%0 Journal Article %A Ernst, Nicole %A Engesser, Sven %A Büchel, Florin %A Blassnig, Sina %A Esser, Frank %D 2017 %T Extreme parties and populism: an analysis of Facebook and Twitter across six countries %U https://tandf.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Extreme_parties_and_populism_an_analysis_of_Facebook_and_Twitter_across_six_countries/5047852 %R 10.6084/m9.figshare.5047852.v1 %2 https://tandf.figshare.com/ndownloader/files/8542882 %K Populist communication %K social media %K opposition party %K politics %K content analysis %K online communication %X

Parties are adapting to the new digital environment in many ways; however, the precise relations between populist communication and social media are still hardly considered. This study compares populist communication strategies on Twitter and Facebook employed by a broad spectrum of left-wing, center, and right-wing political actors in six Western democracies. We conduct a semi-automated content analysis of politicians’ social media statements (N = 1400) and find that populism manifests itself in a fragmented form and is mostly used by political actors at the extremes of the political spectrum (both right-wing and left-wing), by opposition parties, and on Facebook.

%I Taylor & Francis