POPULISTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF EUROPEAN RIGHT-WING PARTIES, MOVEMENTS AND NEWS SITES ON FACEBOOK
POPULISTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF EUROPEAN RIGHT-WING PARTIES, MOVEMENTS AND NEWS SITES ON FACEBOOK

Summary/Abstract: The new media have shaped the public sphere in several ways. Not only online did political discourse and political marketing change in form and content, but also the places and the ways of communication have changed. One channel, that experienced the most drastic and dynamic changes is the online environment. Social networking sites have combined a multitude of functions and offer users an interactive experience, to get access to all kinds of information, including public sphere, political sphere and traditional media. In the context of recent election results and political events in different European countries, this work tries to examine the way social media is used by right-wing populists in order to promote political ideas and values. Therefore, a data set of around 16,000 Facebook posts from Germany, Austria, France and the United Kingdom were analyzed and compared, in order to present. It furthermore examines the form and type of content used, in order to determine, whether right-wing populists in Europe share a similar agenda, similar strategies and a common narrative, when it comes to topics.

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