European Far right on Twitter. Analysis of the digital communicative strategy of Vox and Lega during the 2014 and 2019 European elections

Over the last 15 years, the image of the European Union (EU) has been severely weakened. Following the so-called polycrisis - the euro crisis (2008), the refugee crisis (2015) and Brexit (2016) - the supranational organisation is facing the significant rise of Eurosceptic and populist, predominantly right-wing parties that have emerged in its member states. Among them, Lega in Italy or Vox in Spain demonstrate such an upward trend through the results obtained after the European election campaigns of 2014 and, in particular, 2019. This research sought to analyse the digital communication plans of both parties, reflected in their activity on social networks, more specifically on Twitter, over these electoral periods, in which they shifted the xenophobic nature of their messages towards a patriotic and nationalist approach. With this aim, by means of a mixed quantitative/qualitative analysis methodology, the 1,111 tweets that the Italian party and the 351 that the Spanish party (N total of 1,462 tweets) published from their respective accounts during the last European election campaigns were analysed. In conclusion, the results point to: a professionalisation of digital communication mechanisms by both extreme rightwing parties; achieving greater participation and interaction from their followers, thanks to a more mobilising/populist rather than ideological message, developed in a clearly national key; which renders it impossible for them to be incorporated into the pan-European public sphere.