Transnational issue agendas of the radical right? Parties’ Facebook campaign communication in six countries during the 2019 European Parliament election

Abstract

In this study, we investigate to what degree radical right parties use social media for pushing a common issue agenda to mobilise voters on a pan-European scale. Using the 2019 European Parliament (EP) election as a case, we analysed radical right parties’ campaign agendas in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Sweden and identified the transnationally shared issue repertoire in their Facebook communication. Based on the structural topic modelling we used for analysis, our results reveal a set of shared issues – immigration and blaming elites –which are typical of the populist core of those parties. Moreover, all parties use social media to draw attention to the election itself. While radical right parties mobilise their voters based on a transnationally recurring set of shared issues, national political opportunity structures account for party-specific topics and national adaptations of shared issues in their campaigns on Facebook.