Populism on the move

Analysis of the circulation of the words populismo(s) and populista(s) on the Twitter accounts of the main political parties and leaders in Spain

Abstract

This article focuses on the digital political discourse containing the words populista(s), and populist(s) (henceforth, populis*) in Spain in 2019. We analyse the circulation of populis* on the Twitter accounts of the main Spanish political parties and leaders. We focus on the circulation of information (López Meri, 2015; Alloing and Vanderbiest, 2018) between arenas of public discussion (Jasper, 2019; Badouard et al., 2016). First, we analyse whether Twitter is used to produce original uses of populis* or if it rather works as a platform to replicate uses produced in other arenas. Secondly, for the circulated uses, we analyse the sources in which the word was originally employed, as well as the actors whose uses of populis* were circulated. Our data show (i) that Twitter primarily served for circulating messages from other arenas, and (ii) a strong ideological homophily, with parties and leaders mostly circulating messages produced by likeminded actors.

Keywords: circulation, populism, Twitter, Spain