populist Appeals During the 2019 European Parliament Elections
Authors: Bene, M., Lilleker, D., Jackson, D. et al.
Journal: International Journal of Press/Politics
eISSN: 1940-1620
ISSN: 1940-1612
DOI: 10.1177/19401612231196158
Abstract:Recent scholarship demonstrated that Facebook is a fertile space for populist political communication as its unmediated and viral nature make populist appeals highly efficient in mobilizing voters. However, less attention has been paid to the way these populist messages appear through political actors’ Facebook communication, and what post- and page-level factors they are associated with. We investigate these questions in the context of the 2019 European Parliament election based on a unique cross-national dataset covering twelve European countries. In this study, we categorized 8,074 Facebook posts published on the main Facebook pages of sixty-seven parties. Our findings show that different populist appeals are used in specific ways. For example, at the post level, anti-elitism is frequently used in relation to economy, labor and social policy, and immigration; people-centric appeals are associated with labor and social policy and used when parties call for action, while out-group messages are not related to other topics beyond immigration. “Ideational populist” communication is more frequently articulated in European level and related to the topics of economy and labor and social policy. At the party level, it seems that there are still sharp differences between populist and non-populist parties in their communication.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/38897/
Source: Scopus
Populism in Context: A Cross-Country Investigation of the Facebook Usage of Populist Appeals During the 2019 European Parliament Elections
Authors: Bene, M., Lilleker, D., Jackson, D. et al.
Journal: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PRESS-POLITICS
eISSN: 1940-1620
ISSN: 1940-1612
DOI: 10.1177/19401612231196158
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/38897/
Source: Web of Science (Lite)
“Populism in context. A cross-country investigation of the Facebook usage of populist appeals during the 2019 European Parliament elections,”
Authors: Bene, M., Lilleker, D., Jackson, D. et al.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/38897/
Source: Manual
Populism in context. A cross-country investigation of the Facebook usage of populist appeals during the 2019 European Parliament elections
Authors: Bene, M., Lilleker, D., Jackson, D. et al.
Journal: The International Journal of Press/Politics
Publisher: SAGE
ISSN: 1940-1612
DOI: 10.1177/19401612231196158
Abstract:By providing populist movements with a suitable platform to invoke the support of ordinary people against the establishment, research has found that social media has facilitated the rise of populism in many Western democracies (Gerbaudo, 2018). Significant scholarly attention has recently been paid to how populist rhetoric is adopted by politicians in various (non)electoral contexts (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007; Bos & Brants, 2014; Ernst et al., 2019) and how such rhetoric diffuses through public discourse (Mazzoleni & Bracciale, 2018). However, while much existing scholarship has primarily focused on the prevalence of populist communication in political discourse (Reinemann et al., 2016; Ernst et al., 2019), less attention has been paid to the overall context of its use. This is an important shortcoming because if populist communication is a strategic tool (Weyland, 2001), it is important to uncover the conditions under which it is more or less likely to appear. In this paper we focus on these conditions through a more granular analysis of the use of populist appeals. First, at the (social media) post-level, we examine whether variations in content (topics and political level) are related to the use of populist appeals. Further, we bring attention to the relationship between populist appeals and party-level ideological leaning. We do this analysis within the context of the 2019 European Parliamentary (EP) elections, applying a quantitative content analysis of 8,074 Facebook posts from political parties representing twelve states and from across the ideological spectrum.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/38897/
Source: Manual
Populism in context. A cross-country investigation of the Facebook usage of populist appeals during the 2019 European Parliament elections
Authors: Bene, M., Lilleker, D., Jackson, D. et al.
Journal: The International Journal of Press/Politics
Publisher: SAGE
ISSN: 1940-1612
Abstract:By providing populist movements with a suitable platform to invoke the support of ordinary people against the establishment, research has found that social media has facilitated the rise of populism in many Western democracies (Gerbaudo, 2018). Significant scholarly attention has recently been paid to how populist rhetoric is adopted by politicians in various (non)electoral contexts (Jagers & Walgrave, 2007; Bos & Brants, 2014; Ernst et al., 2019) and how such rhetoric diffuses through public discourse (Mazzoleni & Bracciale, 2018). However, while much existing scholarship has primarily focused on the prevalence of populist communication in political discourse (Reinemann et al., 2016; Ernst et al., 2019), less attention has been paid to the overall context of its use. This is an important shortcoming because if populist communication is a strategic tool (Weyland, 2001), it is important to uncover the conditions under which it is more or less likely to appear. In this paper we focus on these conditions through a more granular analysis of the use of populist appeals. First, at the (social media) post-level, we examine whether variations in content (topics and political level) are related to the use of populist appeals. Further, we bring attention to the relationship between populist appeals and party-level ideological leaning. We do this analysis within the context of the 2019 European Parliamentary (EP) elections, applying a quantitative content analysis of 8,074 Facebook posts from political parties representing twelve states and from across the ideological spectrum.
https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/38897/
Source: BURO EPrints