Social media and the rise of radical right populism in Portugal: the communicative strategies of André Ventura on X in the 2022 elections

Abstract

In the context of media studies, the theme of populism in its relation to digital media has gained a great prominence in the last decade. The emergence of new populist political actors that use direct communication to appeal to the people without intermediaries, as well as the consolidation of digital social networks, involve interfaces between media and political processes that we intend to observe, having as object the scenario of the Portuguese Legislative Elections of 2022. Indeed, in this article we address how the populist communication of André Ventura, leader of the Portuguese radical right party, Chega, is constructed during the election campaign period. To analyze the discursive mechanisms of populism in the digital realm, we conducted a study of the corpus derived from André Ventura’s posts on the social media platform X, previously known as Twitter, during the month of January 2022, coinciding with the electoral campaign period. We sought to describe the discursive strategies present in the construction of the representation of “people”, considering the polarization “us versus them”, and examine the meanings of the world mobilized by populist communication in opposition to out-groups identified as “enemies” of the pure or authentic people. The results of our content analysis, focusing on the 143 tweets constituting Ventura’s narrative during the election period, indicate parallels with the discursive tactics of radical right populism. These include a narrative emphasizing conflict between “us and them,” a spotlight on the dysfunctions within the democratic system, the glorification of integrity in the face of political corruption, nativist discourse, and a prevailing tendency towards negative communication.