Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter

  1. Isidoro Arroyo-Almaraz
  2. Francisco del Pino Ortega
  3. Pilar Vicente-Fernández
Journal:
Comunicación: revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales

ISSN: 1989-600X

Year of publication: 2023

Volume: 21

Issue: 1

Pages: 96-114

Type: Article

DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openIdus editor

More publications in: Comunicación: revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales

Abstract

The rise of right-wing populism raises growing concern about the health of representative de-mocracies. In Spain, the emergence of VOX on the political scene has meant the end of Spanish exceptionalism, in addition to conditioning the political and media agenda as well as forcing oth-er political parties to reconsider their strategies. Nowadays, social media occupy a central place in social and political life. Populism has been fuelled by the proliferation of social media such as Twitter, which brings together on the same platform the protagonists of the political debate and spreads messages in a fragmented way and out of the media’s control. This study aims to understand Santiago Abascal’s discursive strategy through a qualitative discourse analysis of his posts on Twitter as VOX’s leader during a decisive period for the party. The results indicate how his discourse focuses on building a populist political party that, in addition to basing its appeal on identifying threats and enemies, projects a heroic image of the party through the exaltation of victimization and the proclamation of its achievements using ideological terminology and collec-tive imagination. The study confirms the importance of sentimental and emotional discourse and the role of the party leader in political communications.

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