The ‘More is more’ effect: a comparative analysis of the political agenda and the strategy on Twitter of the European populist parties

Abstract

The populist phenomenon has grown during the last few decades in many Western European democracies. In this context, previous literature argues that populists take advantage of the use of social media such as Twitter to introduce their own messages into society. The aim of this research is to comprehend the political agenda posed by European populist political parties on Twitter, as well as the strategy that they used and the interaction from users that their tweets obtained. To do this the messages shared by Podemos, Movimento 5 Stelle, Front National and UKIP during three time periods on Twitter have been studied. A sum of 6,780 tweets has been analysed. The main findings show how ideological axes condition the agenda, and that a ‘more is more’ effect has been observed in which the number of messages achieved a multiplier effect in the responses of the users.