Examining the populist communication logic: Strategic use of social media in populist political parties in Norway and Sweden

Authors

  • Bente Kalsnes Oslo Metropolitan University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.19195/1899-5101.12.2(23).5

Keywords:

social media, political communication, populism, election, Norway, Sweden

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that right-wing populist parties are particularly successful in gaining engagement and interaction on social media, but less is known about how rightwing populist parties use social media strategically, both in relation to voters and news media. By focusing on two Nordic countries, Norway and Sweden, this paper addresses the strategic use of social media within the Sweden Democrats and the Progress Party based on three different data sets: interviews, content analysis of Facebook posts, and engagement data from the parties’ Facebook pages. This study finds that the two populist parties basically follow up their social media strategy in practice, and the Sweden Democrats are more closely following a populist communication logic in their Facebook posts. The article argues that right-wing populist parties’ social media strategy and communication style must be understood in relation to their position in the political system and the parties’ different phases in the life cycle model of populist parties.

Author Biography

Bente Kalsnes, Oslo Metropolitan University

Bente Kalsnes is an associate professor at the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at OsloMet — Oslo Metropolitan University. Her main research areas are media innovation, social media, political communication and information disorder. She received her PhD from the University of Oslo with the dissertation “The power of likes: Social media logic and political communication” (2016).

References

Aalberg, T., Esser, T., Reinemann, C., Strömbäck, J., & de Vreese, C. (Eds.). (2017). Populist political communication in Europe. New York: Routledge.

Aardal, B., Krogstad, A., & Narud, H. M. (Eds.). (2004). I valgkampens hete. Strategisk kommunikasjon og politisk usikkerhet [In the heat of the election campaign. Strategic communication and political uncertainty]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Albertazzi, D., & McDonnell, D. (2008). Introduction: A new spectre for Western Europe. In D. Albertazzi & D. McDonnell (Eds.). Twenty-first century populism: The spectre of Western European democracy (pp. 1–11). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bjørgo, T., & Gjelsvik, I.M. (2015). Forskning på forbygging av radikalisering og voldelig ekstremisme: En kunnskapsstatus [Research of prevention of radicalization and violent extremism: A research review]. Oslo: Politihøyskolen. Retrieved February 2, 2018, from https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/dc64dbc441bc4a4db25f320eadd0d131/080615-forskning-pa-forebygging-av-radikalisering.pdf.

Boyd, D. (2010). Social network sites as networked publics: Affordances, dynamics, and implications. In Z. Papacharissi (Ed.), Networked self: Identity, community, and culture on social network sites (pp. 39–58). New York: Routledge.

Canovan, M. (1999). Trust the people! Populism and the two faces of democracy. Political Studies, 47(1), 2–16.

Chadwick, A. (2013). The hybrid media system: Politics and power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Engesser, S., Ernst, N., Esser, F., & Büchel, F. (2016). Populism and social media: How politicians spread a fragmented ideology. Journal of Information, Communication & Society, 20(8), 1109–1126.

Engesser, S., Fawzi, N., & Larsson, A. O. (2017). Populist online communication: Introduction to the special issue. Information, Communication & Society, 20(9), 1279–1292.

Enjolras, B., Karlsen, R., & Steen-Johnsen, K., (2013). Liker, Liker Ikke [Like, dislike]. Oslo: Cappelen Damm.

Enli, G. S., & Skogerbø, E. (2013). Personalized campaigns in party-centred politics. Information, Communication & Society, 16(5), 757–774.

Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to visual perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Haanshuus, B. P., & Jupskås, A. R. (2017). Høyreklikk! En analyse av ytre høyre på sosiale medier i Norge [Right click! An analysis of the right wing on social media in Norway]. Tidsskrift for samfunnsforskning, 58(2), 145–165. doi: 10.18261/issn.1504-291X-2017-02-01

Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (2004). Comparing media systems: Three models of media and politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Herkman, J. (2015). The life cycle model and press coverage of Nordic populist parties. Journalism Studies, 18(4), 1–19.

Ihlebæk, K., Kalsnes, B., & Simonsen, C. (unpublished work). Discussing immigration on social media: A study of politicians’ facebook-pages during the migration crisis.

Jagers, J., & Walgrave, S. (2007). Populism as political communication style: An empirical study of political parties’ discourse in Belgium. European Journal of Political Research, 46, 319–345.

Jungar, A.-C., & Jupskås, A. R. (2014). Populist radical right parties in the Nordic region: A new and distinct party family? Scandinavian Political Studies, 37, 215–238.

Jupskås, A., Ivarsflaten, E., Kalsnes, B., & Aalberg, T. (2017). Norway: Populism from anti-tax movement to government party. In T. Aalberg, F. Esser, C. Reinemann, J. Strömbäck, & C. de Vreese (Eds.), Populist political communication in Europe (pp. 54–67). New York: Routledge.

Kalsnes, B. (2016a). The power of likes: Social media logic and political communication. Dissertation at University of Oslo.

Kalsnes, B. (2016b). The social media paradox explained: Comparing political parties’ Facebook strategy vs. practice. Social Media & Society, 15(2), 765–781.

Kalsnes, B., & Larsson, A. O. (2015). Med makt til å like? Sosiale medier og politisk kommunikasjon. In Ø. Ihlen, E. Skogerbø, & S. Allern (Eds.), Makt, medier og politikk: Norsk politisk kommunikasjon [Power, media and politics: Norwegian political communication] (pp. 219–232). Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.

Klinger, U. (2013). Mastering the art of social media. Information, Communication & Society, 16(5), 717–736.

Koc-Michalska, K., Lilleker, D. G., & Vedel, T. (2016). Civic political engagement and social change in the new digital age. New Media & Society, 18(9), 1807–1816.

Kreiss, D. (2012). Taking our country back. New York: Oxford University Press.

Larsson, A. O. (2017). Going viral? Comparing parties on social media during the 2014 Swedish election. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 23(2), 117–131.

Larsson, A. O., & Kalsnes, B. (2014). “Of course we are on Facebook”: Use and non-use of social media among Swedish and Norwegian politicians. European Journal of Communication, 29(6), 653–667.

Lorentzen, D. G. (2014). Polarisation in political Twitter conversations. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 66(3), 329–341.

Mazzoleni, M. (2014). Mediatization and political populism. In F. Esser & J. Strömbäck (Eds.), Mediatization of politics: Understanding the transformation of Western democracies (pp. 42–57). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Mudde, C. (2004). The populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39, 542–563.

Mudde, C., & Kaltwasser, C. R. (2017). Populism: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Raknes, K. (2012). Høyrepopulismens hemmeligheter [The secrets of right-wing populism]. Oslo: Spartacus.

Reinemann, C., Aalberg, T., Esser, F., Strömbäck, J., & de Vreese, C. H. (2017). Populist political communication: Toward a model of its causes, forms, and effects. In T. Aalberg, F. Esser, C. Reinemann, J. Strömbäck, & C. de Vreese (Eds.), Populist political communication in Europe (pp. 12–25). New York: Routledge.

Stewart, J., Mazzoleni, G., & Horsfield, B. (2003). Power to the media managers. In G. Mazzoleni, J. Stewart, & B. Horsfield (Eds.), The media and neo-populism: A comparative analysis (pp. 217– 239). London: Praeger.

Strömbäck, J., Jungar, A. C., & Dahlberg, S. (2017). Sweden: No longer a European exception. In T. Aalberg, F. Esser, C. Reinemann, J. Strömbäck, & C. de Vreese (Eds.), Populist political communication in Europe (pp. 68–81). New York: Routledge.

Strömbäck, J., Ørsten, M., & Aalberg, T. (2008). Communicating politics: Political communication in the Nordic countries. Göteborg: Nordicom.

Skogerbø, E., & Krumsvik, A. H. (2015). Newspapers, Facebook and Twitter. Journalism Practice, 9(3), 1–17.

Swedish Migration Agency. (2018). Migration to Sweden. Retrieved November 10, 2018, from https://www.migrationsverket.se/English/About-the-Migration-Agency/Migration-to-Sweden/History.html.

TNS Gallup. (2016). Sosiale medier er blitt viktige i nordmenns kundereiser [Social media has become important for Norwegian customers]. Retrieved May 10, 2017, from https://kantar.no/kantar-tns-innsikt/sosiale-medier-er-blitt-viktige-i-nordmenns-kundereiser/.

UiO. (2013). Extract status-posts and comments from public Facebook pages. Retrieved September 10–11, 2013, from http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/forskning/kvalitativ/fb_loader/.

Downloads

Published

2019-07-23

How to Cite

Kalsnes, B. (2019). Examining the populist communication logic: Strategic use of social media in populist political parties in Norway and Sweden . Central European Journal of Communication, 12(2(23), 187-205. https://doi.org/10.19195/1899-5101.12.2(23).5