https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7567-4785
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ABSTRACT
This study explores populism in terms of communication while distinguishing between its ideological and stylistic dimensions. We examine the social media communication of the three main Italian political leaders during the last national electoral campaign to underline the differences and similarities in their use of populist communication in terms of ideology and style and assess how it affects Facebook and Twitter engagement. Our analysis shows that the three leaders all adopt populist communication styles but in slightly different ways. In all cases, populist style elements have a stronger impact on online engagement than populist ideology. The main difference between social media seems to be related less to the leaders’ communication elements than to their platform-specific audiences’ positive reactions to populist communication strategies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to social media TOS.
Notes
1 The Krippendorff α calculated for each variable coded by the two coders ranged from 0.68 to 0.82, considered highly satisfactory values according to field norms (Hayes & Krippendorff, Citation2007). Detailed information for each variable coded is provided in the supplementary material.
2 The differences in the use of those communication styles between messages that contained at least one populist ideological fragment and those that contained no populist ideology element are all significant at the .001 level.
3 shows only the significant predictors transformed according to the formula exp(b). The significance codes are as follows: “ ” = p < 0.1; * = p < 0.05; ** = p < 0.01; *** = p < 0.001. The full models can be found in the supplementary material.
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Notes on contributors
Roberta Bracciale
Roberta Bracciale, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Pisa, Italy, where she teaches New Media Sociology. She is Director of the MediaLaB–Big Data in Social and Political Research Laboratory; a member of the PhD Board in ‘Data Science’ of Scuola Normale Superiore; and a Research Associate at the Institute of Informatics and Telematics (IIT) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) of Pisa. Her current research interests focus on the social impact of digital media, with particular attention to the field of Political Communication and methodological perspectives related to social media studies. Email: roberta.bracciale@unipi.it
Massimiliano Andretta
Massimiliano Andretta, PhD, is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of Pisa, where he teaches Political Science, Political Communication, and Political Participation. His recent publications include ‘Protest in Italy in Times of Crisis: A Cross-Government Comparison’ (South European Society and Politics, 2018); with Donatella della Porta et al., Legacy and Memory in Movements: Justice and Democracy in Southern Europe (Oxford University Press, 2018); with Roberta Bracciale (eds.), Social Media Campaigning: Le elezioni regionali in #Toscana 15 (Pisa University Press, 2017); and with Lorella Sini (eds.), Populismi, nuove destre e nuovi partiti: quali discorsi politici in Europa (Pisa University Press, 2018). Email: massimiliano.andretta@unipi.it
Antonio Martella
Antonio Martella, PhD, is a post-doc research fellow at the Institute of Informatics and Telematics of CNR of Pisa. He is a member of the MediaLaB–Big Data in Social and Political Research Laboratory of the University of Pisa. He has earned a postgraduate master’s degree in Big Data & Social Mining at the Computer Science Department of the University of Pisa. His research interests focus on populism, leaders, and political communication on social media analyzed through big data and statistical methodologies. Email: antonio.martella@unitn.it. Twitter: @vot4ntonio