Abstract
Since its inception, the European Union has been facing several challenges. The economic and refugee crises, along with the results of the British referendum, have shaped the future of Europe in the past decade. These challenges among others have encouraged the emergence of populist parties, which aim at disrupting the current status quo posing threats to democracy. In this context, the consolidation of digital media has played a key role in the circulation of populist messages to a large number of people. Such messages have questioned the political and legitimacy terms of the European Union, leading to the ideal scenario of Euroscepticism. This article examines the framing and communication strategies used by the European populist actors regarding the European Union and Euroscepticism. The aim is to identify if there are any significant ideological differences. The sample consists of the shared messages (n = 3,667) by the main European populist political parties of Spain, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom during the European Parliament election campaign in 2019. The messages published on the Twitter accounts of Podemos, Vox, the 5 Star Movement, Lega, Rassemblement National, France Insoumise, The Brexit Party, and the UKIP have been analyzed. Results show that two types of Eurosceptic discourse were detected depending on the ideology. The right-wing populists pose a Euroscepticism exclusionary discourse, based on the loss of sovereignty and the distinction of “they” - “us”, excluding the out-groups whereas the left-wing populists present a Euroscepticism inclusive discourse, to maintain the foundational values of Europe, such as equality or solidarity between different people and countries. This research found that Eurosceptic discourse is used in the communicative strategy of populist political parties on Twitter and highlights the importance of the message frame which makes the difference about it.
Highlights
The electoral success of several populist political parties has increased the news coverage along with the academic interest in populism
The discursive opportunity structure (DOS) determines the possibilities of a message to be disseminated in the public sphere (Koopmans and Olzak, 2004)
The analysis carried out allows extracting the main discursive axes that the eight European populist parties analyzed present in their communicative strategy on Twitter regarding the European political project and Euroscepticism (Table 2)
Summary
The electoral success of several populist political parties has increased the news coverage along with the academic interest in populism. This fact makes it an interesting topic to explore within the European context. Differences regarding populism ideology can be found, and concerning their political trajectory or their programmatic proposals (Caiani and Graziano, 2016). There are different approaches to study the populism Some authors consider it a form of political organization based on the presence of a charismatic leader who raises his government with the direct support of the people (Taggart, 2000; Weyland, 2001). Others consider it a communicative style (Jagers and Walgrave, 2007; Bos et al, 2010, 2011; Moffitt, 2016; Block and Negrine, 2017). A moldable ideology that can be adapted to a multitude of contexts and that considers that society is divided into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, the pure people and the corrupt elite, and that maintains that politics should be the expression of the general will (Mudde, 2004)
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