Facebook – An Instrument for Right- Wing Populist Propaganda?
An analysis on Central/Eastern European countries
Name: Adriana Munteanu Address: Spui 21, 1012 WX Amsterdam, the Netherlands Telephone number: +31644139274 E-mail: [email protected] Student number: 12801704 Date of completion: June, 23, 2020 Name of the Supervisor: Dr. Richard Rogers Name of Programme: New Media and Digital Culture
23rd of June 2020
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Abstract
Focusing on the cases of four parties from four different countries in Central/Eastern Europe (Moldova, Romania, Poland and Hungary), this thesis contributes to the young study of radical- right populism on social media in this region. The aim of the study is to understand how populist parties use the social platform Facebook in order to spread their ideological agenda. This paper engages in a quantitative analysis, by studying the pages’ activity, engagement and backlinks. Moreover, qualitative analysis is performed in order to study populist communication on Facebook. The findings have shown that the parties’ activity on Facebook rises before and during the elections. Furthermore, the study of populist communication on Facebook emphasised that the freedom of speech on social media benefits the populist style of communication significantly, as the content is more personal and easier to connect with. Another finding confirmed from previous research on post types, that publishing certain type of posts influences engagement levels, and that specifically videos and photos are the most effective. Last but not least, the study of backlinks showed that some of the unconventional websites such as blogs, forums etc. are contributing to ideological agenda of the far right parties, creating therefore a filter bubble of the ‘like-minded’.
Keywords: Right-wing populism, social media analysis, Facebook, connective action, populist communication, qualitative text analysis, quantitative analysis
Table of Contents 1. Introduction ...... 1 2. Literature Review ...... 3 2.1 Conceptualising Populism ...... 3 2.1.1 Contemporary Populism ...... 5 2.1.2 Populism in Central/Eastern Europe...... 6 2.2 Populism and Media ...... 7 2.2.1 The Logic of Connective Action ...... 9 2.3 Research Strategies for Studying Populism on Social Media ...... 10 2.3.1 The Role of Post Types on User Engagement and Page Popularity ...... 12 2.4 Research questions ...... 13 3. Methodology ...... 14 3.1 Data Collection with Facepager and BuzzSumo ...... 15 3.3 Qualitative text analysis ...... 16 3.4 Case study selection ...... 16 4. Results ...... 18 4.1 Party of Socialists from the Republic of Moldova ...... 18 4.1.1 The Facebook page ...... 19 4.1.2 PSRM’s Backlinks ...... 22 4.1.3 Text analysis ...... 22 4.2 The United Romania Party ...... 24 4.2.1 The Facebook page ...... 25 4.2.2 Backlinks ...... 28 4.2.3 Text analysis ...... 28 4.3 Confederation Liberty and Independence ...... 31 4.3.1 The Facebook page ...... 31 4.3.2 Backlinks ...... 34 4.3.3 Text Analysis ...... 34 4.4 Jobbik ...... 37 4.4.1 The Facebook page ...... 38 4.4.2 Backlinks ...... 40 4.4.3 Text Analysis ...... 40 5. Discussion ...... 43 5.1 Facebook as a Tool for Election Campaigning ...... 43 5.1.1 Party of Socialists in the Republic of Moldova ...... 43 5.1.2 United Romania Party ...... 44 5.1.3 Confederation of Liberty and Independence ...... 44 5.1.4 Jobbik ...... 45 5.2 Populist Communication on Facebook ...... 45 5.3 Post types influence Engagement Levels ...... 48 5.4 The Role of External Sources and Filter Bubbles ...... 50 6. Conclusion ...... 51 7. Bibliography ...... 54 8. Appendix ...... 64
1. Introduction
A surge of right-wing populism has been prominent across all Europe in the last couple of years (Henley 2018; BBC 2019; Millman 2018). In countries such as Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark and Belgium, right-wing nationalist parties won over 20% of votes (BBC 2019). The causes for populism in these countries vary depending on the context, however what seems to bring them all together is the crisis and chaos induced by the challenges of globalisation, including the economic struggles, liberalisation of mass immigration, and loss of national values that comes with it (Millman 2018). People overwhelmed by the struggles of the current world order turn towards a politics of far-right (Millman 2018). But what caused radical right populists to be so successful in winning such a big share of votes? With the rise of social media, many politicians make use of this tool to spread far right propaganda and escape traditional ways of making politics. Donald Trump’s effective social media campaign, for instance, marked a new way of doing politics, through buying Facebook and Google advertisements (Wong 2019). Political movements, such as Pegida became popular due to using Facebook as a tool for mobilisation and spreading far-right propaganda (Schwemmer 7). What made social media so powerful for some political actors is a new and different way of doing politics. A ‘politics of self-expression’, or ‘DIY politics’ has arrived, in which the content published is not necessarily very political anymore, but rather more personal, through which people can more easily identify with, argue W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg in The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalisation of Contentious Politics (2012). The logic of connective action emphasises the role of digital media in the creation of networks of people who share similar goals or beliefs (Bennett and Segerberg 27). Thus, digital media’s role in politics became an interesting research topic for many scholars. A number of scholarly articles (Engesser et al.; 2017; Kramer 2017; Stier et al. 2018; Groshek and Kok-Michalska 2017; Hameleers and Schmuck 2017; Koiranen et al. 2019) have studied the role of social media for right-wing populist actors. Nevertheless, the subject remains relatively new and understudied.
Most of the research on social media and right-wing populism focused on countries from Western Europe. In particular, the French, Dutch, British and German cases of right wing politicians are some of the most discussed in the media (Santana et al. 1). Research concerning social media and populist communication remains limited in other parts of the world. A particularly interesting case is Central/Eastern Europe, where the region is experiencing a decline in democracy, while radical-right populism is rising. For example, in Poland and Hungary, the leading governing parties are right/radical right wing (Santana et al. 2). In other countries, such as Czech Republic, Slovakia, Bulgaria, right-wing parties rule in coalition with other parties
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(Santana et al. 2). The common aspect that unites all the countries in Central/Eastern Europe is the history of communism. It has been argued that in order to understand the current right-wing populism development in Central/Eastern Europe, it is important to understand the communist past in these countries (Norocel and Szabo 2). Despite this, in most countries from Central/Eastern Europe, populism followed different paths of development. In Hungary and Poland, for example, radical right parties continue to exert influence in their countries, while in Romania, far right populism exists but it is more hidden (Soare and Tufis 9). Given that limited research has been conducted on Central/Eastern Europe, this thesis will seek to understand how far right populism manifests in that region, employing a social media research approach. Accordingly, the research question asks ‘how do populists in Central/Eastern Europe use and benefit from social media to spread their ideology?’
To answer the research question, this paper will engage in comparative analysis of four right-wing parties from different countries, namely Poland, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. Poland and Hungary deal with the greatest rise of right-wing populism among other Central/Eastern European countries (Korolczuk 2019; Fischer 2018). Romania has been chosen as a case-study, because unlike Poland and Hungary, it shows a “latent fertility regarding far-right populism”, as argued by Soare and Tufis (12). This means that populism there is more hidden and in an early stage of development. The same idea could be argued about Moldova, where right-wing populism is not considerably discussed but continues to shape the political stage nevertheless. These cases have been chosen in order to show different manifestations of populist development. Ultimately, this paper will research whether populism manifestation on social media is country-specific.
Facebook has been chosen as a case-study and a source for data collection in this project. Facebook presents a compelling case for a number of reasons. Firstly, Facebook has a complex and well-developed algorithmic system which facilitates effective spread of information across a vast number of users (Schwemmer 4). This is crucial for political actors who wish to spread their content to a great number of people. Secondly, Facebook is one the most popular social network sites in Central/Eastern Europe, according to Alexa (see Alexa for Moldova, Romania, Hungary and Poland), thus an important source of information for many people from those countries. Facebook has been criticised for being a platform that allows the spread of fake and dis- informative content (Peeters and Rogers 32), which in turn makes Facebook an interesting case study.
To study populist behaviour and strategies on social media, this paper will study both the use of social media formats and the content. To do so, this paper will use two main tools, namely Facepager and BuzzSumo. Facepager will be used to collect information about the posts,
2 comments, reactions, shares, messages etc. from the Facebook pages. BuzzSumo will collect the backlinks of the pages in order to study the network of sources that link back to the page and what type of content they promote. Furthermore, qualitative research will be performed as well, in order to understand the language and style of communication populist parties use in order to target their audience. This research paper has found that the study of the dynamics of Facebook pages’ activity and engagement can relate to the political plans and goals of the parties. For example, strategic posting in certain times can be associated with the arrival of elections. Furthermore, the study of populist communication on Facebook revealed divergent results. However it has been more accentuated for some parties that the freedom of speech on social media benefits their style of communication significantly, as the content is more personal and easier to connect with. Another finding confirmed from previous research stating that publishing certain types of posts influences the amount of engagement, and that posts accompanied by videos are photos performed considerably more effectively. Last but not least, the study of backlinks showed that some of the unconventional websites such as blogs, forums etc. are contributing to the ideological agenda of the far right parties.
The next section will proceed with the literature review which will explain and critically assess the main concepts and theories concerning (i) contemporary populism and populism in Central/Eastern Europe, (ii) populism and media and (iii) research strategies for studying populism and social media. Following the literature review, the next section will proceed with the methodology which will explain the main tools used in this thesis, the procedures and the case study selection. After that, the ‘Results’ section will present the data regarding activity, engagement and backlinks. A qualitative analysis of texts will proceed, analysing the five most engaged texts. A discussion will follow which will interpret the findings in connection with the theories and main concepts. 2. Literature Review
2.1 Conceptualising Populism
Populism is considered to be a ‘thin’ ideology by most of the scholars (Engesser et. al 2017; Stanley 2008; Mudde 2000), even though the concept had existed in the academic debate for a while (Engesser et al. 1110). Populism is difficult to define mostly because its concept varies depending on the context.
Taggart (2000) describes populism as a “chameleon-like” term that changes its colour depending on the circumstances (1). Populism appears in different regions depending on the specific national issues (Taggart 76). For instance, in the Netherlands, France, and Germany,
3 populists follow a nationalist and racist agenda, as a result of high flux of immigrants (Taggart 76). In Scandinavian countries, the populist message is focused on criticism about high taxation and liberal immigration policies (Taggart 76). Nevertheless, in all these cases contemporary populism criticizes the liberal democratic system (Taggart 76).
Despite the fact that populism remains to be a contested term, Cas Mudde defined populism using a number of central features: “a thin-centred ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogenous groups and antagonistic groups, the ‘pure’ people versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” (Mudde, 433). According to this definition, populism’s central features are: anti-elitism and representation of ‘the people’. The representation of the people in this context means that the people residing in the country enjoy full sovereignty and their wishes and rights should be regarded as the most important (Engesser et al. 1111). In this context, it is also noteworthy to clarify who classifies as these ‘people’ and who do not, highlights Pelinka (3). Specifically, Pelinka questions the preconditions of other elements which are involved in the category of ‘the people’, whether they are based on origin, nationality or heritage (3). Another characteristic of populism is the anti-elitist sentiment, whereas the elite serves as the main defendant in the populists’ logic. They blame the elite for not representing the will of the people (Engesser et al. 1112).
Other definitions of populism have included additional elements, particularly, viewing ‘the other’ as a threat (Vieten and Poynting 534); and ‘the heartland’ (Taggart 2004). The former entails marginalising certain categories of ‘outsiders’ such as minorities, immigrants, different religious groups, LGBT+, criminals etc. (Engesser et al. 1112). Pelinka highlights that according to contemporary populism, the emphasis is put on the threat from “abroad” rather than from the “above”, resulting in an “ethno-nationalistic” type of populism (8). Populists tend to blame the ‘outsiders’ groups for the outbreak of various crises (Vieten and Poynting 534). Therefore, the elite is blamed by the populists for keeping the outsiders in the country who are held responsible for the caused instabilities (Engesser et al. 1112). The second concept, ‘the heartland’ refers to the situation in which populists see themselves living in an idealised place, habituated by particular people free from ‘other’ ethnic, sexual, religious groups (Taggart 3). When populists discuss the dangerous effects of the crisis, they often invoke the idea of the ‘heartland’ and the importance of regaining it (Taggart 4). It is crucial to realise that what constitutes a crisis is relative, therefore what crisis means for populists is not the same for other political actors (Taggart 4). In the context of protecting ‘the heartland’ and emphasising ‘the others’ as a threat, far right populists invoke topics surrounding discourses of migration, cultural diversity and threat of the nation (Pelinka 9). Overall, considering different literature on populism, there are four common features
4 that define populism, which are: representation of ‘the people’; the blame on the corrupt elite; emphasis on the ‘other’ as a threat; and the heartland.
2.1.1 Contemporary Populism
Contemporary populism has been mostly associated with right-wing populism (Mazzoleni 2), identified as “new populism” (Taggart 2000) or “neo-populism” (Immerfall 1998; Mazzoleni 2003). New populism evolved as a reaction to the socio-economic challenges of the “modern welfare state model” (Taggart 73). Bray (2015) explains how populism becomes the most fruitful in times of crises (28). A changing or a destabilising socio-economic situation is central to the populists’ argument. The crises are of various types, such as financial, social, political or cultural. Populism profits the most from a situation of a “crisis” which is ultimately blamed on the “corrupt” elite in power. Populism is there to “correct” the faults of the installed democratic system (Bray 29), and to point out what needs to be done in accordance with the people’s will.
Populism manifests differently in different years. Contemporary populism has evolved in a new and different way compared to the past, because of the different developments, one of the most prominent being the effects of the neoliberalist system (Bray 46). To expand on that, the neoliberal system was installed as a response to the stagnating economic situation of the 1970s (Bray 47). The neoliberal policies led to the development of an increasingly globalised market, which was getting out of hand (Bray 47). Moreover, in the social context, the neoliberal policies related to privatisation, or state-free intervention has led to a society that is disconnected and individualised (Bray 47). The arrival of populist parties and movements gained advantage from this situation by trying to bring back the sense of “togetherness”; the joint effort of belonging, working and thinking. However, the collective sense of society came at the cost of being unified under threats related to racism, xenophobia, homophobia etc. (Bray 57) Altogether, the global growth of contemporary populist movements spread as a reaction of the instabilities brought by neoliberalism and the financial crisis that it spurred (Vieten and Poynting 535).
Furthermore, the European Union (EU) project marked another contemporary development that elucidates the rise of populist movements in Europe. This is in part because the EU lacked in its capability to create a genuinely unified society (Vieten and Poynting 535). The case of Brexit is one the latest developments that proved considerable scepticism towards the EU’s project and people’s negative attitude towards immigrants and minorities (Garret 2019). The rise of far right populist movements is therefore maintained by the fear of an EU expansion (Vieten and Poynting 537).
However, neoliberalism is not the only cause of populism rising. Postill (2018) brings a different perspective, arguing how the causes are much more sophisticated, and can be of an
5 existential, cultural or an identity related factor (756). A cultural identity crisis can surface values and sentiments of not being treated fair or respected as expected (Postill 756). Moreover, existential concerns can manifest a “politics of fear” accompanied by fears related to crime and/or terrorism, which populists can use as a pretext for their political pursuit (Postill 757).
2.1.2 Populism in Central/Eastern Europe
Due to the fact that populism depends significantly on the context, the place and the time where it develops, different particularities apply to the manifestation of populism in the Eastern European context. Overall, the study of populism in Central/Eastern Europe is rather narrow compared to Western Europe (Linden 5). Nevertheless, some scholarly articles analysed this subject in depth in this region, using a comparative approach (Szabo et. al 2018; Norocel and Szabo 2019) or focusing on one country only (Soare and Tufis 2019).
Norocel and Szabo found that, in Eastern Europe, populism is a matter of difference in terms of its scope and amount rather than type (2). Most of the scholars agree on the fact that communism is what explains the main source of far-right populism development in Eastern Europe (Norocel and Szabo 2). Despite similar historical pasts, far-right populism followed different paths in some Eastern European countries. In some countries, it is a widespread phenomenon and in other countries it is more hidden. For example, the development of right-wing populism differs in the Romanian and Hungarian context in terms of their degree and time of arrival. In Hungary, populism was almost absent since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which later on got considerable attention and became a major power in the Hungarian politics (Norocel and Szabo 2). The largest far-right political parties in Hungary are currently “Fidesz” (formed in 1988) and “Jobbik” (formed in 2003). In Romania however, far-right populist parties are considerably losing support compared to the aftermath of the Soviet Union decline (Norocel and Szabo 3). Romania’s current state of “populist politics” can be described as a “phoenix that has arisen from the ashes of its predecessors in terms of both ideas and personnel” (Soare and Tufis 9).
Moving on, the media factor has proved indispensable in the study of populism. In this context, the relationship between populism and media reveals important meanings on the complex effects it has on various political systems and processes, in a way that changes our perceptions and worldview. Some of these meanings will be explored in the section below, which deals with the notions of populism and media.
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2.2 Populism and Media
A significant amount of research has been conducted on populism and traditional types of media; (Mazzoleni et al. 2003; Bos et al. 2010; Hameleers et al. 2017). One of the most recent works include the research done by Hameleers et al., who look at the features of entertainment and tabloid media in relation to populism. In line with this research, it has been proven that people who connect with more populist ideas consume more soft news and entertainment content than those who do not (Hameleers et al. 486). Older literature, (Bos et al. 2010; Mazzoleni et al. 2003) analyses how populists make use of traditional news media for their own gains. The research by Bos et al. (2010) is focused on the content analysis of Dutch national television news and newspapers. They found that right-wing populists appear to be more prominent during electoral campaigns (Bos et al. 157). However, as mentioned by the authors, the findings are only limited to the Dutch media content (Bos et al. 157). With the rise of social media’s importance in political communication, more works have focused on social media and populism, some building on theoretical research (Engesser et al.; 2017; Kramer 2017). A special attention has been given to works about populists’ use of social media in election campaigns (Stier et al. 2018; Groshek and Kok-Michalska 2017). Also, empirical studies have been conducted on how populism manifests itself on social media (Hameleers and Schmuck 2017; Koiranen et al. 2019).
There are different narratives that scholars engage with when addressing the topic of media and populism. The way in which populists use media as a tool to get recognition is one of the approaches selected by scholars when discussing the relationship between media and populism (Mudde 2019, Engesser et al. 2017; Stier et. al 2018). Despite the major influence of traditional media on far right populist parties and groups, the new media has changed the world for populists in an unprecedented way. Social media is in fact a necessary tool, without which any important event, such as a protest or an election would not be possible (Mudde 64). The example of Donald Trump's strategic use of social media, but also his appearance on mainstream TV channels showed what a powerful tool social media is for one’s own success (Mudde 64). Mudde argues how social media is especially effective for far-right populists, because it allows more freedom of opinion and the possibility to find the right audience to connect with (64). Moreover, social media is better suited for populist communication, as it is less restrained from the rigid rules imposed by traditional forms of media (Engesser et al. 1123).
Social media also creates a sense of community among individuals who share the same interests and political position. This is fostered due to what social media affords, specifically the algorithms which are responsible for selecting and tailoring content to the user (Mudde 64). Learning from the user’s previous behaviour on social media, the algorithms provide the capability of targeting the user with personalised content that is most likely to be engaged with (Spohr 153).
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This results in the creation of ‘filter bubbles’, where users are provided with personalised information that matches their liking, interest and understanding (Spohr 153). One of the greatest concerns of filter bubbles is the illusion of being well documented, argues Spohr (155). The passive consumption of information on social media without actively searching for alternative sources can result in falling victim of the algorithms instead of becoming an informed citizen (Spohr 155). In many cases studied, social media’s spread of fake news and disinformation goes to the extent of shaping people’s ideas and decision making (Groshek and Kok-Michalska 1392), and thus, the outcome of various political elections and manifestations.
Furthermore, other scholars address media and populism in other contexts such as anti- media populism. For example, Kramer looks at instances when media and populism do not co- exist, referring therefore to “anti-populist media” and “anti-media populism” (Kramer 2018). He argues that in the populists view, anti-populist media acts as part of the system which supports the ruling elite (Kramer 454). The anti-populist media, in the populists view, refuse to acknowledge “natural” forms of how society must function, such as heterosexual marriages; the power of the nation, the homogenous culture etc. (Kramer 454). Furthermore, in the context of “anti-populist media”, Kramer argues how various media companies feature to a certain extent populist groups, but holds a critical stance towards them, mainly because populist communication is considered irrational and inappropriate for the specific media company (Kramer 456). Similarly, Hameleers et al. highlight that high quality newspapers generally have an antagonistic prejudice for populist actors (485). Qualitative media companies do portray populist far right actors that cause provocation and scandal (Kramer 2018). Therefore, the “anti-media populism” and “anti-populist media'' are found to be in a battle between what is considered to be natural and accurate according to populists and to what is deemed to be correct according to the media company (Kramer 456).
Although Kramer gives clear examples when the relationship between media and populism is troublesome, the reality is actually more complex when analysing the new media's role in this context. Postill (2018) and Chadwick (2013) provide a holistic view on the relationship between media and politics, arguing that new media should be seen as a part of the entire media system, instead of a separate domain (Postill 761). Moreover, building on Chadwick’s idea, Postill argues how new media as media should be seen as a part of the entire communication web including online and offline settings (761-2). He therefore suggests that populism and media should be studied employing a broader perspective, taking into account the hybrid use of different types of media (traditional and new media) in order to understand better how populists make use of media for their own success (763). It is therefore not enough to understand the use of social media or any other type of media on its own as a tool for spreading populist messages, but
8 analysing the entire picture, which is the intermingling of different types of media and communication systems as a tool for politicians.
Andrew Chadwick (2013) explains that viewing the power of the hybrid media is through understanding how new media practices mingle with older media practices and how the old media are adapting in the new ones (210). In other words, new forms of media should not be understood as replacing old ones but as a part of a big and flexible media system. To illustrate, if the question arises whether to join a political party or create an account on social media in order to appeal to an audience, the answer would be to do both (Chadwick 209). There are different ways to make use of one type of media, particularly social media for political gains. One way to see it is by using the internet in a strategic way, which means using the medium for “field operations” such as mobilisation and gathering data (Chadwick 199). The other way is by tactics, which means using the Internet as a space to get a wider audience, especially to get the attention from other media companies (Chadwick 199). Using the internet and especially social media as a digital tool or as a space for communication can be powerful resources for a course of important events such as election campaigning (Chadwick 205). Although Chadwick brings a novel and important way to view media, he does not specifically state how hybrid media manifests itself in different settings and to what it can lead to (Powers 892).
2.2.1 The Logic of Connective Action
Bennett and Segerberg’s book The logic of connective action (2013) brings another holistic perspective to the topic of media and politics. A change in the social and political organisation influenced by the effects of globalisation, the liberal market and the consumerist society led to a new way of making and engaging with politics (Bennett and Segerberg 23). The book marks an important contribution to the field of political communication, linking together different elements that explain political engagement in times where digitization evolves very fast (McCluskey 678).
A ‘politics of self-expression’, or ’DIY politics’ has arrived, where institutions and conventional forms of politics are losing value (Bennett and Segerberg 23). As a result of conventional organisations given less attention, online forms of expression are expanding including various forms of online communities and movements (Bennett and Segerberg 23). Nowadays, individual and mass communication enabled by social media platforms allow it to happen at a rate that did not happen previously (Velasquez and Rojas 2017). Younger generations of today seek ways to engage with politics based on personal ideas, interests, beliefs and life values (Bennett and Segerberg 23). At the core of modern ways of political mobilisation is the network of people connected outside of organisational structures (McCluskey 679). More conventional forms of action are known as “the logic of collective action” which entail a strong
9 organisational structure to control, invest and mobilise these actions (Bennett and Segerberg 28). The logic of collective action requires a much larger investment of resources than in the process described as the connective action (Bennett and Segerberg 28). The logic of connective action highlights the role of digital media which connects people without the need of a strong organisational structure or a solid common identity (Bennett and Segerberg 28). The connection is more personal and free - anyone can get in and out easier than in centralized structures (McCluskey 679). The most common way to find commonality among beliefs and interests is through online communication like social media (Bennett and Segerberg 24).
It is the affordances1 of social media that allow people to create new ways of communication and engagement. In particular, with the rise of new media, citizens are contributing to the content published, they can react immediately to posts and can be part of a selected network (Bennett and Segerberg 52). In many cases, the affordances of social media go beyond what designers imagined at the beginning (Bennett and Segerberg 43), generating other types of affordances, referred to as ‘imagined affordances’ (Bucher and Helmond 14). A significant number of possibilities travel through people’s expectations and beliefs while using the medium, affecting the medium’s affordances itself (Bucher and Helmond 14).
Among different ways of how scholars approach the relationship between media and populism, this paper will explore the relationship between media and populism in the context of using media as a tool for spreading and generating populist ideas. In order to identify the research strategy for this thesis, the next section will explore the literature on the existing research strategies used for studying populism and social media.
2.3 Research Strategies for Studying Populism on Social Media
In most of the research strategies identified, scholars engaged with the analysis of populism of the social platforms Twitter and Facebook (Van Kessel and Castelein 2016; Engesser et al. 2017; Hamleers and Schmuck 2017; Stier et al. 2018; Bobba and Roncarolo 2018).
Kramer (2017) develops a theoretical approach in understanding the new media’s role in right-wing populism. In particular, he based his arguments on other scholarly articles which he uses to develop a framework for different functions of the internet for right-wing populism. (Kramer 1293). Although Kramer does not use any empirical research, he makes some important
1The concept of ‘affordance’ was first introduced by James Gibson, who suggested to view the “environment through the possibilities (the affordances) for action it may provide”, which was later developed by Donald Norman, who emphasized the importance of the ‘design’ in the creation of an artifact that “encourages or constraints certain actions” (Bucher and Helmond, 5-6). In this context, the affordances of the social media imply the possibilities and actions allowed by the specific social media that the user can benefit from.
10 arguments on this subject. First, he argues how the democratic aspect of social media, including its most common functions (liking, commenting, and sharing) benefits far-right populists to spread their message widely (1299). Second, this explains why some populists use online communication so effectively- to criticize conventional media run by the “corrupt elite” (1303). Third, the interactive interface and the organisation of information of the social media allows sharing material of anecdotal evidence benefiting populist individuals (1305). All in all, one of the main functions of social media is the freedom to build and portray one's identity in many of its forms (Kramer 1305). Overall, Kramer brings important insights in this field employing a theoretical approach, but his work lacks extensive empirical research to support the arguments.
Engesser et al. (2017) investigate populism on social media using the posts from Twitter and Facebook to perform qualitative text analysis (1114). Their analysis focuses on four Western European countries: Austria, Italy, Switzerland and the UK (1114). Engesser et al. conclude with similar ideas as Kramer (2017), particularly that social media provides more freedom for populists to make use of language, and that generally, the design of social media makes these platforms ideal environments to spread populist ideas (1123). Although the findings show different results in all of the four countries, this study still shows a limitation in the sense that the scholars did not include countries from other regions. It is therefore difficult to make conclusions on the behaviour of populists on social media in a general sense. Further research is required in other countries as well to understand the phenomenon more broadly. Furthermore, the research was performed on the basis of five ideological elements of populism: emphasis on people’s sovereignty, advocacy of the people, criticism of the corrupt elite, identification of the ‘the other’ as threat, and the glorification of the heartland (Engesser et al. 1111). Although the authors mention that populism is a “notoriously vague term”, thus difficult to conceptualise, they still define and analyse populism using the five key ideological elements.
Stier et al. (2018) studied political communication on social media, Facebook and Twitter. In particular, they analysed political communication during German election campaign in 2013, in order to understand what topics they addressed during that time (Stier et al. 50). As data, they used surveys, in which the participants were asked to state the current most important political problem. Next to that, data from the social media Twitter and Facebook were gathered, including the comments and the mentions from Twitter (Stier et al. 57). Using the data from the survey, Facebook, Twitter, the scholars used a language model to analyse the topics discussed (Stier et al. 51). They found that the topics mentioned in the survey relate to some extent with those of politicians and their direct audiences from social media, but most of them differ. Another finding mentions that politicians use Facebook and Twitter not in the same way due to the fact that every social media platform varies in its socio-technical affordances (Stier et al. 67). The limitation of
11 this study is related to the fact that the conclusions were based on one country and one single event: the German elections of 2013.
Similar research has been conducted by Bobba and Roncarolo (2018) who also studied populist communication before elections. Their research however was focused on Italian populist politicians on Facebook. Their methodology was focused on a quantitative content analysis procedure, which consisted of data gathered from likes and activity on social media. Their findings conclude that the populist messages analysed got more liked on Facebook than non-populist ones, however not all of the populist messages were as popular (Bobba and Roncarolo 60). Moreover, the number of likes were significant for content related to immigrants (Bobba and Roncarolo 50).
Hameleers and Schmuck’s (2017) study focused on the effects of populist communication online on the populist perceptions of people. In particular, they looked at whether blaming, as a central element of populism affects popular opinion (Hameleers and Schmuck 1425). The social media platform used in this study was Facebook and the research was a comparative study between two countries- the Netherlands and Austria (Hamleers and Schmuck 1437). Their method was based on sophisticated empirical research consisting of a comparative survey experiment. Their findings showed that populists’ use of blaming affects particular types of citizens. General findings have argued that populism ideas are more encouraged on social media, therefore more attention should be paid to the study of populist communication on social media (Hameleers and Schmuck 1438). The following research is limited in the choice of two Western European countries only, which share relatively similar results (Hamleers and Schmuck 1439).
2.3.1 The Role of Post Types on User Engagement and Page Popularity
Most of the studies mentioned above excluded the analysis of post types’ influence on user engagement and page popularity. Studies from other fields, such as management and marketing in social media stress the importance of analysing post types in determining popularity of Facebook content. A study on Facebook marketing from 2019 done by BuzzSumo and Buffer.com found that certain types of posts perform better than others.2 In particular, one of their distinct findings is that video posts perform the best on Facebook based on well-performing posts published on Facebook in 2018 (Peters 2019; Moeller 2019). Video posts perform better as they earn more engagement than other types, particularly 59% more at least than other types, as
2 The study is based on a dataset of 500 most popular posts in terms of engagement out of 777,367,063 posts from 2018 (Peters 2019).
12 argued by researchers on Facebook marketing (Peters 2019). The second best performing posts types are images, which make 18% of total posts shared from the data analysed in the study (Peters 2019). The study of post types contributes to the research on populists’ use of social media, as it brings a perspective on the expertise in using the platform smartly and effectively.
Other research studies (Sabate et al. 2014; Bonson et al. 2015) specialised in communicational strategies of social media emphasized the role of post types on user engagement. The study performed by Sabate et al. (2014) found that images and videos perform better than other types of posts in terms of getting a higher number of likes (1008). Facebook users generally prefer to engage with visual types of content, such as images, due to the fact that they raise attention much faster and are easier “to read” and absorb than long text messages (Sabate et al. 1008). Moreover, the same study revealed that links are not performing very well in terms of engagement (particularly comments), because after accessing the link, users tend to not return to the initial post on Facebook in order to leave a comment (Sabate et al. 1008). Although the findings were based on a specific dataset, particularly Spanish travel agencies (Sabate et al. 1004) the study nevertheless reveals relevant information on effective posting strategies on Facebook. This study highlighted how effective use of social media depends partly on posting certain post categories in order to increase user engagement and overall page popularity.
A similar study done by Bonson et al. (2014) reinforce the idea that posts categories influence user engagement, and that images specifically score the highest in terms of engagement (6). The study is based on the Facebook data from various Western European local governments pages (Bonson et al. 1). The mentioned studies confirm the idea that visual types of media, such as images and videos earn the highest level of engagement on Facebook.
This section investigated different research strategies for analysing populism and social media. There are already a significant amount of diverse methodologies on this subject, even though the research field is relatively recent. Nevertheless, a few methodological gaps remain, such as the limited diversity in selecting the case studies; misbalance between theoretical and empirical research (e.g. some scholars use mostly empirical research with a low focus on a theoretical basis; or vice versa). This thesis aims to address some of the gaps mentioned, by engaging in a theoretical and empirical research and by diversifying the case studies. Additionally, this paper will explore the role of post types in user engagement and popularity of posts.
2.4 Research questions
Additional research about how far-right populist parties use and benefit from the social platform, Facebook is required. Due to numerous works in this field dealt with the Western examples, this thesis will focus its analysis on the Central/Eastern European region. Furthermore, due to various
13 ways to answer the central question: how are populist parties from Central/Eastern European countries using and benefiting from Facebook to spread their ideology? This paper will focus on three strategies used by political actors to appeal to their audience and attract new followers. The first one will analyse the levels of activity and engagement on Facebook and seek to determine why in some years the levels are higher than in others. The second question will analyse the role and effectiveness of different types of posts. The third one will try to understand the role of inlinks and the creation of filter bubbles. The last one will analyse the role populist messages in raising engagement. The questions read as follows:
Sub-Questions:
1. What explains high levels of activity and engagement during specific years?
2. To what extent is the use of different types of posts utilised by different populist parties found to be effective on Facebook?
3. Do their in-links demonstrate connections created with the 'like-minded', thereby forming more of a bubble than a debate?
4. Are populist posts the most engaged with, or ones of a different tradition?
3. Methodology
In order to analyse how different political parties use social media, their accounts on Facebook will be analysed. Instead of engaging with traditional methods of research, this thesis will work with digital methods. Digital methods allow the study of societal and cultural issues using the data from online sources (Rogers 33). With the rise of the social web, it is possible to perform research on social and personal issues using the data gathered from likes, shares, tags, tweets etc.(Rogers33). This study will proceed in two ways: quantitative and qualitative analysis. In order to gather a broader picture on social media’s use by politicians, this study will analyse how the political parties make use of the affordances of social media. In particular, the information gathered will be related to the page’s activity, engagement, engagement level per post type and the preferred method of engagement. In this way, it will be possible to obtain specific information about the activity and engagement levels of each page. The tool for collecting the required data on Facebook will be Facepager, explained below in more detail. The activity of the page will be calculated according to the amount of posts published per year. The data concerning engagement per post will be calculated according to the amount of gained reactions, comments (including replies to comments) and shares. Facebook metrics allows the visualisation of additional information
14 concerning engagement such as the number of people reached, the number of clicks on posts and the number of views on videos (Facebook Help Centre 2020). However, this type of information, as well as the amount of page followers per year is only available for the owners of the page. With Facepager, it was only possible to collect data regarding the number of comments, shares and reactions in order to calculate engagement.
3.1 Data Collection with Facepager and BuzzSumo
The main tools used in this analysis is Facepager and BuzzSumo. Facepager is a tool used to extract data through Application Programming Interface (API) developed by Till Keyling (Jünger 2020). It works by requesting these APIs through the social platform and organizes the data in a clear way. The 4.2 version of Facepager for Windows used in this project can collect data from Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Twitter Streaming and Amazon. In this research, it was used for collecting data from Facebook only.
A new Facebook account was created for the purpose of this research which was used in order to collect all the required public data. In order to obtain all the necessary data from Facebook, a step-by-step procedure followed using Facepager software.3 The data fetched provided information about the posts published from the date when the page was created until the date when the data was fetched. This information included the message, created time, type of post, number of shares, comments, comments’ replies and reactions. After all the required data has been fetched, it was exported to a (Google) spreadsheet in order to organise it. Using the data, a number of graphs were created. The graphs created are presented and explained in more detail in the ‘Results’ section. The Facebook pages used for this analysis are the following (by country):
1) Moldova (PSRM) https://www.facebook.com/socialistii.moldova 2) Romania (URP) https://www.facebook.com/pruoficial 3) Poland (The Confederation) https://www.facebook.com/KONFEDERACJA2019 4) Hungary (Jobbik) https://www.facebook.com/JobbikMagyarorszagertMozgalom
Furthermore, in order to evaluate the value and performance of the Facebook pages analysed, as well as the nature of the network of links formed, this thesis will search which web pages link back to the Facebook pages. The amount of backlinks determines the performance of
3 The first step to fetch all the necessary data was to create a new data set and add the Facebook ID of the page into “Add notes”. Then, I proceeded with getting all the Facebook posts from that page including information such as message, created time, type, number of shares, comments, and reactions. For that, I used ‘Presets’ and then ‘Get all Facebook posts’. , after fetching the posts, I fetched all the comments of the posts by selecting ‘Presets’ and then ‘Get comments’ Finally, I fetched the replies of the comments by setting ‘Resource’ to “/
15 the page in search engines (Moeller 2019). BuzzSumo will be used as the main tool for this type of data collection. It is a browser-based tool specialised in content marketing, providing a variety of data and information social media content (BuzzSumo 2020).
3.3 Qualitative text analysis
This thesis will engage with qualitative text analysis on Facebook. For this, the posts with the greatest engagement level will be selected from all the case-studies and analysed according to the four ideological characteristics of populism established in the literature review. To mention, the four elements of populism are: (1) the representation of the people; (2) anti-elite sentiment; (3) perceiving ‘the other’ as a threat; and (4) ‘the heartland’ (Engesser et. al 2017). The aim of this procedure is to understand in detail the communicative strategies of the politicians. It will also be analysed to what extent the language written in the posts corresponds to the populist definition that includes the four elements mentioned before. This will be done in order to see whether populists use different approaches for populist communication on social media. All the posts will be translated to English language and main elements of populism will be highlighted. Due to a large number of posts, only the first five posts with the highest engagement will be analysed.
3.4 Case study selection
Due to a limited number of research on far-right/right populism in Central/Eastern European countries on social media, this thesis will conduct a comparative country-cross analysis on four Central/Eastern European countries: Hungary, Poland, Romania and Moldova. Previous research papers on this subject dealt with analysis of one country only (Soare and Tufis 2019; Pajnik 2019; Lipinski and Stepinska 2019; Kluknavská and Hruška 2019) or two (Szabo et al. 2019), showing a lack of a country-cross analysis across Central/Eastern Europe. The thesis will analyse four countries in order to show a broader understanding on the development of populism in Central/Eastern Europe using the social media Facebook as a method for research. The choice of political parties of each country has been made according to their level of activity in the country, but most importantly for their activity and influence on Facebook.
Hungary and Poland have been chosen because these cases present a significant increase of right-wing populism among other Central/Eastern European countries (Korolczuk 2019; Fischer 2018). In Hungary, for example, the government of Viktor Orban continues to encourage populist and nationalist ideas, making the country the least globalised among other EU members (Fischer 2018). Poland faces similar circumstances, where far-right populism is on the rise due to people’s frustration with uneven distribution of wealth, but also the Poles’ fear of a potential influx of immigrants into the country (Charnysh 2017).
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The most influential far-right political party in Poland is Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice Party), followed by Konfederacja Wolność i Niepodległość (Confederation of Liberty and Independence) (Rafael 2019). The Confederation Liberty and Independence (referred further in the text as ‘The Confederation’) serves as an interesting case-study because it is a relatively new right-wing party in Poland (founded in 2019) and has already acquired over 300,000 followers4 on their Facebook page since 2019 (the year the page was created). The Law and Justice Party, however, has existed on Facebook since 2009 and has acquired 268,781 followers5 only since then. This paper will research what makes the Confederation party much more successful on Facebook.
In Hungary, Fidesz is the governing party. On Facebook, they have 304,281 followers6 since the creation of the page in 2008. Jobbik, on the other hand, has a greater number of followers (497,216)7 since the creation of the page in 2010. Jobbik presents an interesting case- study for this paper, because it is not the governing party of Hungary, and despite that, succeeded to reach a higher number of followers in a shorter time than the Fidesz party.
Romania has been chosen as a case-study, because unlike Poland and Hungary, it shows a “latent fertility regarding far-right populism”, as argued by Soare and Tufis (12). In other words, Soare and Tufis argue how populism manifests in Romania like a phoenix bird, which “arises from the pile of ashes of previous populist parties'' (9). This means that populism in Romania is hidden and more difficult to determine but still exists and is worth analysis. The object for study will be the United Romania Party (URP) which is a right wing nationalist party in Romania. This party has been chosen because unlike other Romanian right-wing parties, the URP is relatively active on social media Facebook until today.
A similar idea could be argued about Moldova, where populism is more hidden and difficult to determine. This is the case especially with the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova (PSRM). Like most of the parties in Moldova, PSRM does not have a clear ideology and political agenda, (Certan 14) but it is generally behaving as right-wing and in some instances far-right. In the media it is usually described as Eurosceptic, pro-Russian, anti-NATO (Socor 2014). The PSRM is active on social media Facebook and has currently 6,852 followers8 since 2011 when the page was created.
4 Data collected on March 30th, 2020 5 Data collected on March 30th, 2020 6 Data collected on March 30th, 2020 7 Data collected on March 30th, 2020 8 Data collected on March 30th 2020
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All in all, these cases have been chosen in order to show different manifestations of populism in Central/Eastern European countries. What combines all these countries is the fact that they are all under the post-Communist umbrella, however still populism has developed differently-in some countries more than others. Moreover, all these cases experienced different electoral success. There is a need for more comparative studies among Central/Eastern European countries considering that the literature is rather narrow in this field (Linden 5). Moreover, employing a social media approach in studying populism across Central/Eastern Europe will provide more insights in understanding the global phenomenon of populism, including its causes, origins and implications. 4. Results
This section will present the main findings of this research. It consists of four main parts. Each part will deal with the analysis of the case study of the chosen parties’ respective country, in the following order: Moldova, Romania, Poland and Hungary. Each main part consists of four subsections. The first subsection will briefly present the political party and social-political situation in the country. The second subsection will provide an overview of the party’s activity and engagement levels on Facebook. The third subsection will present the backlinks gathered from BuzzSumo. Lastly, the fourth subsection will perform a text analysis taking into consideration the defining elements of populist communication and the style of language used.
4.1 Party of Socialists from the Republic of Moldova
The Party of Socialists from the Republic of Moldova (PSRM) was founded in 1997 in Moldova (E-democracy 2019). Their Facebook page was created on October 13, 2011 (Facebook). It currently has 6,764 followers and 6,287 likes.9 PSRM, like most of the parties in Moldova suffer from a lack of a strong political ideology, oscillating between different political identities, views and agenda (Certan 14). For this reason, PSRM is categorized officially as a left-wing party but significantly acts as right-wing in the social context, trying in this way to attract as many categories of citizens as possible to vote for them (Certan 15). The political party is described as pro-Russian by numerous news items (Socor 2014; Shotter 2019), as it believed to follow Russia’s interest in the country (Socor 2014).
Until 2014 parliamentary elections, the party obtained a very minimal amount of votes. The years after, the party formed blocs with other parties, but still did not pass the electoral threshold to be represented in the Parliament (see E-democracy 2001; E-democracy 2005). In
9 Data collected on March 19th, 2020.
18 the 2009 and 2010 elections the party did not participate in elections, supporting the PCRM instead (E-democracy 2009). In 2011, Igor Dodon who was a former member of PCRM became the chairman of the PSRM (Modiga 2011) In the 2014 elections, the PSRM major breakthrough was in 2014, when the party gained the majority of votes (20.59%), coming out as the winner of the 2014 parliamentary elections (Soltes 5). The report made by the Election Observation Delegation of 2014 elections marked the win of the PSRM as “surprising”, since the Party has not participated in the elections in the years before (Soltes 5). Other three pro-European parties formed a coalition, since not a single party was able to form a Government, while PSRM remained in opposition (Soltes 5). The next important event for PSRM, was the nomination of the leader of the party, Igor Dodon as the President of Moldova in 2016 (Paun 2016). The next parliamentary elections were held on 24 February 2019, in which PSRM earned the highest number of votes (31.15%) (Election Guide 2019).
4.1.1 The Facebook page
In order to get a deeper understanding of how the Facebook page of the Party of Socialists from the Republic of Moldova operates, a data collection was performed using the Facepager software. A large amount of data was collected from the time the page was created (13th of October, 2011) until the date of data collection (23rd of March 2020). A total of 2668 posts were gathered. The oldest post was created on 30th of November 2011 and the newest post was created on 23rd of March 2020. Besides, different data points were collected in order to measure the page’s activity and engagement. The first thing to analyse was the page’s activity. In order to measure the party’s activity on Facebook, data were sorted according to posts per year (see Graph 1).
Graph 1: Amount of posts published per year (PSRM)
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As it can be seen in Graph 1 the largest amount of content posted was in the year 2014 (597 posts), preceded by the year 2015 (511 posts), meaning that during those years the page was the most active. Interestingly, the page did not have a significant number of content during the first years of activity. Moreover, after the most active years (2014 and 2015), the page’s activity declined and started growing again in 2018-2019.
In terms of types of posts, the next graph provides an overview over the most preferred content to post: link, status, photo or video (see Graph 2). As it can be seen, the most posted type of content are links. In the last few years however (from 2018 onward), the more preferred type of posts published changed to photos. Status are the least preferred type of post during all years analysed.
Graph 2: Posts published per year according to type (PSRM)
The next graphs are concerned with the page’s engagement levels. First, the engagement overtime was measured from the start of the Facebook page (2011) until 2020. The engagement level was measured according to the total amount of comments, reactions (including likes) and shares created during a particular year. A representation of this can be seen in Graph 3.
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Graph 3: Engagement level over time (total number of shares, comments and reactions)
According to Graph 3, there is a significant amount of engagement in 2019 compared to the other years. Overall, the engagement level does not show a steady growth, but it is rather unstable over the years.
To expand on the previous graph about engagement, the next graph shows average engagement per type of post (see Graph 4). As shown, users engage mostly with reactions, followed by shares. Comments are the least preferred method of engagement. Moreover, users react, share and comment on photos the most. The least number of engagements got statues and, then links.
Graph 4: Average engagement per type of post (video, photo, link and status)
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In Graph 4, a pattern can be seen with Graph 2. Specifically, during 2018 and 2019, more ‘video’ type of content was posted on the party’s Facebook page compared to the previous years when it was mostly links. As it can be seen in Graph 4, users engage with videos more than with other types of content. Besides, engagement grew significantly afterwards in 2019 (as shown in Graph 3). Despite the fact that 2014 was the most fruitful year in terms of content posted (as shown in Graph 1), the highest level of engagement was in 2019.
4.1.2 PSRM’s Backlinks
In order to understand which pages link back to the page of PSRM, BuzzSumo was used. BuzzSumo listed the most recent and shared backlinks of the page (see Appendix B). For the PSRM page, a total of 236 posts and their backlinks were gathered. Most of the backlinks (233 out of 236) are from socialistii.md, which is also the party’s official website. The remaining backlinks are from enews.md (2 out of 236) which is a platform for news, and the other one is from e-democracy.md which is a website containing information about Moldovan elections over the years.
4.1.3 Text analysis
The text analysis will be performed with the posts that have the highest level of engagement. For this, the first five posts with the highest level of engagement were selected (see Table 1 below):
Type Comments Shares Reactions Total
1. photo 808 780 10221 11809
2. photo 407 535 4065 5007
3. video 144 1074 1918 3136
4. video 99 1302 1723 3124
5. photo 37 261 1967 2265
Table 1: The five most engaged posts of PSRM page
The post with the highest engagement level on PSRM page is a photo type of post and was created on 8th of June 2019. The post’s level of engagement is 11809 which includes comments, reactions, shares, replies to comments, reactions to comments and replies. The post itself contains 808 comments, 780 shares and 10221 reactions. In the post below, the author(s) is stating a fact, the language of communication is simple and straightforward. The post does not
22 present any specific characteristics of populist speech, at least not explicitly. They do accentuate however an achievement of the party, the fact that one of the members of the party got an important function in the Parliament.
(1) “The Parliament of the Republic of Moldova voted for the approval of the Speaker of the Parliament, Zinaida Greceanyi, the Chairperson of the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova.” [Original:Парламент Республики Молдова проголосовал за утверждение в должности председателя парламента Зинаиды Гречаный, председателя Партии социалистов РМ. http://socialistii.md/ru/zinaida-grechanyj-izbrana-spikerom-parlamenta-rm/]
The second most engaged post of the page was created on 17th of August 2019, is a photo type of post and has a total of 5007 engagement levels, out of which 407 are comments, 535 are shares and 4065 are reactions. This post marks the arrival of an event which has a historical connotation. Similar to the first post, the language of communication is simple and straightforward. It does not present any particular characteristics of populist communication explicitly. It is accentuated that the event takes place under the auspices of the President of Moldova (who is also the member of the party) which ultimately invokes that the party is doing something for the people (a concert event in this case). Thus, it can be said that this post suggests ‘the representation of the people’ as an element of populist communication:
(2) “Under the auspices of the President of the Republic of Moldova, on August 24, a concert will be held dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Iasi-Chisinau operation to liberate Moldova from fascist occupation.” [Original:“Под патронатом Президента Республики Молдова, 24 августа состоится концерт, посвященный 75-летию Ясско-Кишиневской операции по освобождению Молдовы от фашистской оккупации.”]
The third most engaged post was created on the 9th of March 2020; is a video type of post and has a total of 3136, out of which 1918 are reactions, 144 are comments and 1074 are shares. This post is a warning related to the corona measures. The tone is serious and even threatening to some extent. The author clearly explicates what is going to happen if the citizens do not comply with the order of the authorities.
(3) “Moldovans who hide that they come to the country from areas affected by coronavirus and will provide wrong information on the epidemiological forms will be fined or even brought to criminal liability. The President of the country, Igor Dodon, announced after this morning's meeting with the speaker and prime minister that such a bill is to be endorsed by the Government and approved by Parliament this week.”[Original: Moldovenii care vor ascunde că vin în țară din zonele afectate de coronavirus și vor completa greșit fișele epidemiologice vor fi amendați sau chiar trași la răspundere penală. Președintele țării, Igor Dodon, a anunțat după ședința din această dimineață cu speakerul și premierul că un asemenea proiect de lege urmează să fie avizat de Guvern și aprobat de Parlament chiar în această săptămână.]
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The fourth most engaged post is a video type and it was created on 9th of July 2019. The total number of engagements of the post is 3124. The post itself contains 99 comments, 1302 shares and 1723 reactions. The text is an introduction to the video material.
(4) “Speech of the deputy of the PSRM faction, Bogdan Țîrdea, in the parliamentary sitting, on July 9, 2019, regarding the resignation of the Attorney General, Eduard Harunjen." [Original: “Discursul deputatului fracțiunii PSRM, Bogdan Țîrdea, din cadrul ședinței parlamentului, din 9 iulie 2019, cu privire la demisia procurorului general, Eduard Harunjen.”]
The post with the fifth-highest engagement level is a photo type of post, created on 22nd of February 2019. The total number of engagements is 2265. The post itself contains 37 comments, 261 shares and 1967 reactions. This post is a call to vote for the Party of Socialists and for the star which represents their logo. The communication style is simple and direct, it does not show any elements of populist communication. It clearly states to vote for the Party but it does not state why people should do that or what would happen if people vote for them.
(5) “Vote for the Socialists! Vote for the star!” (same in Russian) [Original: “Votăm socialiștii! Votăm steaua! Голосуем за социалистов! Голосуем за звезду!”]
4.2 The United Romania Party
Radical right parties have seen greater success after the fall of Communism (Szabo et al. 34). Two generations of far-right populism evolved in Romania from that time (Soare and Tufis 11). The difference between the two is that the first generation was more represented in the government and had overall more electoral success (Soare and Tufis 11). The most successful party of this kind was the Greater Romania Party (Partidul România Mare, PRM). With time however, the party gained less and less votes from the electorate, declining its activity almost completely (Szabo et al. 34). The two generations of far-right populism showed similar patterns of ideological stances characterised by “nativism, authoritarianism and populism” (Soare and Tufis 11). Also, in both generations, populism manifested as a strict division between ‘the pure people’ and the ‘corrupt’ elite. What changed in the second generation, argues Soare, is the style of communication which became more direct and obscene over time (Soare and Tufis 11).
The United Romania Party (URP) (known in Romanian as Partidul România Unită) was registered officially on 23rd of April 2015 (Agerpres 2016). Their Facebook page was created on January 6, 2015. The page has the biggest number of followers among other right/far-right groups from Romania, accounting 16,266 followers10. After the decline of the Greater Romania Party, the United Romania Party was considered the most influential extreme right wing party in Romania
10 Retrieved on March 17, 2020
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(Goll 211). The party admits to follow a national-democratic doctrine established during pre-war and interbellum, however they adapted overtime to contemporary settings (Agerpres 2016). Following a strong nationalistic agenda, the members of the party consider Romania to be under the threat of minorities, particularly the Roma and Hungarian minorities (Goll 211). The logo of the political party is Vlad Tepes (known internationally as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula), a remarkable figure in Romanian history, famous especially for his cruelty against his enemies (Pallardy 2020). URP asserts to agree with some of the social and judicial ideals from the times when Vlad Tepes ruled (Agerpres 2016). In 2016, the URP participated in Romania’s legislative elections, but gained only 2.95% of votes for the Senate, resulting in zero seats in the government (BEC 2016). For the Chamber of Deputies, the party gained 2.79% of votes, resulting in zero seats (BEC 2016). The next legislative elections in Romania are planned for the end of the year 2020 or the beginning of the year 2021 (Politico 2020).
4.2.1 The Facebook page
The data was collected from the United Romania Party’s page on Facebook using Facepager software. The metadata consisted of posts from the date of the page creation - 6th of January 2015 until the data was fetched (25th of March 2020). The page has in total 1420 posts. The first post was created on 6th of January 2015 and the last post was created on 29th of December 2019. To measure the page’s activity, the number of posts published per year were collected (see Graph 5).
Graph 5: Number of posts published per year (URP)
As seen in Graph 5, the page has an unstable flow of activity. The year that was the most active was 2016 (578 posts in total) preceded by 2015, which was also the year that the page was created (568 posts in total). Two years of almost complete inactivity followed (2017 and 2018,
25 where in 2019 the page started publishing again (269 posts that year). The next graph shows the amount of types of posts posted by the United Romania Party’s Facebook page (see Graph 6).
Graph 6: Number of posts according to type
As shown in the graph above, the most preferred content types are links (474 in total). However, the difference is not great among other types of posts. The second most published posts are photos (447 in total), and then videos (416 in total). Status types are rare (83 in total). In 2015 and 2016, the most published type of posts were links. In 2019 however, that changed to videos (111 in total), followed by photos (104 in total).
Next, engagement level was measured according to the total amount of likes, shares and reactions created over the period of a year (see Graph 7). It can be seen that the highest engagement was during 2016, followed by 2015 and then 2019.
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Graph 7: Engagement level over time (total number of reactions, shared and comments)
To expand on the previous graph, the next graph shows the preferred method of user engagement per type of post (see Graph 8). It can be seen that users engage most with reactions on all types of posts. Photos get the largest number of engagement by reacting, followed by links and then videos. It is also shown that commenting is the least preferred engagement method. Also, the type of post ‘statuses’ got the least engagement.
Graph 8: Average number of engagement level per type of post
Overall, 2016 was the most fruitful year for the party’s Facebook page in terms of activity and engagement. Same in 2016, the type of post mostly published are links, although photos get the most engagement. However, that changes in the year after (2019) when the most posted type of content are videos, and then photos.
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4.2.2 Backlinks
In the case of the United Party of Romania, BuzzSumo showed only two results for the total number of backlinks (see Appendix B). These are from two different websites, one of them is fitt.ro which is a local Romanian website, named as the Foundation for Youth Timis. The website provides information relating to news, events, seminars and workshops (FITT). The other one is utopiabalcania.net., which is an online blog dedicated to humour and caricature (Utopia Balcanica). Both sites are unofficial types of sources. From these results, it can be inferred that the party does not use a multitude of sources to publish information on Facebook. Moreover, the political page does not have a party’s official website from which they share information on Facebook.
4.2.3 Text analysis
As shown in the table below, the five most engaged posts are predominantly photos and one of them is a video type (see Table 2).
Type Comments Shares Reactions Total
1. photo 4940 1063 16841 22844
2. video 83 645 402 1130
3. photo 40 353 567 960
4. photo 17 279 599 895
5. photo 17 213 640 870
Table 2: The five most engaged posts (United Romania Party)
The post with the highest engagement level of the United Romania Party’s page is a photo type of post, created on the 10th of March, 2019. The post’s level of engagement is 22844 which includes comments, reactions, shares, replies of comments, reactions of comments and replies. This number includes a total of 4940 comments, 1063 shares and 16861 reactions.
(1) “Sebastian Ghita, the Romanian who hit the foundation of the new Security, who devolved the System and the "elite" unit of DNA, who campaigned for a Romania of the Romanians and who became TARGET and is HUNTED because he had the courage to tell the truth , opens the list of URP candidates in the European Parliamentary elections. The message sent by Sebastian Ghita at the launch of the candidates: "Who do you want to speak on behalf of Romanians? Strangers? I will apply because a Romanian voice must be heard loudly! The campaign for European Parliament is not about Europe, it's about us, about Romanians. What issues do I want to address in this campaign and to which Soros's servants from the Union Diving Romania also respond: the position towards
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immigrants. Why don't we give Romanians citizenship in the Republic of Moldova? Romania is Christian, we do not fill the land of mosques! Who allowed Tudorel Toader to accept the idea of a European prosecutor? The organized criminal group led by Laura Codruța Kovesi destroyed the elites! Today the Resistance gangs are allowed to attack judges and ministers and climb Parliament's fences! Romania will be a country where the lands and forests will have to return to the Romanian state! Romania will be a country where Romanian children will be born! Now the Romanian children are born abroad! Romania will be a country where Romanians will benefit from soil and subsoil resources. They must be exploited inside Romania, not for the benefit of foreign robbers! Romania will express its sovereignty. I do not want to become a duchy of Luxembourgers in Brussels! I shout from all my chest of a Romanian: Live Great Romania, United, Sovereign! ” URP candidates for the European elections: Sebstian Ghita Bogdan Diaconu Florian Mirea Diaconu Andrei Piticaș Rudi Bugă Dumitru Bădrăgan Laura Vicol Radu Cristescu Narcis Someșfelean Ștefan Lungu Sorin Deac Ionuț Stuparu Ioan Constantinescu”
[Original: Sebastian Ghiță, românul care a lovit la temelia noii Securități, care a devoalat Sistemul și unitatea „de elită” a DNA, care a militat pentru o Românie a românilor și care a devenit ȚINTĂ și e HĂITUIT pentru că a avut curajul de a spune adevărul, deschide lista candidaților PRU la alegerile europarlamentare. Mesajul transmis de Sebastian Ghiță la lansarea candidaților: „Cine vreți să vorbească în numele românilor? Strănii? Voi candida pentru că o voce românească trebuie să se audă răspicat! Campania pentru europarlamentare nu e despre Europa, e despre noi, despre români. Ce teme vreau sa abordăm în această campanie și la care să ne răspundă și slugile lui Soros de la Uniunea Scufundăm România: poziția față de imigranți. De ce nu dăm cetățenie românilor din Republica Moldova? România este creștină, nu umplem țara de moschei! Cine i-a permis lui Tudorel Toader să accepte ideea unui procuror european? Grupul infracțional organizat condus de Laura Codruța Kovesi a distrus elitele! Azi bandele Rezist sunt lăsate să atace judecători și miniștri și să se urce pe gardurile Parlamentului! România va fi o țară în care pământurile și pădurile vor trebui să revină statului român! România va fi o țară unde se vor naște copii români! Acum copiii români se nasc în străinătate! România va fi o țară unde românii vor beneficia de resursele solului și subsolului. Trebuie exploatate în interiorul României, nu în beneficiul jefuitorulor străini! România își va exprima suveranitatea. Nu vreau să ajungem un ducat al luxemburghezilor de la Bruxelles! Strig din tot pieptul meu de român: Trăiască România Mare, Unită, Suverană!” Candidații PRU la alegerile europarlamentare: Sebstian Ghiță Bogdan Diaconu Florian Mirea Diaconu Andrei Piticaș Rudi Bugă Dumitru Bădrăgan Laura Vicol Radu Cristescu Narcis Someșfelean Ștefan Lungu Sorin Deac Ionuț Stuparu Ioan Constantinescu]
The following post shows many elements of populist communication. The author of the post accentuates a strong ethno-nationalistic sentiment a few times when stating “Romania of the Romanians”; “Romania will be a country where Romanian children will be born”; Romania will be a country where Romanians will benefit from soil and subsoil resources. These examples invoke the ‘the heartland’ - an idealized place where only Romanian people reside and flourish. A strong resistance towards ‘the other’ is expressed also: Who do you want to speak on behalf of Romanians? Strangers?; Romania is Christian, we do not fill the land of mosques!; foreign robbers!; duchy of Luxembourgers in Brussels! Similarly, the element of ‘representing the people’ is expressed as well in line with ‘the heartland’. For example, in the example Romania of the Romanians; and Romania will be a country where Romanians will benefit from soil and
29 subsoil resources the author advocated for a Romania in which Romanian population would govern and enjoy full rights in their own country, ‘the heartland’.
The second post is a video, created on the 23rd of November 2016. The total number of engagements is 1130 including 83 comments, 645 shares and 402 reactions. This post does not show any explicit elements of populist communication. The message asks for the vote of the political party.
(2) “On 11th December 2016 vote for the United Romania Party!!!” [Original: “Pe 11 decembrie 2016 votăm Partidul România Unită!!!”]
The third post is a photo, created on the 13th of February 2016. The total number of engagements is 960, out of which 40 are comments, 353 are shares and 567 are reactions. The post is highlighting the activities of the political party. In this context, it is seen as an achievement.
(3) “Patrol Vlad Țepeș was today at Floreasca Hospital in Bucharest to donate blood for the benefit of children in emergency situations. The PRU president, deputy Bogdan Diaconu, and Patrol coordinator, champion Daniel Ghiță were present.” [Original:“Patrula Vlad Țepeș a fost astăzi la Spitalul Floreasca din București pentru a dona sânge în beneficiul copiilor aflați în situații de urgență. Au fost prezenți președintele PRU, deputatul Bogdan Diaconu, și coordonatorul Patrulei, campionul Daniel Ghiță”]
The fourth post is a photo type of post, created on the 17th of June 2016. It has a total of 895 engagements, out of which 17 are comments, 279 are shares and 599 are reactions. For this type of post, the message is missing.
The fifth post is a photo type of post, created on the 9th of August 2016. It has a total number of 870 engagements, out of which 17 are comments, 213 are shares and 640 are reactions. The following text has a historical connotation. Mihai Viteazul was a Romanian historical figure, a ruler of three countries which form Romania today: The Romanian Country; Transylvania and Moldova. It is argued that Mihai Viteazul was the first ruler who connected all these countries together (1MD 2020). In this post, it is clear that the author has a strong connection with the ethno-national past of Romania and values a powerful and united Romania. This can be seen as an element of “the heartland”, in which the author perceives the country as an ideal place, united and strong.
(4) “On the 9th of August 1601, Mihai Viteazul was assassinated. Eternal glory to the heroes of the nation!” [Original: “Pe 9 august 1601 era asasinat Mihai Viteazul. Glorie eternă eroilor neamului!”]
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4.3 Confederation Liberty and Independence
Confederation Liberty and Independence is a political party from Poland formed in 2019 (Szczerbiak 2020). The party is right-wing, however it has been debated that the party presents all elements of being a radical right party (Zglinicki 2019). The party is a great advocate of sovereignty, is sceptical towards the EU and towards the effects that comes with it, such as immigration (Schneider 2019).
The Confederation party is the most influential right wing party in Poland after the governing party, Law and Justice Party (Rafael 2019). The far right is becoming the norm in Poland as most citizens are discontent with the economic situation in the country: “many low- income Poles now feel like second-class citizens, not only in the EU but also in their own country” (Charnysh 2017). Besides, xenophobia and discrimination towards immigrants, sexual and religious groups have dominated in Poland for a while (Charnysh 2017). A Polish sociologist described the rise of the far right in Poland in this way: “The right is winning because it translates the very real experiences and problems of the voters, related to the political-economic system, into simple and understandable language of culture war” (Pikulicka-Wilczewska 2019).
The Confederation participated in Poland’s 2019 parliamentary elections and was classified as the 5th winner in terms of votes percentage, obtaining that year 6,81% of votes and gaining 11 seats in the Sejm (the lower house of the bicameral parliament) (National Electoral Commission 2019). In the senate, the Confederation gained 0, 79% votes and zero seats (National Electoral Commission 2019). For the European Parliament elections held in 2019, the Confederation classified as number four in terms of vote shares, gaining a total of 4, 55% of votes and zero seats. The Confederation was planning to participate in the next presidential elections planned initially on 10th of May 2020, but were delayed to a different date because of the Covid- 19 pandemic (Tidey and Ging 2020).
4.3.1 The Facebook page
To get a better understanding of the party’s Facebook page, data has been collected concerning its daily activity and engagement. The party’s Facebook page was created on 26th of February, 2019. The page is relatively new compared to the other pages analysed in this paper. Despite that, the party’s Facebook page gained until present time 281,091 followers11. The oldest post was created on 27th of February 2019 and the latest post was on 27th of March 2020, the date when the data was fetched as well. Between this periods, the page has created 1209 posts in total, including 690 videos, 469 photos, 49 links and 1 status (see Graph 9 and Graph 10 below).
11 According to April 2,2020
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Graph 9: Number of posts published per year (The Confederation)
As seen in the graph above, the page published more content in 2020, even though the year has not finished yet.
Graph 10: Number of posts published during 2019-2020 according to the type of post
In the graph above, it can be seen that the content posted has relatively grown over the months. A considerable rise was at the beginning of 2020, leading to a growth of over 200 posts per month. The post published type of content are photos and then videos. There are very few to zero amount of links and statuses published.
The data concerning the engagement level over time can be viewed in Graph 11 and the engagement level according to the type of post can be seen in Graph 12 below.
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Graph 11: Engagement level per year
In this graph, a significant rise of engagement level can be seen over one year. Although the year 2020 has not finished yet, the engagement level is already considerably higher than in 2019.
Graph 12: Engagement level according to the type of post
According to Graph 12, users tend to engage with videos more than with other types of content. The most preferred method of engagement are reactions, followed by shares and then comments.
Overall, the engagement level has risen as the amount of content has grown during 2020. That makes 2020 the most fruitful year in terms of activity and engagement level. Also, the type of content published corresponds with the engagement level per type. Particularly, photos and videos are the most published type of content and the most engaged with.
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4.3.2 Backlinks
The page revealed 73 results. The backlinks indicate a variety of sources used in the Polish party’s case, some of them being from the party’s official page konfederacja.net (10 out of 73). 14 of the backlinks are from medianarodowe.com; 8 from nczas.com; 6 from videosejm.pl and the rest from other websites. The Polish political page has a variety of different sources compared to the other pages analysed. In total, there are 25 different sources. Interestingly, the majority of sources did not come from the party’s official website, like the other parties’ pages did. Moreover, not all the sources are local, one of them being from the UK (britishpoles.uk). Most sources are news platforms. One of the sites, namely klubjagiellonski.pl operates as a political blog, the author(s) representing themselves as republicans who write on their front page that they want to be seen as influencers for the benefit of the people. Moreover, some news platforms act as political blogs as well, as they contain a section that writes political opinions on various subjects of far-right ideology. Examples of these include wdolnymslasku.com; wolna-polska.pl. Another example, namely ekspedyt.org is a site that offers the possibility to join groups that follow very specific ideologies and beliefs.
4.3.3 Text Analysis
The data concerning the first five posts with the highest level of engagement can be viewed in the table below:
Type Comments Shares Reactions Total
1. photo 791 25971 11329 38091
2. video 1045 5311 28243 34599
3. photo 1186 1659 26448 29293
4. video 921 3940 18517 23378
5. video 357 4508 18141 23006
Table 3: The five posts with the highest level of engagement (Confederation Liberty and Independence
The first post is a photo, created on 19th of March 2020, and has a total number of 38,091 engagements, out of which 791 are comments, 25,971 are shares and 11,329 are reactions.
(1) “Many countries are now struggling with enormous economic difficulties caused by the #koronavirus pandemic and individual countries are implementing protection packages for their entrepreneurs and employees to support them as much as possible in such a difficult time. The USA, France or Hungary show that it is possible to introduce huge facilitations for entrepreneurs and really help their economy, while the Prime Minister Morawiecki offers Poles solutions that will be a concrete lifebuoy! Instead of real, practical support in a difficult time, the government suggests ... loans and further indebtedness,
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and social security contributions for the period when companies could not act and so you will have to pay only a little later. It would be funny if it wasn't tragic. The PiS government and the Prime Minister of Morawiecki - this is about the existence of hundreds of thousands of Polish companies and employees who are able to count and see that you are trying to settle the matter again with propaganda tricks promoted from morning to evening by #TVPiS. Only this time it is about the future of the entire Polish economy, it is about millions of Poles. Round words, pleasant slogans and theatrical poses in front of cameras are no longer enough - the need for REAL actions and real support with a comprehensive assistance program! Only in this way will we protect the Polish
economy in a difficult time and create a shield for it in the face of the impending crisis! And what do we propose in return? Our comprehensive #PakietAntykryzysowy is: ✅ Exemption from ZUS for entrepreneurs ✅ Postponing the payment of ZUS and PIT for employees for a year, redemption of ZUS and PIT for employees in the most difficult situations ✅ Immediate VAT returns, releasing funds
from split payments ✅ Financial support for people who have lost remuneration due to civil law contracts ✅ Compensation of remuneration paid by enterprises whose activity has been suspended by the government ✅ Postponement of deadlines for submitting tax returns, suspension of tax audits ✅ Statutory suspension of loans and leasing repayments for enterprises ✅ Interest-free revolving
loans from BGK for companies losing liquidity Help it can only be the RELEASE of entrepreneurs
from levies, taxes and contributions. The help is NOT to push them into the chains of subsequent loan agreements, to postpone payments for a quarter and to develop the bureaucratic machine. Let's introduce a real Anti-Crisis Package instead of leading the Polish economy into the abyss by doing a favor to banks!”
In this post, the author shows instances of populist communication by criticizing the Prime minister and the government, blaming the current political power in that way. Also, the author emphasizes the Polish people are the ones suffering from ‘the crisis’ brought by the ‘elite’ “ it is about the future of the entire Polish economy, it is about millions of Poles”. Thus, in this post, there are two examples of populist communication: “blaming the corrupt elite” and “representation of the people”.
The second post is a video created on 19th November 2019, and it contains 34,599 engagements, out of which 1045 are comments, 5311 are shares and 28,243 are reactions. This post touches upon again on the faults of the government, showing an anti-elite stance. They blame the elite’s policy for raising taxes and making the policies sophisticated for the population.
(2) “Dr Sławomir Mentzen gave a real substantive SHOW in the TVP studio! Representatives of the "gang of four" tried to shout at our politician, but with knowledge and preparation they had no chance. First, he thoroughly explained to the editor the harmfulness of the PiS project regarding the abolition of the ZUS 30-fold limit (voting tonight!), Then proved that the rulers are actually implementing the program of the leftist party Together, and treat entrepreneurs as criminals. Finally, the government's policy of raising taxes and complicating regulations was broken down. You must listen to this! # Confederation once again proves that it is unmatched!”
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The third post is a photo created on 14th of October 2019. It contains 29,293 engagements, out of which 1186 are comments, 1659 are shares and 26,448 are reactions. In this post, the author(s) emphasize the victories of the party (success in parliamentary elections). Also, they show that the party is there for the people, whom they will not disappoint. This is a case of populism communication in which the populist accentuates the representation of the people.
(3) “#CONFEDERATION in the Sejm RP✅ We already have official results - #Confederation wins 6.81%
in parliamentary elections! We get to the Sejm in great style, it is a huge success of our new grouping!
We won 621 thousand votes in the May European Parliament elections. Now, barely 5 months later,
we have received over 1.2 MILLION votes! Your support was unbelievable and we will never forget
it. We are for you and thanks to you we will not disappoint! We all belong to # Confederation Team,
now we are stronger than ever. We will create a united circle of 11 deputies in the Sejm, and this is just the beginning. Our grouping has only been around for 8 months, so if we achieved such a result in such a short time, the future must belong to us! Confederates, we set off to fight for a better Poland! #MissionPoland #PolskaDlaCiebie”
The fourth post is a video created on 10th of December 2019. It contains 23,378 engagements, of which 921 are comments; 3940 are shares and 18,517 are reactions. In this post, the author(s) shows an anti-elite sentiment towards a member of Polish People’s Party by emphasizing that their own party is different:
“Our politicians are not afraid to tell the truth, even when it is unpopular and so willingly censored and attacked by some media and parties.” Also, the ‘representation of the people’ is present in this speech, when the author(s) put the Poles in a good light: “This pseudo-study says more about the people who organized them than about Poles.”
(4) “You have to see it✅Our MP and spokesman Krzysztof Bosak in a winning duel with Władysław
Teofil Bartoszewski from PSL! A scandalous report by the Jewish League against Defamation has appeared in the US, which presents Poland as a ... anti-Semitic country. Our MP stated directly: "This pseudo-study says more about the people who organized them than about Poles and shows that Jews consider anti-Semites those who have the courage to disagree with them." Our spokesman told the whole truth about Polish-Israeli relations and the Act 447. Accurate retorts, accurate arguments and, above all, courage. This is how Polish raison d'etat is defended! Our politicians are not afraid to tell the truth, even when it is unpopular and so willingly censored and attacked by some media and parties. #Confederation is not slowing down!”
The fifth post is a video type of post created on 20th of November 2020. It contains 23,006 engagements, of which 357 are comments, 4508 are shares and 18,841 are reactions. In this post, the author(s) criticizes the PiS government because of the tax system, the bureaucracy. In this post, an anti-elite stance is shown.
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(5) “Everything is in this speech ✅ Konrad Berkowicz pointed out the absurd and harmful tax policy of
the PiS government substantively, presented our fair project to increase the tax-free amount to PLN 31,200, and another increase in the government's tax (raising the excise duty, just like the PO did) criticized the words of the song Kazik! We appeal for distribution! The authorities ordered a vote to raise the excise tax at night - maybe they wanted to put us to sleep or take us out of fatigue, but they only motivated us this extra :) etatist (...) The bureaucracy has grown three times since the fall of the commune, with the difference that instead of one position they fill four parties (...) But basically it is one formation extremely parasitic. Such two sides of one flag is how I usually count (here. ..) For example, in the price of gasoline, 70% is a tax. To maintain this unsaturated hydra, their children, wives and mothers. And actually whoever does not drink vodka is a subversive, so deliberately depleting the state's income - a hopeless."
4.4 Jobbik
Jobbik is a Hungarian right-wing political party founded in 2003 with Gabor Vona as the party leader (Jobbik 2016). Before it became a party, it was a movement, known as “the Conservative Youth Community” established in 1999 (Jobbik 2016). Although Jobbik portrayed themselves as far-right in the past few years, it is now trying to appear as more ‘centrist’ in order to gain a larger amount of votes from citizens (BBC 2019; Byrne 2017). Throughout the party’s years of activity, the members portrayed themselves as anti-minorities of cultural, religious and sexual groups, especially against Roma’s population in Hungary; anti LGBT, anti-Muslim (Byrne 2017). Moreover, the party is against the current government and is also anti-EU (Jobbik 2016).
The most influential far-right political party in Hungary remains till today Fidesz, who won with a majority in the 2018 national elections (Kondor 2019). The success of Fidesz, and generally of the rise far right in Hungary, argues Kondor, is not only due to the party’s “effective propaganda” but also due to the citizens’ self-identification to far right ideas and beliefs (2019). Despite Victor Orban, the Fidesz leader’s national success, Jobbik party seems to have a higher success on Facebook judging by the number of followers and page likes they have.
The first elections that Jobbik participated in was during the 2006 Hungarian national elections, but only in 2010 gained a considerable amount of votes (16%) and 47 seats, placing Jobbik in the third place (Jobbik 2016). This event marked the second major achievement of the party’s political journey, after the 2009 European elections, where Jobbik obtained 15% of votes and three seats in the European Parliament (Jobbik 2016; CNN 2010). The following years were important for Jobbik too, such as 2014 national and European elections, where Jobbik won the third place for national elections (20.54% of votes) (Deloy 2014), and the second place for the European elections (14.67% of votes) (European Parliament 2019). For the next national elections of 2018, Jobbik earned the second place with 19.63% of votes (Deloy 2018). The last
37 elections that Jobbik participated in were the European elections in 2019, for which Jobbik got 6.34% of votes and were classified in the fifth place (European Parliament 2019).
4.4.1 The Facebook page
The data was collected from Jobbik’s Facebook page on 26th of April 2020. The page was created on 20th of January 2010. The party has thus been active for ten years on Facebook. The oldest post was created on 1st of April 2010 and the newest one was created on 25th of April 2020. Below it can be seen the number of posts created from 2010 to 2020.
Graph 13: Number of posts published per year (Jobbik)
As shown in Graph 13, the most content was published in 2012 (596 posts in total). The least content was published in 2014 (442 posts in total).
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Graph 14: Number of posts published according to type per year
According to Graph 14, the most published type of content are photos. In 2010-2012 however, links were mostly published. In 2018, videos were the most popular type of content published. Status were only published in 2010-2012 and then not anymore.
Graph 15: Total engagement per year
The highest level of engagement was in 2014 and then in 2020 (see Graph 15). The lowest level of engagement was in the first three years of the page’s activity.
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Graph 16: Average number of engagement per type of post in 2014
Due to a huge amount of data, it was only possible to get the average number of engagement for only one year. Since 2014 is the year with the highest level of engagement, this year was chosen. According to Graph 16, the highest levels of engagement are with videos and then photos. Users engage the most through reactions. Comments are the least preferred method of engagement.
Overall, findings show inconsistency in terms of activity and engagement. In particular, 2014 was the least fruitful year in terms of the total number of posts published. However, it was the year with the highest engagement level. The party published mostly visual type of content such as, video and photos.
4.4.2 Backlinks
The page revealed 20 results. The results show relatively different types of results, however all of them are local sources from Hungary. The most popular one is alfahir.hu (8 out of 20). The second most popular is merce.hu (2 out of 20). The rest of the sources are mentioned once only. Alfahir.hu is a national Hungarian online newspaper that serves the party’s political orientation: radical right (Szabo and Bene 139). All the sources are news platforms.
4.4.3 Text Analysis
This section is dedicated to text analysis of the most engaged posts from Jobbik’s Facebook page. The most engaged posts were created in 2014. All of them are photos.
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Type Comments Shares Reactions Total
1. photo 2464 2926 25953 31343
2. photo 956 826 19202 20984
3. photo 836 5300 13236 19372
4. photo 511 6861 10709 18081
5. photo 535 178 10666 11379
Table 4: Five most engaged posts (Jobbik)
The most popular post is a photo created on 28th of April 2019. It contains engagements, from which 2464 are comments; 2926 are shares and 25953 are reactions. The following message does not show clear elements of populism. The party thanks for the support of the voters. It shows confidence for winning the elections in 2018 and for being the strongest radical party in Europe, as argued by the authors of the post.
(1) “Gábor Vona: Thank you to those who believed in a better future and supported them with their votes, and to those who worked hard as activists in the campaign. Although our main goal, the completion of the last 24 years, has failed, we have achieved what few believed: a result of over 20%. We have increased our support, strengthened in Transdanubia and we are the strongest national radical party in Europe. Our conscience is clear: we ran a positive campaign, we only had a program and we didn’t get into mud throwing. I believe that a fair way of doing politics has a future in Hungary! Tomorrow we will learn the lessons, dust the dust and in 2018 we will win the election.” [Original: Vona Gábor: Köszönöm azoknak, akik hittek a szebb jövőben és szavazatukkal támogattak, és azoknak, akik aktivistaként keményen dolgoztak a kampányban. Bár fő célunk, az elmúlt 24 év lezárása nem sikerült, elértük azt, amit kevesen hittek: 20% feletti eredményt értünk el. Növeltük a támogatottságunkat, erősödtünk a Dunántúlon és mi vagyunk a legerősebb nemzeti radikális párt Európában. A lelkiismeretünk tiszta: pozitív kampányt folytattunk, egyedül nekünk volt programunk és nem szálltunk be a sárdobálásba. Hiszek abban, hogy a tisztességes politizálásnak van jövője Magyarországon! Holnap levonjuk a tanulságokat, leporoljuk a port és 2018-ban meg fogjuk nyerni a választásokat.]
The second post is a photo created on 7th of October 2019. It contains 956 comments, 826 shares and 19202 reactions. The following post calls people to express their right to vote:
(2) Did you vote? If you haven't already, you can do it until 7 p.m. [Original: Voltál szavazni? Ha még nem, este 7 óráig megteheted!]
The third post, created on 5th of April 2019 has 836 comments, 5300 shares, 13236 reactions. This post shows an “anti-elite” sentiment. The author criticized the politicians for being in a better position than the rest and for not being punished enough in that sense. If Jobbik comes
41 to power, they promise double punishment and confiscation of their wealth. Moreover, the author stresses how the party is part of ‘clean politics’ and calls people to vote for them.
(3) “If you steal and get caught, they shut down right away! What makes them different from you? Are you tired of politicians getting away with anything? For us too! STOPING POLITICAL CRIME! We will abolish immunity, give double punishment to political criminals and confiscate the illicit enrichment of top political and economic actors. On April 6, choose clean politics, choose Jobbik! “[Original: Ha Te lopsz és elkapnak, azonnal lecsuknak! Ők mitől különbek, mint Te? Eleged van abból, hogy a politikusok bármit megúszhatnak? Nekünk is! MEGÁLLÍTJUK A POLITIKUSBŰNÖZÉST! Eltöröljük a mentelmi jogot, dupla büntetést adunk a politikusbűnözőknek és vagyonelkobzással fogjuk sújtani a politikai és gazdasági csúcsszereplők törvénytelen meggazdagodását. Április 6-án válaszd a tiszta politikát, válaszd a Jobbikot!]
The fourth post, created on 5th of May 2019 contains 511 comments, 6861 shares and 10709 reactions. This post does not show any clear elements of populist communication. It asks men to share the picture for the purpose of Women's day holiday. In this way, the party makes use of Women's day to get more shares, thus more engagement. Sharing would allow other users of Facebook to see Jobbik‘s page, allowing for more potential followers.
(4) “Dear Ladies, We congratulate you with Women's Day! Dear Men, share this picture if you think Hungarian women are the most wonderful and don't forget to let them know! :)” [Original: Kedves Hölgyek, köszöntünk Benneteket nőnap alkalmából! Kedves Férfiak, osszátok meg ezt a képet, ha szerintetek is a magyar nők a legcsodásabbak és ne felejtsétek el ezt tudatni is velük! :)]
Lastly, the fifth post, created on 10th of February 2019 contains 535 comments; 178 shares and 10666 reactions. This is another message in which Jobbik asks people’s vote. It gives an example of how the prime ministerial candidate and his family expressed his vote already and encourages others to do so.
(5) Jobbik, the prime ministerial candidate, voted with his wife and little son in Gyöngyös, where he also ran individually. We’ve already won the campaign, and we want to surprise you in the evening. But it's up to you! Go and vote for the Jobbik candidate, list and try to convince as many of your friends as possible! [Original: A Jobbik miniszterelnök-jelöltje feleségével és kisfiával szavazott Gyöngyösön, ahol egyéniben is indul. A kampányt már megnyertük, este pedig szeretnénk meglepetést okozni. Ez azonban rajtad is múlik! Menj el és szavazz a Jobbik jelöltére, listájára és próbáld meg még minél több ismerősödet meggyőzni erről!]
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5. Discussion
5.1 Facebook as a Tool for Election Campaigning
In most of the cases analysed, the political parties’ activity and engagement level of Facebook correspond with the socio-political situation in the countries. In other words, the parties’ activity and engagement level rises on Facebook in the period of elections. Facebook proves to be an effective tool to raise awareness and attract a great number of voters for electoral campaigns. To answer the first sub-question: what explains high levels of activity and engagement during specific years? This paper analysed country-by-country’s political situation during specific years when their Facebook’s activity and engagement levels were higher and lower.
5.1.1 Party of Socialists in the Republic of Moldova
The first case to analyse is PSRM. The party existed in the political life of Moldova for over 20 years (E-democracy 2019). The party’s Facebook page was created in 2011, which corresponds to the year when Igor Dodon became the chairman of PSRM (E-democracy 2019). During 2014, the party was very active on their Facebook page (597 posts that year) (see Graph 1). 2014 was an important year for the party, since PSRM gained the majority of votes in the parliamentary elections that year (Soltes 5). In 2016, Igor Dodon was nominated the President of Moldova, the same year when the party’s Facebook page activity dropped significantly. The following years, the activity of the page grew slightly but never reached the same level of activity as in 2014.
Comparing the situation in the country and the Party’s Facebook page, it can be argued that PSRM was centred on the figure Igor Dodon. In 2014, when the Party gained most of the votes, but not enough to form a government and thus, remained in opposition, their activity was the most crucial. With effective and significant use of social media and other means, the former leader of the Party, Igor Dodon became the President of Moldova in 2016. The Party’s activity on Facebook is still important but not as important as it was in 2014, when the party was in opposition. That is most likely because the majority of the announcements, declaration are coming directly from the President, Igor Dodon and from his Facebook page.12 The Facebook page, Igor Dodon has much more followers (141,50713) on Facebook than the Party’s page (only 6,98214 followers).
12 Based on the information obtained from the Facebook page Igor Dodon, https://www.facebook.com/dodon.igor1/ 13 Data collected on 6th of May, 2020 (Facebook) 14 Data collected on 6th of May, 2020 (Facebook)
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In 2019, according to Graph 3, the Party’s Facebook page has the highest engagement level. 2019 was another important year for PSRM, because the Party got the majority of votes for the country’s parliamentary elections, namely 31.15% (Election Guide 2019). The opposition party got 26.84% of the votes (Election Guide 2019). That outcome caused the two parties to discuss the possibility of forming a coalition despite their diverging ideologies (Ziarul Național 2019). The fact that the event was highly mediatized and sparked a lot of attention from the population could explain the high level of engagement in 2019.
5.1.2 United Romania Party
The Party was founded in the year 2015, the same year when their Facebook page was created. During 2015 and 2016 the authors of the Facebook page were active on the social platform, reaching over 500 posts those years. The party's political journey coincides with their activity on Facebook. Prior to the legislative elections of 2016, the party was active on the social platform. After the disappointing election results however, the party’s activity on Facebook reduced almost completely, publishing only five posts in 2017 and zero posts in 2018. In 2019, the party’s activity on Facebook recovered, publishing 269 posts that year. That coincides again with European Parliament elections this time scheduled on 26th of May, 2019 (Politico 2020). The party lost again with a minimal amount of votes (Politico 2020). In 2020, the same story repeats as in 2017- 2018 when, as of yet, no more posts are seen on their Facebook page. It can be inferred from this that the political party uses Facebook strategically during and prior election times.
5.1.3 Confederation of Liberty and Independence
Confederation of Liberty and Independence is a young party established in 2019 in Poland. In early 2019, they established their Facebook page. Since then, they have been active on Facebook (585 posts in 2019) and (621 posts in 2020). In 2020, the party published more posts than 2019 even though the year has not yet finished. The highest level of activity since their entire time on Facebook was in the months of January, February and March 2020. The engagement level is similarly high in the months of 2020. It is shown that for the Confederation, their political journey has just begun. They are already more successful on Facebook, having over 350,000 followers already compared to their competitor, the governing party ‘Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc’ who have only over 270,000 followers.15 The Confederation managed in only one year and a few months to gain a greater number of followers than their competitor who have been active on Facebook since 2009.
15 Data collected on 20th April, 2020
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The political party was established in a convenient time to run for three types of elections, namely the 2019 parliamentary elections; 2019 European elections and the presidential elections planned on 10th of May 2020 (however postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic) (BBC 2020). Despite the fact that the party is new to Poland's political stage, the Confederation managed to already gain a decent amount of votes in the 2019 national and European elections, classified in the fifth and fourth place. The party has been active since the year they joined Facebook, publishing on average 3.06 posts per day (the highest number among other parties) (see Appendix A).
5.1.4 Jobbik
Jobbik has been present in the Hungarian political stage for 17 years already. On Facebook, they have been active since 2010. Jobbik has been relatively stable in terms of their activity on Facebook, reaching almost over 500 posts each year. On average, Jobbik posted 1.21 posts per day (see Appendix A). There are no years in which Jobbik had a significant drop or rise of content published on Facebook (see Graph 13). In 2011 and 2014, the political party had the least amount of posts published (over 440). However, it is not significant compared to other years.
The year when Jobbik’s page was created on Facebook coincides with 2010 Hungarian national elections, where Jobbik obtained 16% of votes and 47 seats, placing Jobbik in third place (Jobbik 2016). By analysing Graph 13, 2014 was definitely not the most active year of Jobbik on Facebook (only 442 posts), despite national and European elections happening that year. The engagement level however reached the highest amount in 2014 after years of considerably lower engagement levels. This could mean that Jobbik put more emphasis on the content itself rather than the quantity of posts published. The following years, the quantity of posts rose to almost 600 in 2016-2017. However, the engagement level dropped significantly. In 2018, when Jobbik participated in national elections of 2018, the engagement level on Facebook rose slightly but not as much as in 2014-2015. In 2019, Jobbik participated in European elections. That year Jobbik maintained nearly the same level of activity and engagement as in 2018.
5.2 Populist Communication on Facebook
In order to analyse populist communication on Facebook the following questions shall be addressed in this section (1) to what extent the cases analysed fit in the populist ideology? and (2) Building on Bennett and Segerberg’s argument, stating that digital forms of expression provide more personal forms of expression and engagement (52), the question is whether the analysed parties circumvent traditional forms of expression and appeal instead to a more personalised form of expression? Populist communication varies according to different cases. Despite Engesser et
45 al.’s argument, being that social media gives politicians more freedom for the use of strong language when attacking the elites and criticising others (1123) not every party engages in a more personalised form of expression.
PSRM does not use strong language of populist communication. The style of writing is clear and correctly written, without grammatical errors. The content is easy to understand due to no errors and short clear texts. Facebook allows content to be edited anytime for as many times as needed. This is a benefit of social media, because it allows politicians to craft their message accurately in order to target the right audience. Unlike the Confederation, PSRM does not use hashtags for making their content more visible on the platform. Also, the party does not use emotive language and capitalisation of words to spark reactions and engagement. Most of the posts published by PSRM are official statements similar to those commonly presented on television or political newspapers.
Most of the elements of populism were found in the case of Romania. Most of the posts have long texts compared to the other cases analysed. A mixture of different populist elements can be seen, especially ‘the heartland’, but also perceiving the other as a threat, and representation of the people. Most of the texts invoke an ethno-nationalistic perspective, the author(s) shows a strong connection with the history of Romania and its past, and often contemplates about bringing back the Romania from the past. The symbol, Vlad the Impaler is emphasised as well, showing respect towards a ruler from past Romania who was very cruel towards his enemies. The party has a straightforward ideology, and they show that explicitly in their messages - they want to live in Romania free from other minorities like the Roma and the Hungarians. While other parties are more reserved in their radical speech, the United Romania Party is not. The style of writing does not present errors of language and is usually clear with some exceptions. In the longest post, the message is difficult to follow due to the fact that the author criticises many different issues with the Romanian system. There are a lot of interrogations, exclamatory sentences and capitalisations of words for the purpose of emphasis. This causes the content to appear more intense and emotional. It is understood by this that the author tries to spark reactions from the audience and influence their thoughts and emotions. Their posts involve issues that people can connect with on a more personal level. Populists make use of Facebook in that sense to share strong, emotive language without a strict word limit. In URP’s case, the author(s) go beyond formal forms of speech, which are usually seen on television or newspapers.
The greatest amount of populist communication, after URP was found in the posts of the Confederation. The Confederation blames the current political power for having poor economic measures, especially the tax policy, which they describe as “absurd and harmful”. The party focuses considerably on the economic measures undertaken by PiS during the pandemic,
46 criticising them for working not in the interest of the citizens “it is about the future of the entire Polish economy, it is about millions of Poles.” Overall, the messages are long, detailed, critical and even obnoxious. Capitalisation of words is used as well for the purpose of emphasis. Similarly to the case of Romania, the messages of the Confederation are provocative and emotionally charged. The Confederation uses Facebook to express their dissatisfaction with the ruling party of Poland by using strong, emotive language aimed at influencing and appealing to their audience. In this case, the party discusses issues that connect with others on a more personal level, escaping in that sense traditional forms of expression.
Populist communication is present but minimal in the case of Jobbik. Overall, the posts are medium in terms of word count compared to other countries. The most common element is the ‘anti-elite’ sentiment. This is understandable since Jobbik is not the ruling party in Hungary at the moment. Although Jobbik criticises other politicians, they do not mention their names or names of the party. The party abstains from radical speech on Facebook. This could be a strategy that Jobbik uses in order to target a larger audience. Most of Jobbik's messages encourage people to vote or thank the population for expressing their vote. They use capitalisation of words for emphasis but not as much as the United Romania Party and the Confederation. The party does not use hashtags, but it encourages the users to share their content in order to get more engagement and views.
Building on Bennett and Segerberg, radical right populists are benefiting from the affordances of social media due to the fact that communication is more personalised (27). Engesser et al. argued that social media gives populists the freedom for a stronger language use when criticising the elites and minority groups (1123). This is certainly happening for some parties analysed in this project, such as URP, Jobbik and the Confederation. The use of social media encourages these political actors to craft a stronger and extremist message that certainly appeals to some categories of people who share the same ideas and beliefs. In the case of PSRM however, this is not entirely the case. PSRM uses similar tone and word choice to that of traditional media. This could be explained by the fact that PSRM is the governing party and thus, they do not engage as much in criticising other political elites. More than that, it seems that PSRM does not encourage or strongly encourage any form of action or influence particular beliefs. Therefore, it can be inferred from this that generally populism can benefit from the social media, but it does not have to be the case always. A more nuanced analysis is therefore required for every single case.
By analysing different cases it could be argued that populists spread a fragmented ideology on social media, as demonstrated by Engesser et al. (2017). Considering the ‘thin’ and ‘chameleonic’ nature of populism, it is sophisticated to identify specific elements of populist
47 communication on social media (Engesser et al. 6) as it is difficult to conceptualise populism as an ideology itself (Stanley 106). Some parties use strong, emotional language to appeal to the audience. Other parties prefer a clearer and a more straightforward style of communication. Some parties write long messages in order to make full use of Facebook’s capacity of lenient word count. All in all, the results are mixed depending on the party and the goal they wish to pursue.
Limited moderation of content is what makes self-expression, including political expression different from traditional forms of media, and hence more powerful. Moreover, benefiting from freedom of speech on social media, far right populists often engage in strong and emotional language to appeal to the audience who they are trying to reach. Through strong and emotional language it is easier and more effective to connect with other people and persuade them for action. This is one of the reasons that makes social media such a powerful tool for many political actors, as a lot of radical, and sometimes dangerous messages circulate in it, persuading action that can generate significant socio-political consequences for the world. Moreover, this is why Facebook is criticised as a platform for spreading fake news and disinformation (Peeters and Rogers 32). Enabling freedom of expression with limited filtration of information from above provides access to the spread of propaganda, which in many cases is difficult to determine.
5.3 Post types influence Engagement Levels
Statuses containing text only seems to not be the most preferred type of post published by the parties analysed. In fact, most of the parties prefer posting visual types of content, such as videos and photos. According to the literature analysed (see Peters 2019; Moeller 2019; Sabate et al. 2014; Bonson et al. 2015) it has been argued that post categories influence engagement levels, and that specifically, images and videos perform the best on social media.
In the case of PSRM, the most published type of content are links (see Graph 2). In 2018, however, the political party’s Facebook page accommodated the demands of the audience and started posting more images. In 2019, more images and videos were published. Accordingly, the party’s Facebook page experienced a rise in engagement levels in 2018, and especially in 2019 (see Graph 3). People tend to engage more with videos and photos and less with links and status types in the case of PSRM, as shown in Graph 4. It can be argued therefore that post categories influence the engagement level in this case. Moreover, the hypothesis that visual types of content, such as images and videos are the categories that perform the best in terms of engagement level is true in this case.
In the case of URP, the party’s Facebook recurred to a more balanced way of posting different types of content rather than specific types. For example, in 2015 the party posted more videos, while in 2016 the party posted more links (see Graph 6). In 2019 however, more images
48 and videos were published. The audience of URP recorded a higher level of engagement with photos, despite the fact that photos are not the most published type of content for URP. In this case, it seems that the party does strategically accommodate the preferences of its audience in terms of post categories.
The smartest party in strategic posting seems to be The Confederation. The following party has posted significantly videos and photos types of content (see Graph 10). The party’s audience does indeed engage with videos and photos more than with other types of content. The engagement level has risen in 2020 significantly as well (see Graph 11), although that could be a result of a greater number of posts published that year (see Graph 9). In this case, it looks like the party very well accommodates the preferences of its audience by posting content that reaches high levels of engagement.
The next case, Jobbik shows similar patterns as The Confederation. In the first three years of activity (2010, 2011, and 2012) more links were published (see Graph 14). The situation changed however in the following years. In 2013-2017 more photos were published than other types of content. In 2018, more videos were published and in the years after, more photos were published again. Similarly to the other cases, Jobbik’s audience engages with videos and photos the most (see Graph 16). In Graph 15, it can be seen how the audience engaged very little in the first three years of Jobbik’s activity (the years when Jobbik posted mostly links). In the years after, the engagement levels rose significantly, when the party started posting more visual types of content. Thus, in Jobbik’s case it can be argued again that post categories influences the audience’s engagement and that visual types of content (images and videos) are performing the best.
The Polish party The Confederation and the Hungarian party Jobbik appear to be the smartest in raising engagement levels by posting more visual content that attracts the audience. According to numerous studies exploring the effects of post categories on user engagement, it has been found that indeed photos and videos are the most effective. This finding has been confirmed for the analysed case studies. The fact that photos lead to high engagements could be explained by the fact that they are easier and faster to absorb (Sabate et al. 1008). However, a more detailed image and video analysis is necessary in order to determine the precise reasons why photos and videos remain to be effective on social media. Although image analysis was not part of this project, it remains a topic worth considering for further research.
In terms of the method of engagement, in all the cases analysed users prefer reacting over commenting and sharing (see Graph 4; Graph 8; Graph 12 and Graph 16). This can be
49 explained by the fact that reacting requires less time and effort than commenting and sharing (Sabate et al. 1008).
5.4 The Role of External Sources and Filter Bubbles
Most politicians use Facebook as a cross-media platform for spreading information. From the cases analysed, the greatest amount of backlinks was in the case of PSRM (336 results in total). In the case of PSRM, most of the sources are from socialistii.md (233 out of 236) which is also the party’s official website. The party’s official website socialistii.md is also a news platform, where readers can find information on various topics. All the information that users can find on their website shows the party only in a positive image such as, policies implemented for the population; certain victories and achievements of the party and criticism towards other political parties (Socialistii.md). In order to increase their audience, they share the information from socialistii.md on Facebook. Similarly, the Confederation publishes a significant amount of content on Facebook from the party’s official website konfederacja.net. Sharing information on Facebook from the official website is an effective tool for spreading propaganda to a wider audience. When websites link to others, search engines perceive that as a sign of quality and authority and thus give it higher ranking (Moeller 2019). The more backlinks are earned by a website, the more success that website will achieve on search engine rankings (Moeller 2019). PSRM and the Confederation’s cases rely almost exclusively on their own sources of information. They manipulate search results by only posting links to their own website through the platform of Facebook. Creating engagement with these posts on Facebook (especially shares) results in more backlinks to their own website, thus Google perceives that website with more authority. This means that their website is shown more prominently in search results.
Furthermore, the Polish party, the Confederation contains a number of dubious and even somewhat eccentric sites that act as ‘political blogs’, forums. Some of them offer the possibility to join groups that follow very specific ideologies. On these sites, people write opinions on various topics and influence others on controversial topics (see Appendix B for the list of backlinks). Similarly, the URP’s page backlinks contain two unconventional and personal types of websites.
The least amount of backlinks have URP (only 2) and Jobbik (20 in total). Neither of them share information from their official website. In all the cases, the parties’ backlinks are national sources. There is one exception in the case of the Confederation that uses one international source, namely britishpoles.uk. The fact that most parties use the same website multiple times and mostly from sites that benefit their position and reputation strengthens the idea that the parties seek and reinforce connections only with the “like-minded”. Thereby, the network built from external links are co-existing in a ‘filter bubble’, where similar ideas and beliefs dominate. These
50 filter bubbles are created as a result of parties’ selection of sources that match their interest, thus reinforcing their propagandistic agenda. The personal types of websites such as forums, blogs, and groups contribute to the logic of connective action as the content of these sites is more personal. The author(s) of the parties’ pages adopt these ideas and make them their own when they post on their own Facebook pages. Moreover, other people will see these sites on the parties’ Facebook pages and if they share the same ideas and beliefs they could share these links further on the internet. 6. Conclusion
In a world in which digitisation is spreading fast, reliance on digital technologies has never been so accentuated. Conventional forms of doing politics are changing in times where everything switches to the online environment. The study of political behaviour online becomes essential nowadays. The purpose of this paper was to study how populist parties in the Eastern European region make use of social media, Facebook to spread their ideology. The countries analysed in this research were Moldova (PSRM), Romania (URP), Poland (The Confederation) and Hungary (Jobbik). This thesis worked with digital methods in order to gather data from Facebook concerning the party’s activity, engagement levels, posts and backlinks. Additionally, this paper engaged in qualitative text analysis to better understand populist communication on Facebook.
The first part of the analysis dealt with the parties’ activity on Facebook. The findings showed that in some years a greater number of content is published more than in other years. To understand why, this paper analysed the socio-political situation in the countries during the specific years. It has been found that all parties use Facebook more actively during and prior elections. As an effect, Facebook is used effectively as a tool for election campaigning.
The second part, performed a text analysis of the first five most engaged posts in order to better understand populist communication on Facebook. The results were different in each case. In particular, for some parties, the communication contains more elements of populist speech than others. In some cases, like the URP and the Confederation, the language and style of communication is more radical and demagogic. In the case of Jobbik and PSRM, the parties use a more formal language of communication, with minimal use of populist elements. Despite different styles of communication, politicians benefit from more freedom of self-expression on Facebook, bypassing traditional forms of media where the content is more regulated. Personalised content enabled by social media allows for an easier and more effective connection with people, as argued by Bennett and Segerberg (2012).
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The third part analysed the effectiveness of post types. The findings have shown that post types affect the engagement levels. In particular, visual content, such as photos and videos perform better in gaining engagement. The analysis of the parties’ engagement levels showed that some political parties are more “platform-smart” in their usage than others. For example, the Confederation and Jobbik are particularly smarter in publishing more photos and videos, thus increasing their engagement level of posts.
Last but not least, the last part of the analysis explored the role of backlinks. It has been found that some parties (PSRM) make use of backlinks to increase their popularity through search engines rankings. Some use it less (URP). The majority are national sources, and most of the sources are benefiting their position and image, which play a role in reinforcing their propagandistic agenda.
Social media is a detrimental factor in the parties’ spread of ideology and overall success as a political party. In times where most of the information is created and consumed online, this is especially the case. Facebook is a useful source to study about parties’ behaviour and beliefs. Important conclusions can be drawn from the parties’ use of different sources, from the study of their texts and overall activity and engagement levels. Moreover, the study of populists on social media poses important questions, such as: what does it mean to be a populist nowadays? Or, how does social media challenge the concept of populism? The thin ideology of populist and the divergent results of the cases analysed showed that this is not so easy to determine. The “chameleonic” nature of populism’s definition, which changes with its context, makes it difficult to find a common pattern. It is however crucial to continue studying radical right and right-wing populism on social media as this leads to another important question: does Facebook pose a threat to democracy through the spread of far-right propaganda? Another conclusion drawn from the findings highlight that Facebook should not be seen as the only factor contributing to the parties’ success. As argued by Chadwick (2013), politicians’ practices should be rather explored through the hybrid use of media systems. Studying populists’ use of social media is rather limited. Therefore, further research is required including other types of media.
The contribution of this paper was to study the role of social media in enabling right-wing propaganda in the Central/Eastern European region. Various scholarly articles studied social media and right wing populism in the West, however the Central/Eastern European region remained greatly understudied considering the subject is relatively new. Moreover, this study worked with quantitative-qualitative analysis, linking the research findings with various theories and scholarly articles from different fields such as political communication and political science, but also fields from social media marketing and management. Working with a variety of methods and theories provided a more holistic perspective to the research study.
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To this end, there are numerous possibilities to study how populists use social media. This paper engaged in a mix of qualitative-quantitative approach to get a general understanding of the use of social media by populists in Central/Eastern Europe. Logically, the framework of the research study was subject to certain limitations. As this paper engaged in text analysis, a more nuanced analysis is necessary for analysing visual types of content, such as images and videos. This thesis was limited to the analysis of text only despite the fact most of the posts published by the parties contain photos and videos. Image analysis is a growing field in social media analysis, various works are looking at the role of memes, emoji GIF etc. (see Lamerichs et al. 2018; Haleva- Amir and Nahon 2015). Lastly, in order to get a better awareness on populist behaviour online, further research could investigate the role of hashtags in spreading content on social media (see Kramer 2017). As the study of populism on social media is still a young field, further research is desirable in Central/Eastern Europe and other regions which are similarly understudied.
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8. Appendix
Appendix A: The average number of posts published per day throughout the years per country
Appendix B: For the data including all the case-studies (including the list of backlinks and graphs) see the attached files or access the links below:
1. Moldova (PSRM)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b2fu_UIwj3jz- itVSQ2IiUflXmUnPa_qHAR62mtHP5M/edit#gid=378902599
2. Romania (URP)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JS79IL9xO838dV_jrFyEwlwADhtTUsbapthxm CfKdVM/edit#gid=900078415
3. Poland (The Confederation)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WpNavEK59gjAFe0dVimogbyOrGLlcPKiGb83 724yNAs/edit#gid=883517411
4. Hungary (Jobbik)
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g3c5GC8A3mvQAQF8md0mWanl43o8Fzkqbo dU5tBleao/edit#gid=900078415
64