Twitter: @AsiminaMiUnderstanding a digital movement of opinion: The case of #RefugeesWelcome Recent work on digital political engagement has extensively shown that social media platforms enhance political participation and collective action. However, the idea that citizen voice through social media can give rise, under given conditions, to a specific digital force combining properties of social movements and public opinion has received less attention. We fill this gap by analysing the digital discussion around the Twitter hashtag #RefugeesWelcome as a case of 'digital movement of opinion' (DMO). When the refugee crisis erupted in 2015, an extraordinary wave of empathy characterized the publics' reactions in key European hosting countries, especially as a result of viral images portraying refugee children as the main victims. Using a triangulation of network, content and metadata analysis, we find that this DMO was driven primarily by social media elites whose tweets were then echoed by masses of isolated users. We then test the post-DMO status of the hashtag-sphere after a potentially antithetical shock such as the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks, which polarized the network public. Overall, we argue that the concept of digital movement of opinion provides a heuristically useful tool for future research on new forms of digital citizen participation.

In recent years, the Front National, under the leadership of Marine Le Pen, has experienced a political revival. In elections, membership numbers and public opinion polls, the party has made impressive gains. We argue in this article that these gains stem, at least in part, from a strategic repositioning of the party based on a more populist discourse and communication style. Through a content analysis of posts (press releases) on the party's Facebook page from 2013 to 2015, we first highlight that, besides giving the Front National a more presentable image, Marine Le Pen has changed the Front National on two fronts: (1) she has rendered the party's discourse more populist and (2) she has managed to reframe the party's leitmotif of immigration. Second, through quantitative analysis of 'Likes' for each post, we find that this new discourse resonates well with Front National sympathizers.

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The principles of selection of national candidates and contenders for political leadership are becoming increasingly standardised in Western contemporary democracies, which have been affected by two widespread processes: first, the growth of mass political communication via the electronic media; and second, the increasing deficit of perceived legitimacy of traditional representative institutions. After analysing such processes, this article draws attention to their standardising effects on the images of contemporary leaders. These are analysed in terms of three main elements: image traits, image types, and `vision'. Presenting and developing the notion of `valence image'as the most important dimension of a political leader's image, the article posits that two sets of `valence' image traits (`effectiveness' and `trustworthiness'), four image ideal-types (the `Outsider', the `Strong Leader', the `Everyday Man', the `Post-ideological'), as well as the presence of a consensual `vision' of the country have become the essential and standard prerequisites for access to contemporary political leadership.