Veronika Koller

Ljiljana Šarić

Laura Filardo-Llamas

Marlene Miglbauer

Massimiliano Demata

Natalia Borza

Anna W. Gustafsson

Susanne Kopf

Valeria Reggi

Charlotta Seiler Brylla

Maria Stopfner

This book addresses an under-researched area within populism studies: the discourse of supporters of populist parties. Taking the 2019 European elections as their case study, the authors analyse how supporters in eleven different countries construct identities and voting motivations on social media. The individual chapters comprise a range of methods to investigate data from different social media platforms, defining populism as a political strategy and/or practice, realised in discourse, that is based on a dichotomy between “the people”, who are unified by their will, and an out-group whose actions are not in the interest of the people, with a leader safeguarding the interests of the people against the out-group. The book identifies what motivates people to vote for populist parties, what role national identities and values play in those motivations, and how the social media postings of populist parties are recontextualised in supporters’ comments to serve as a voting motivation.

Populist parties, social media and the 2019 European elections

Voices of Supporters

Susanne Kopf

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