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Populism, Dimensions and Topics in the Social Media Communication of Tomio Okamura

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Populism, Dimensions and Topics in the Social Media Communication of Tomio Okamura MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA Fakulta sociálních studií Katedra politologie Populism, dimensions and topics in the social media communication of Tomio Okamura Magisterská diplomová práca Dominika Betáková (UČO 414600) Vedúci práce: Mgr. Petr Voda, Ph.D. Obor: Politologie Imatrikulačný ročník 2015 Brno 2018 0 Declaration of authorship I declare that I have written the Master’s degree thesis “Populism, dimensions and topics in the social media communication of Tomio Okamura” independently and I have used only the sources that are mentioned in the References part. ……………………………… In Brno, 29. 05. 2018 signature 1 Poďakovanie Na tomto mieste by som chcela poďakovat vedúcemu práce, Mgr. Petru Vodovi, Ph.D., za trpezlivosť, ochotu a cenné rady. Tiež by som chcela poďakovať M.A. et Mgr. Jurajovi Medzihorskému, Ph.D., ktorého workshop mi pomohol v oblasti spracovania textových dát. Ďalej by som chcela poďakovať rodičom a blízkym za neutíchajúcu podporu a trpezlivosť. 2 Anotácia Diplomová práca skúma populizmus a témy vo Facebookovej komunikácii Tomia Okamury, lídra politickej strany Svoboda a přímá demokracie (SPD). Štúdia aplikovala dva typy kvantitatívnej obsahovej analýzy. Ako prvá je prevedená kvantitatívna obsahová analýza prostredníctvom ručného kódovania, ktorá je využitá na preskúmanie množstva a charakteru Okamurovho populizmu. Následne je aplikovaná počítačom asistovaná automatizovaná kvantitatívna obsahová analýza, konkrétne latentná Dirichletova Alokácia ako typ modelovania tém s cieľom preskúmať prevládajúce témy v Okamurovej komunikácii na sociálnej sieti. Práca poskytuje náhľad na Okamurovu komunikáciu prostredníctvom sociálnej siete Facebook behom volebnej kampane v roku 2017. Kľúčové slová: Populizmus, Tomio Okamura, Svoboda a přímá demokracie, politická komunikácia, sociálne médiá, sociálne siete, SPD, kvantitatívna obsahová analýza, modelovanie tém, latentná Dirichletova alokácia, Facebook, volebná kampaň Abstract The thesis investigates the populism and topics in Facebook communication of Tomio Okamura, leader of the party Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD). The study conducts two types of quantitative content analysis. Firstly, hand-coded quantitative content analysis is used for examining the amount and nature of Okamura’s populism. Secondly, automated computer- assisted quantitative content analysis, specifically latent Dirichlet allocation as a type of topic model is applied to investigate the topics prevalent in Okamura’s social media communication. The thesis provides a picture of Okamura’s communication on social media platform Facebook during the election year 2017. Keywords: Populism, Tomio Okamura, Freedom and Direct Democracy, political communication, social media, social network sites, SPD, quantitative content analysis, topic modeling, latent Dirichlet Allocation, Facebook, electoral campaign 3 Table of contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................. 6 1) Tomio Okamura and Freedom and Direct Democracy ............................................................... 9 2) Conceptual overview ................................................................................................................. 11 What exactly does populism mean? .............................................................................................. 11 The perspectives on the study of populism ................................................................................... 12 Populism as a thin ideology ........................................................................................................... 13 Populism as a set of ideas .............................................................................................................. 15 Populism as a political logic .......................................................................................................... 15 Populism as a communication style .............................................................................................. 16 Populism as a political style .......................................................................................................... 16 Populism as a political mobilization or strategy ............................................................................ 17 3) The applied perspective ............................................................................................................. 17 4) Do social media represent a new opportunity for populism? .................................................... 22 5) Previous research ....................................................................................................................... 28 Research on populism in the Czech Republic ............................................................................... 28 Research investigating the social media communication of populist actors and their messages .. 31 Studies that applied hand-coding ................................................................................................... 31 Studies that applied automated quantitative methods .................................................................... 35 6) Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 37 Research objective ......................................................................................................................... 37 Methods ......................................................................................................................................... 39 Method regarding hand-coded quantitative content analysis ........................................................ 39 Method regarding automated computer-assisted quantitative content analysis............................. 43 The data and the time frame .......................................................................................................... 47 Coding rules regarding hand-coded quantitative content analysis with examples ........................ 49 7) Analytical part ........................................................................................................................... 60 General findings from hand-coded quantitative content analysis.................................................. 60 4 Automated computer-assisted quantitative content analysis ......................................................... 63 Introduction to the part .................................................................................................................. 63 Data cleaning and parsing ............................................................................................................. 64 The most used words by Okamura ................................................................................................ 67 What data types were shared the most? ......................................................................................... 70 Identyfing the number of topics .................................................................................................... 70 Chosen topic model with 53 topics ............................................................................................... 73 The proportions of topics in the corpus ......................................................................................... 77 Topics in the most liked, commented and shared Facebook posts ................................................ 80 Selected topics’ prevalence in time ............................................................................................... 85 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 90 Attachments ........................................................................................................................................... 94 References ........................................................................................................................................... 104 Number of characters: 174 061 5 Introduction Over the last decade, populist parties have grown across Europe and they enjoy electoral success and attract new members. They claim to speak for “the good and honest people” and attack the “out-of-touch” and mainstream elites. Furthermore, it is often problematic to identify them on the left-right political spectrum, because some of them often combine the elements from both ends of the spectrum combining it with populist language (Bartlett 2014: 92; Bartlett and Birdwell and Littler 2011: 25-26). Elections in both Europe and United States of America (USA) have proven that populism is gaining attraction of voters – for instance, presidential candidate Norbert Hofer in Austria, Marine Le Pen in France, party leader Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and the current President of the USA Donald Trump all have in common the label “populists” (Engesser and Fawzi and Larsson 2017: 1279). Therefore, populists have established themselves as powerful political forces and have become “integral members of coalition governments”. Specially, right-wing populist parties often share a concern regarding their national or European identity, which they perceive as being threatened by immigration. Anti-immigrant parties gained votes (apart from the cases mentioned above) in Italy (Lega Nord), Denmark (Danish People’s Party), Sweden (Sweden Democrats)
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