The Populist Political Communication Style in Action: Podemos’s Issues and Functions on Twitter During the 2016 Spanish General Election

Abstract

Populism is a phenomenon that has been acquiring great relevance over recent years in the US and Europe. Literature on the subject has identified the existence of a populist style that also affects political communication. The aim of this article is to analyze the structure of issues and the functions of messages circulated by a populist party in order to determine the presence and incidence of this style's main components. The methodology is based on a quantitative analysis of the content of the Twitter profiles of the Spanish political party Podemos and its leader, Pablo Iglesias, during the 2016 Spanish elections. Totally, 2,612 tweets were analyzed. The results allow the identification of a strategy of complementarity, which appears as a new component in the communication style of populism in the digital environment. Podemos is also seen to lean towards anti--elitism and its leader towards the communicative construction of "the people."

The Human Development Index (HDI) and the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) 2013-2017: analysis of social conflict and populism in Europe

“…Recent research has shown that phenomena like social networks are a means of expanding populism, which can grow in societies where the presence of social networks is significant (Dittrich, 2017, Casero-Ripoll es, 2017.…”

¿Qué es el populismo? Definición de los usuarios de Twitter durante la campaña electoral presidencial mexicana 2017-2018

“…Los contenidos populistas en redes sociales son consistentes con la definición del populismo como discurso. Son de carácter confrontativo, e integran los elementos pueblo, élite, rechazo a los extraños -en caso de populismos de derecha-, y la narrativa de que existe una crisis (Casero-Ripollés, et al, 2017;Ernst, Engesser, Büchel, Blassnig, & Esser, 2017). Haciendo énfasis en su carácter confrontativo, las publicaciones populistas en los medios sociales suelen atacar muy puntualmente a actores o personajes que son representativos de un posicionamiento ideológico opuesto (Van Kessel & Castelein, 2016).…”

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“…In European populist atmosphere, the Spanish left-wing populism is interesting in a con-From social movements to political parties. Barcelona en Comú' s electoral... 519 text where right-wing populism is dominant (Casero-Ripollés, Sintes-Olivella & Franch, 2017). Despite the difficulty to define what populism is (Laclau, 2005), populism denies the left-right dichotomy, it is multiclass and demands equal political rights, social justice and participation of ordinary people against privileged groups (Germani, 2003).…”

“…Moreover, the use of Twitter as a political communication tool in Spain has been significantly higher since the Spanish protests between 2011 and 2013 (Aragón et al, 2013). Recent studies have explored the use of Twitter as a political communication tool in Spain in regards to council election (Carratalá & Galán, 2016; Quevedo, Portalés-Oliva & Berrocal, 2016), regional election (Pérez & Nicasio, 2015;López-García, Cano & Argilés, 2016;Marín & Díaz, 2016) and general election (Sampedro, 2011;Aragón et al, 2013;Zugasti & Sabés, 2015;Alonso-Muñoz, Marcos-García & Casero-Ripollés, 2016;Campos-Domínguez & Calvo, 2017;Casero-Ripollés et al, 2017;López-García, 2016). Also there are works related to the use of Twitter in relevant political moments in Spain (Marcos-García, Alonso-Muñoz & Casero-Ripollés, 2017).…”

“…The Spanish social movements were born out of the economic crisis (della Porta Casero et al, 2017) such as The Platform of Mortgage Victims (PAH, according to the Catalan/Spanish spelling) or Indignados movement (Royo, 2014) and introduced a different language and a variety of actions into the public scene (Sampedro & Sánchez-Duarte, 2011;Flesher & Montañés, 2014;Casero et al, 2017). The social movements against austerity (della Porta & Mattoni, 2014) also set a political opportunity for new political parties both in a national and supranational level (Mosca, 2014).…”