Spanish Political Parties Research Articles

Anti- and pro-environmental disinformation. Fact-checking Spanish political parties’ discourse

Climate disinformation’s studies focus mainly on denialism or false discourses justifying inaction. However, pro-environmental disinformation is also possible, exaggerating climate change consequences or green policies benefits. Anti- and pro-environmental disinformation can negatively influence citizens’ political decision-making. The aim of this research is to analyze the disinformation coming from Spanish political actors, to check what issues they focus on and if there is an ideological bias in the dissemination of false information related to climate change and the environment. The investigation is based on verifications carried out by fact-checkers Newtral and Maldita on statements made by Spanish politicians. From a quantitative perspective, all fact-checks performed from October 2018 to March 2023 are analyzed (N = 1,415). The study covers a time frame of almost five years, which includes elections at European and national level. We classified each disinformation according to date, source, and topic, and we make a taxonomic proposal of environmental disinformation, be it anti- or pro-environmental action. We aim to find out what kind of environmental disinformation is used in Spain to cover the lack of studies in this field. Also to check the differences in the disinformation strategy of the parties, especially in the radical right. Results reveal for the first time the presence of pro-environmental disinformation. However, disinformation is mostly anti-environmental and occupies a low level within the disinformation strategy of the parties, which reflects the low interest in this issue. Findings show that denialism is on the decline. Instead, anti-environmentalism has become more pragmatic and prevails through inactivism. Conservative parties lead in environmental disinformation, although it is more frequent in the more moderate ones. There is also an increase in this type of disinformation before the European election, which suggests an instrumental use at the political level where the environment is perceived to be more relevant.

Digital models for the selection of party organs and election candidates in Spanish political parties: the impact of intraparty democracy

Processes for selecting party officials and election candidates are key aspects of the internal democracy of political parties. This is not only because they reveal who is appointed, but also because they provide insight into intra-party dynamics and the levels of internal democracy within the parties. The aim of this article is to offer a general overview of the internal selection models used by Spanish political parties with representation in the Congress of Deputies, in order to determine whether online procedures are as widespread as is often believed, and, whether they have any real impact on intra-party democracy. We look into whether political parties are making widespread use of digital tools to promote new selection processes, whether the establishment of online selection mechanisms impacts the internal democracy of political parties and what types of parties are primarily using these tools. For this purpose we have conducted a taxonomy of the selection processes in Spanish political parties represented in the Congress of Deputies, based on the development of a model of indicators drawing on some previous studies.

Vox in Spain: Similarities and differences with the far-right family

Vox is a relatively new Spanish political party, founded in 2013. However, it was not until more than 5 years later that the party achieved any form of political representation at the national, local, and regional levels. Since its electoral breakthrough in the general elections of April 2019, numerous academics have debated Vox’s ideological orientation. Specifically, the discussion has centered on the extent to which Vox aligns with the political family of populist radical right parties. This study engages with this academic debate and seeks to examine the characteristics that define Vox’s current political stance. To this end, the article analyzes two key concepts within the Spanish radical right: the ‘Iberosphere’ and ‘Hispanic nativism’. The examination of these concepts provides insight into Vox’s role as a bridge between radical right parties on both sides of the Atlantic. Furthermore, in the case of the Spanish party, it reveals a strategic trajectory that is highly atypical within the populist radical right parties. Overall, this analysis helps to refine and deepen the understanding of both Vox’s ideological positioning and its strategic role within the broader context of the Western radical right.

Персуазивная роль этнонимов в испанском электоральном дискурсе

The article examines the persuasive impact of ethnonyms and ethnic categories on the voters in Spanish electoral discourse. In the modern world, the mechanisms of political communication are generating a growing interest. It is explained by the influence of political processes on all spheres of society, the fate of peoples and entire states, and the interests of every citizen. Therefore, political problems remain relevant at all times. The important role of electoral discourse, which has a pronounced persuasive effect on the voters, should be highlighted. When struggling for power, leaders and representatives of Spanish political parties, naturally, strive to establish trust, exert a certain emotional impact on potential voters and induce them to make the “correct” electoral decision, i.e. to vote for their party. It should be noted that persuasiveness has not only an argumentative, but also a manipulative component, forcing an addressee to act in the interests of the sender of the message. One of the persuasive speech mechanisms of Spanish electoral discourse is the use of ethnonyms in the election programmes of political parties. Ethnonyms contain valuable historical, ethnographic, cultural and linguistic information and, accordingly, cover the religious, cultural and historical spheres, as well as play an important role in intercultural communication. Ethnic identity includes the desire of peoples to preserve their identity, the uniqueness of their culture, language and worldview. Ethnonyms allow native speakers to identify their own traits and stereotypes. The essence of cultural, spiritual and political life is revealed through language. Thus, the study of ethnonyms and ethnic categories, as well as their functions in political discourse, is an urgent task of modern linguistics.

The role of political foundations in the bank indebtedness of political parties: the case of Spain

ABSTRACT The bank indebtedness of political parties and the economic connections they maintain with their foundations can influence the quality of democratic processes and the independence of public representatives. In this paper, we argue that both of these funding elements can also be related. Based on an analysis of the economic information on Spanish political parties and their foundations between 2007 and 2019, we prove that business and individual donations that political foundations receive, as well as contributions made to them by political parties, influence the level of bank indebtedness of the parties they are linked to, as well as the cost of such indebtedness. Our results imply that as well as having direct consequences for the economy and public policy, the economic instrumentalization of the foundations by political parties influences the financial structure of political parties and conditions their position before credit institutions as well as their competitive capacity.

Political polarization and politainment: Methodology for analyzing crypto hate speech on TikTok

TikTok has become an international benchmark: In 2022 it was the most downloaded application in all of Europe. Political discourse has not stayed on the sidelines, and its rhetoric has been adapted to a young electorate who feels at home with this new platform. Given this social network’s explosion, the main objective of this research is to analyze which topics and approaches the parties with the greatest parliamentary representation use most frequently by looking at their activity on TikTok and determine how they have leveraged a time of polarization and political confrontation to a network geared toward entertainment. To achieve these objectives, a methodological triangulation based on three analyses –quantitative content, discourse, and qualitative content– is used. The sample consists of 250 posts from the official profiles of the following Spanish political parties: Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), Partido Popular (PP), Ciudadanos (C’s), Unidas Podemos (UP), and Vox. Specifically, a non-random stratification system was used, selecting the 50 videos from each party that had with the highest number of views since they launched their profiles on this social network. From a theoretical standpoint, this study proposes a new concept, the aggressive critical message (ACM), which is presented as a further contribution to the conceptual framework of emerging studies on crypto hate speech. From an empirical standpoint, the results obtained reveal that the partisan rhetoric on TikTok is not homogeneous, and substantial differences are seen between the topics addressed by the different parties. It also is concluded that the parties are implementing techniques used in entertainment alongside polarization itself, which trivializes politics, aiming to go viral rather than to provoke thought.

The end of the ‘Iberian exception’: religion and the new Spanish far right in the European Parliament

ABSTRACT This contribution analyses the role of religion in the attitudes, beliefs, and discourses of Spanish members of the European Parliament (MEPs). The aim is to show how MEPs relate to religion in their activity, against the background of the transformations experienced by the Spanish political party system in the last decade. One of the most important changes has been the emergence of Vox, a far-right political group, in 2018. The contribution discusses the main results of the Religion in the European Parliament and in European multilevel governance II (RelEP2) survey for the Spanish case and, together with other qualitative data, analyses how religion is an issue on the political agenda of Spanish MEPs, focusing on Vox and how other parties have reacted to the emergence of the far right. The contribution identifies two fields in which religion is mobilised as a symbolic resource for political activity: a) identity politics and EU external action, and b) morality policies and issues related to gender.

VOX’s victory in Region of Murcia: the discourse of the party’s leaders and voters

The last Spanish general election on 10th November 2019 are remarkable due to the outstanding results of the emerging Spanish political party VOX. VOX’s votes specially took off in the Region of Murcia, taking the most seats provided by this Autonomous Community to the Spanish Parliament. This research aims to explore this political party in the Region of Murcia comparing VOX’s discourse with their voters’ discourse and thoughts through the hypothesis-generating case study method. To do so, we analysed VOX’s discourse in the Region of Murcia following Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) methods. Lastly, we compared that analysis with VOX’s voters’ discourse and thoughts, which were collected by means of group discussions. Results confirm a resemblance between VOX’s leaders and their voters’ discourse in Murcia. Keywords: VOX; discourse; Region of Murcia; far-right wing; elites and mass.

Positioning analysis of Spanish politicians through their Twitter posts versus Spanish public opinion

The evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has changed the way we communicate. Access to the Internet and social networks has even changed the way we organise ourselves socially. Despite advances in this field, research on the use of social networks in political discourse and citizens’ perceptions of public policy remains scarce. So, the empirical study of politicians’ discourse on social networks in relation to citizens’ perception of public and fiscal policies according to their political affinity is of particular interest. The aim of the research is, therefore, to analyse positioning, from a dual perspective. Firstly, the study analyses the positioning in the discourse of the communication campaigns posted on social networks of Spain’s most prominent politicians. And secondly, it evaluates whether this positioning is reflected in citizens’ opinions about the public and fiscal policies being implemented in Spain. To this end, a qualitative semantic analysis and a positioning map is performed on a total of 1553 tweets published between 1 June and 31 July 2021 by the leaders of the top ten Spanish political parties. In parallel, a cross-sectional quantitative analysis is carried out, also through positioning analysis, based on the database of the Public Opinion and Fiscal Policy Survey of July 2021 by the Sociological Research Centre (CIS), whose sample is 2849 Spanish citizens. The results show a significant difference in the discourse of political leaders’ social network posts—which is more pronounced between right-wing and left-wing parties—and only some differences in citizens’ perception of public policies according to their political affinity. This work contributes to identifying the differentiation and positioning of the main parties and helps to guide the discourse of their posts.

Spanish Political Communication and Hate Speech on Twitter During the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the polarized discourse of the West vs. Russia seems to have escalated to levels similar to those during the Cold War period. The aim of this article, which is centered on the case of Spain, is to discover to what extent communication from political parties contributed to such polarization by encouraging hate speech. To this end, messages sent by the political parties represented in the Spanish parliament, over the social network Twitter during the first 60 days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, were analyzed: A total of 3,186 tweets from 67 official accounts, both from these political parties and their main leaders, were coded. The results showed that despite social networks in general—and Twitter in particular—being a favorable environment for the promotion of hate speech, the communication of Spanish political parties was generally characterized by political correctness and moderation. The presence of the main indicators of hate speech analyzed (threats, criticism, ridicule, or insults) was very minor. The present article associates this finding to other variables such as the tone of the tweets (informative, opinionated), their scope (international, national), and engagement (replies, quotes, retweets), among other factors. It is concluded that Spanish political authorities had a socially-responsible behavior in the case analyzed, reinforcing the importance of public diplomacy to counteract hate speech. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the polarized discourse West vs. Russia seems to have escalated to levels like those of the so-called Cold War period. The aim of this article, focused on the case of Spain, is to discover to what extent the communication from political parties has contributed to such polarization by encouraging hate speech. To this end, the social network Twitter messages by the political parties represented in the Spanish Parliament during the first 60 days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine were analyzed; a total of 3,186 tweets from 67 official accounts from the political parties and their main leaders were coded. The results show that even though social networks in general -or Twitter in particular- are a favorable environment for the promotion of hate speech, the communication of Spanish political parties was characterized, in general, by political correctness and moderation. It is not in vain that the presence of main indicators of hate speech analyzed (threats, criticism, mockery, or insults) were very minor. The article relates this to other variables such as the tone of the tweets (informative, opinionated), the scope (international, national) or engagement (likes, comments), among others. It is concluded that Spanish political authorities have a socially responsible behavior in the analyzed case, reinforcing the importance of public diplomacy to counteract hate speech.

“Keep them out to save our inside:” discourses on immigration by the Spanish far right

AbstractVox is a far‐right, Spanish political party that has steadily grown to become the third main party in the national congress. Immigration is a major presence in Vox's political agenda. Through Critical Discourse Analysis, we analyze the party's public speeches and Twitter communications on immigration in the last 3 years, from the beginning of the COVID‐19 pandemic in 2020 to the Ukraine‐Russia war in 2022. These contexts have provided a fertile ground for Vox's concerns with the protection of national borders, the criminalization of African and irregular immigrants, and the Spanish Government's ineffectiveness to protect the Spaniards' homes. Vox's main discursive strategies entail constructions of migrants and migration based on dichotomous binaries, culture clash, exclusionary discourses of domopolitics, and fears of imminent social and cultural changes. These constructions are based on the unproblematized belief on essential and unchangeable values that forge the identity of the homeland, which is implicitly threatened by immigrants. Against the migratory invasion, Vox constitutes itself as the ethical protector of the Spanish society and nation, “out of care for the insiders and not out of hatred for outsiders.”

Spanish Political Parties on Facebook: New Sources of Content for Political Journalism

Political parties take advantage of the internet to disseminate their messages, particularly during election campaigns. In addition to the public, these messages reach journalists, who have turned these platforms into another tool for their professional work. The aim of this study is to reflect on how the nature of publications can affect the work of journalists who use this content as raw material to work with. In order to explore this more deeply, a quantitative approach is proposed, consisting of a metric analysis of 1,280 Facebook posts by 10 political forces and a survey of 1,004 people, representing the universe of the Spanish population. The results show that the parties disseminate unidirectional and propagandistic content on Facebook during campaigns, marginalising dialogue and interaction. This restricts journalists’ ability to converse with political parties through the social network, which at the same time is impacted by messages whose veracity is secondary to their objective of reaching as many internet users as possible.

The cohesion of National and Cultural networks during periods of stress

Human beings tend to organize themselves in groups. These groups need to be robust to enable effective cooperation among individuals. According to some researchers (Ostrom, 1990; Suárez et al., 2011), a collective group identity based on shared cultural symbols, a shared religion or a common language is key to foster cooperation. To investigate this hypothesis, data was extracted from Twitter and two network graphs (the nodes were Twitter users and the links were the relationships among users) were created around two Spanish political parties during the 2017 Catalan elections, Ciudadanos and Podemos. On the one hand, the members of Ciudadanos’ network shared ideological positioning and cultural collective identity (they identified themselves with Spanish cultural symbols). On the other hand, Podemos’ members in the network shared ideological positioning but not a cultural identity (some of Podemos’ users identified with Catalan symbols and others with Spanish symbols). The results of different network cohesion metrics (e.g., Clustering Coefficient and Average Distance) show that Ciudadanos’ network was more cohesive than Podemos’ one.

Third-order election. Spanish political parties’ communication on Facebook during the 2019 European Parliament election campaign

The 2019 European Parliament elections were held in Spain in a context of political fragmentation and polarisation, following the recent incorporation of the extreme right into the national parliament. Elections to the European Parliament are considered second-order elections and are sometimes used by citizens to cast a punishment vote, favouring new political actors of a contestatary character to gain visibility. Social media networks such as Facebook play an important role because they offer these parties a space where they can disseminate their messages on equal terms, beyond media control. This study conducts a content analysis of the posts published on Facebook by Spanish national political parties in the month prior to the 2019 local, regional and European elections. The main goal is to analyse the communication strategy used by Spanish political parties in this social media, in order to find out the importance given by the parties to the European elections and whether there are differences in strategy at each level. The results reveal that the European elections are a third-order election for Spanish parties, behind local elections. Most parties practice a dual campaign, in which the topics, goals and emotions posted on Facebook vary according to the political level at which they are targeted. This tendency is more pronounced in populist parties and seems to be shaped by the national political context and aimed at matching the concerns of Spaniards at the European level. Despite the incorporation of the extreme right into the Spanish political chessboard, the negative Eurosceptic discourse is only present in the two populist parties and does not affect the rest of the political forces.

Interpersonal Resources and Insider/Outsider Dynamics in Party Office

While the multiple barriers women face to attain public office have been vastly documented, the operation of insider/outsider dynamics within political parties’ top decision-making bodies remains largely under-researched. This article provides new theoretical and empirical insights on how interpersonal resources create ingroups and outgroups in parties’ national executive committees—the body that manages the day-to-day functioning of the extra-parliamentary party organization. Our comparative analysis of Spanish political parties in the period 1975–2020 documents that interpersonal resources are unevenly distributed across gender. Most crucially, we show that these resources play out differently for women and men members, with embeddedness in party networks only helping the latter attain positional power and extend their tenure in party office. These heterogeneous effects suggest that top decision-making party bodies do not just reflect existing gender inequalities but reinforce them in significant ways, rendering women member outsiders on the inside.

The ideology of media. Measuring the political leaning of Spanish news media through Twitter users’ interactions

The news media have a strong influence on people’s perception of reality. But despite claims to objectivity, media organizations are, in general, politically biased (Patterson & Donsbach, 1996; Gaebler, 2017). The link between news media outlets and political organizations has been a critical question in political science and communication studies. To assess the closeness between the news media and particular political organizations, scholars have used different methods such as content analysis, undertaking surveys or adopting a political economy view. With the advent of social networks, new sources of data are now available to measure the relationship between media organizations and parties. Assuming that users coherently retweet political and news information (Wong, Tan, Sen & Chiang, 2016), and drawing on the retweet overlap network (RON) method (Guerrero-Solé, 2017), this research uses people’s perceived ideology of Spanish political parties (CIS, 2020) to propose a measure of the ideology of news media in Spain. Results show that scores align with the result of previous research on the ideology of the news media (Ceia, 2020). We also find that media outlets are, in general, politically polarized with two groups or clusters of news media being close to the left-wing parties UP and PSOE, and the other to the right-wing and far-right parties Cs, PP, and Vox. This research also underlines the media’s ideological stability over time.

How Right-Wing Populists Engage with Cross-Cutting News on Online Message Boards: The Case of ForoCoches and Vox in Spain

Anecdotal evidence suggests a link between online message boards and the rise of far-right movements, which have achieved growing electoral success globally. Press accounts and scholarship have suggested these message boards help to radicalize like-minded users through exposure to shared media insulated from cross-cutting viewpoints (e.g., Hine et al. 2017 ; Palmer 2019). To better understand what role online message boards might play for supporters of right-wing populist movements, we focus on the Spanish political party Vox and its supporters’ use of the message board ForoCoches, a fan site for car enthusiasts, which became an important platform for the party. Using more than 120,000 messages collected from threads mentioning the party between 2013–2019, we examine the URLs shared to show how mainstream news media events shape the conversation online and how users not only were exposed but deeply engaged with cross-cutting news sources. We argue that the use of sites such as ForoCoches should be viewed in the context of a broader increasingly hybrid political and media landscape where activity online and offline cannot be understood separate from one another. Moreover, our findings suggest that the online political discussions that take place in Vox-related threads on ForoCoches resemble normatively positive deliberative spaces—albeit in this case in support of illiberal political positions. In other words, our findings complicate conventional notions about the benefits of political talk, especially online, as a democratically desirable end in and of itself.

МАВРИТАНСЬКА ІСТОРИКО-КУЛЬТУРНА ТА РЕЛІГІЙНА СПАДЩИНА В СУЧАСНОМУ ТУРИЗМІ ІСПАНІЇ

The article covers the problem of establishing Halal tourism, which has begun to develop in recent years. The question is considered via the analysis of cultural monuments of Mavrian heritage in Spain. The spreading of a new type of tourism and its features is considered separately. Key scientific ideas and works on the origin of the term «halal tourism» are also analyzed. The paper identifies the main problems of development of this type of tourism, the main of which can be identified anti-Islamist sentiments of the Spanish right-wing political party Vox. In addition, representatives of the tourism sector are still insufficiently aware of the possibilities of presenting, spreading and developing halal tourism. So far, only two hotels in Spain have passed and received special certificates and are recognized as providing products and services, respecting the religious beliefs of their visitors. In particular, the requirements for certificates include the presence of a halal menu in the hotel restaurant, prayer rugs and directions to Mecca in the rooms, the correct location of beds and bathrooms, no alcohol in the minibar. The article also mentions the main organizations in Spain that contribute to the spread and stabilization of halal tourism – Instituto Halal, Halal International Tourism, etc. The current achievements in this field of tourism in Spain are listed, including the second place in the list of Global Muslim Travel Index 2018. In addition, Spain continues to actively move towards the development of this type of tourism and attracting more and more Arab tourists to its country.

Transparency of Political Parties in Spain and e-Accesibility for People with Disabilities

This article analyses the transparency webs of Spanish political parties in order to verify whether they are accessible to people with disabilities (hearing, visual, motor or cognitive) and also to establish which elements determine or condition, to a greater or lesser extent, the level of accessibility of these spaces. To this end, an evaluation model was generated (4 criteria, 10 variables and 31 indicators) inspired by the guidelines for the development of e-accessibility of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which was applied through the use of automatic and manual techniques for the web pages’ review. In addition, the Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used to determine the relationship between the degree of incidence or relationship of a series of factors (active transparency index, seniority, number of votes and number of deputies) on the level of accessibility of the transparency portals of the political parties. The research provides novel results, which will allow us to verify whether political parties manage inclusive transparency. That is, whether the websites, generated to comply with their legal obligations in terms of active advertising, favour the access of all people to e-information, including people with disabilities so that they can exercise their political citizenship on an equal footing with the rest.

TikTok and the new language of political communication

Introduction: Political parties struggle to reconnect to Young people by using social networks. Acknowledging that 2020 has been the year of TikTok, most Spanish political parties have joined this social network: Podemos, with 191.400 followers and 3.1 million likes, is the most followed political party on this platform. Method: Using multimodal content analysis, this paper aims at analyzing how the party is using this social network, and for which purposes, placing the attention on how Podemos has adapted to TikTok specificities in terms of both language and technical affordances. Results: Results show that while the party perfectly adapts to TikTok’s specific language and technical affordances (special effects, etc.), instead of focusing on entertainment, the platform’s main genre, it uses TikTok as a showcase for political activities, failing in favoring a renovating relationship with users. However, politics is represented through the “game frame”, that is to say, dramatized as a battlefield between Good and Evil, which strengthens the populist dichotomous vision of the world, endorsing emotional response. Conclusion: In this sense, it is possible to conclude that, although Podemos mainly displays political content, this content falls into the category of politainment. Considering that present trends in usage rates suggest that the short-video format is the future of social media, we might expect an increase in politainmement content.