The 2019 European Elections on Twitter between Populism, Euroscepticism and Nationalism: The Case of Italy

From Firenze University Press Journal: SocietàMutamentoPolitica

Carlo Berti,

Enzo Loner

The 2019 European Parliament (EP) elections marked an unprecedented success of Eurosceptic and populist political forces all over Europe, as symbolized by the results of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party in the UK (30.74%), Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National in France (23.31%), and Matteo Salvini’s League in Italy (34.33%). Already in 2014, EP elections showed an increasing support for Eurosceptic and populist parties, which was linked to a widespread dissatisfaction with EU politics and policies (Treib 2014) and the disenchantment towards European integration (Ruzza 2019).

EP elections have often been defined second-order elections, being considered by voters less important than national elections (Hix and Marsh 2011; Reiff and Schmitt 1980; Schmitt 2005), with electoral campaigns and voters’ behaviour often driven by national rather than transnational issues (Kunelius and Sparks 2001; Hix and Marsh 2007). The analysis of what topics and issues drive EP elections is part of a broader debate surrounding the normative qualities and empiri-cal expressions of a European public sphere. At first, the discussion over the existence of a European public sphere largely focused on a traditional mass-mediated communication environment, with empirical studies generally investigating the press and television news (e.g. Semetko and Valkenburg 2000; van de Steeg 2002; Trenz 2004). Likewise, the theoretical debate concentrated on the potential emergence of a European public sphere through transnational media systems.

For instance, Ward (2001) argued that the European Union (EU) democratic deficit included a lack of efficient communicative action, especially in terms of access to information and public debate about the EU and its functioning. Moreover, by looking at the emergence of a supranational press focused on European issues, Schlesinger (1999) argued that this new European public sphere was essentially elitist (a position that found empirical evidence in such works as Kantola 2001, and Trenz 2004).Several empirical analyses focused on traditional mass-media highlighted that, rather than a genuinely supranational or transnational European public sphere, the main tendencies are towards either a Europeanization of national public spheres (Koopmans and Erbe 2004), or a national spin given to European issues (such as the introduction of the euro, as seen in Semetko, de Vreese and Peter 2000).

Overall, the development of the European public sphere seems to happen along the lines of a parallelization of different national public spheres debating on issues of European relevance without generating a common public sphere (Nulty et al. 2016; Kriesi and Grande 2015).However, academic interest recently shifted towards the influence of online communication on the evolution of a European public sphere, focusing initially on the general use of the internet and websites (e.g. van Os, Jankowski and Vergeer 2007; Vergeer, Hermans and Cunha 2013), and later on such social media as Facebook and Twitter (e.g. Krzyzanowski 2018; Larsson 2015). In a comparative study over the use of internet websites during the 2004 EP elections, van Os, Jankowski and Vergeer (2007) concluded that there were indicators of the existence of a European public sphere, while Larsson (2015) examined the use of Twitter by the EP outside of elections periods, monitoring the development of the use of social media platforms for communicating about European issues.

Nulty et al. (2016) analysed the 2014 EP elections campaign on Twitter and found evidence of a parallelization of the discussion over EU issues, rath-er than of a transnational public sphere: this suggests that social media do not differ substantially from tradional media in their contribution to a European public sphere. Research on the coverage of EP election in such national contexts as Germany (Schweitzer 2009), Spain, and Portugal (Amaral et al. 2016) confirm difficulties in generating a transnational debate and a general tendency of political actors to focus on national issues (or frame European issues in national terms) on both websites and social media.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13128/smp-12654

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