From the Fringes to the Core – An Analysis of Right-Wing Populists’ Linking Practices in Seven EU Parliaments and Switzerland

Abstract

The insular usage of media sources is a common tool for populist actors to position themselves in relation to the social mainstream and to hold up their claim of creating a counter public. In this article, we traced these dynamics by analysing differences in the insularity of right-wing populist parties’ source repertoires compared to other parties, i.e., the exclusivity of the sources used by populist politicians. By analysing the linking practices of parliamentarians in seven EU countries and Switzerland on Twitter we were able to test the impact of political and media context on these practices. In a second step, we asked to what extent the insularity of sources allows us to draw conclusions on the insularity of topics, i.e., whether right-wing populists used a broad or narrow topic agenda. Our key findings: In countries with high levels of media trust and low levels of polarization, the populist source repertoire features a comparatively low insularity, except for politically marginalized populist parties that use more insular sources. Regardless of the insularity of source use, right-wing populist parties in almost all countries feature a high degree of topic insularity, making a narrow topic agenda the cross-national characteristic of right-wing populist communication.