1. Introduction
The impact of the last United States (US) presidential elections on world geopolitics were unprecedented. The face-to-face debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden as candidates was the starting point of a campaign marked by polarization and conflict (
Neudert and Marchal 2019). The assault on the Capitol (January 2021), carried out by extremist groups linked to the Republican party (
The New York Times 2021), and the judicial impeachment process against Trump (February 2021) are consequences of populist rhetoric that mobilized citizens through social networks.
In the context of a global institutional crisis of democracy (
Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018), reinforced by the breakthrough of COVID-19, some authors sought to find causes in factors such as platformization (
Smyrnaios and Rebillard 2019) or the lack of regularization of data brokers. Algorithms and bots are used for manipulation and computational propaganda (
Woolley and Howard 2017). This practice fosters the uncontrolled dissemination of fake news in political processes (
Powers and Kounalakis 2017). In line with this premise, social media contribute to the spread of disinformation (
Rivas-de-Roca et al. 2020), but it is also necessary to consider other variables, such as the influence of populism, assessed as a persuasion tool through language (
Fuentes Rodríguez 2020).
The 2016 electoral campaign in the US already provided evidence on Trump’s effectiveness at carrying out storytelling through Twitter-based strategies of far-right populism (
Pérez-Curiel and Limón-Naharro 2019). He developed an opposite position to globalization, integration, and establishment policies (
Mudde 2016), supranational entities such as the European Union (
Mammone 2009), and immigrants, refugees, and the Muslim culture (
Wodak 2015;
Fuchs 2017). In the 2020 elections, leaders of populist parties in Europe and around the world retweeted Trump’s messages on their Twitter accounts. Marine Le Pen (France), Matteo Salvini (Italy), Santiago Abascal (Spain), and Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil) concurred with Trump’s theories of conspiracy and fraud (
Fajardo-Trigueros and Rivas-de-Roca 2020), denying the legitimacy of the election results. Some of the leaders belong to different political families, but they have in common an aggressive rhetoric defending the interests of the “people” against the elite (
Acemoglu et al. 2013).
A scenario where there is a great level of disinformation was generated. International organizations (
European Commission 2018), together with social platforms (Facebook, Google, and Twitter), warned of a problem which, in 2018, was considered a threat to democracy by 83% of Europeans. They were highly concerned about the increase in online fake news during electoral periods (
EUvsDisinfo 2018). As public opinion polls confirm, “6 out of 10 Americans believe that Biden legitimately won the election. But 7 out of 10 Republicans affirm that he was not legitimately elected” (
Washington Post-ABC 2020). This is an indicator of distrust of voters towards institutions (
Waisbord 2018).
As an open research question, we seek to know the narratives used by populist leaders. Bearing this in mind, it is also essential to check the practices of the media. Far from fighting disinformation, press coverage showed elements of fallacy and propaganda typical of far-right populism (
Carlson 2017;
Bennett and Pfetsch 2018), specifically by applying a critical bias to politicians. The objective of this study was to determine the impact and influence of Trump’s speech during the US elections on the leaders of extreme right-wing populism countries, analyzing their issues (issue frame), strategies (game frame), and rhetorical marks of disinformation. We also explore the information bias of the press in each country based on the selection of topics and the journalistic treatment of tweets published by the leaders. The focus on right-ring populism is based on its huge use of social media and the impact on the public sphere (
Bimber and Gil de Zúñiga 2020).
4. Results
4.1. Description of the Sample
The sample used in this research was composed of 1497 tweets, divided as follows: Salvini 845 (56.2% of the total), Trump 237 (15.8%), Bolsonaro 217 (14.5%), Le Pen 131 (8.75%), and Abascal 67 (4.8%). Therefore, the data outline the overactivity of Salvini that is relevant. This means that the figures for the total sample are not very useful, as they over-represent the Italian. Instead, meaningful comparisons can be drawn between the profiles.
As for the front pages, the sample was small (
n = 112), as expected, but it did allow us to correlate the occurrence of the elections in the United States with populist activity on Twitter. The frequencies were as follows:
New York Times = 37,
O Globo = 29,
Le Monde = 9,
La Repubblica = 18, and
El País = 19. It was observed that the great level of activity of Salvini on Twitter did not correspond with his appearance in the newspaper selected from his country (
La Repubblica), which suggested that other journalistic factors should be considered. However, the reference to the US elections was very common in the 40-day period analyzed, as seen in
Figure 1.
We find that the The New York Times covered the elections on 92.5% of its front pages, which can be explained by the fact that the electoral contest was taking place in this country. It is more surprising that other reference media worldwide gave so much space to this matter. This first finding shows the media relevance of the US campaign in the mainstream press, revealing its usefulness in defining a global populist policy.
4.2. Strategy and Propaganda on Twitter
The analysis of the thematic and strategic agendas of these leaders on Twitter provides interesting data that show the similarities and divergences in their communication practices. First, Salvini and Abascal displayed relatively fragmented agendas with some points in common. Both used a wide variety of topics, with COVID-19 and security and immigration being the most commonly mentioned issues. There was also a plurality of frames in relation to strategies, although the dispute approach (horse race) was the most commonly applied in both cases (
Table 3).
The preference for this confrontational setting was also the case for Bolsonaro (27.8%) and Trump (19.9%), and in the North American case, this reflected the conflictive character that the electoral campaign acquired. The results suggest that the horse race approach was a priority element for most of the populist leaders in the sample. The exception was Le Pen, who showed a low level of use of this frame, placing personal issues first in her communication strategy.
The use of game frames, particularly the horse race and governing frame, was revealed as being a common characteristic of global populism. Meanwhile, the use of thematic frames was much more distributed and linked to geographical contexts. It is noteworthy that the three European leaders (Abascal, Salvini, and Le Pen) coincided in prioritizing COVID-19 and security and immigration as topics, which shows their relevance to EU politics. Le Pen again displayed a differential view since she concentrated her agenda more, focusing on immigration and security items (39.7%). This may be due to the importance of these aspects in French public opinion.
Moreover, Trump and Bolsonaro ignored COVID-19, probably because it was an issue that had the potential to harm them as heads of government. Bolsonaro granted a huge amount of space to the economy (18.5%) in an attempt to claim his achievements and face criticism about the management of the pandemic. For his part, Trump focused his thematic speech on corruption (47.5%), that is, on the possibility of an electoral fraud that would modify the results. This idea was central to Trump’s actions during his campaign on Twitter, which helps us to understand why a large portion of Republican voters believed in his victory after he lost the election (
Washington Post-ABC 2020;
Pew Research Center 2020).
Beyond the fact that conflictive frames are commonly used in populist tweets (
Figure 2), the use of discursive propaganda mechanisms also seems to be frequent. Appeal to emotion (15.6%) and the presentation of opinions as facts (14%) were the most common practices identified in the sample as a whole. These records show the existence of a narrative based on false messages that seek to manipulate the audience (
Table 4).
For Trump, the aforementioned practices were complemented by information selection (16%) and speaking through other sources (11.8%). Thus, there was evidence of manipulation of messages using biased data based on others to criticize competitors. Trump’s actions were quite similar to the rest of the populist leaders since he placed great importance on the appeal to emotion (15.2%) and opinions as facts (11.8%). This implies that he spread clearly false tweets, such as those launched after the elections denouncing electoral fraud without any type of proof (
Figure 3).
The other populist leaders also showed interesting divergences, although most of them shared the application of emotions and opinions. For instance, Bolsonaro frequently presented opinions as facts (38.9%) as well as attributions (29.6%). The latter are common in game frame approaches since they emphasize the successes and failures of political actors. Le Pen showed a strong preference for information selection (27.5%) and appealing to emotion (49.6%). These two practices were also carried out by Trump. It must be noted that Le Pen is the only leader who rarely published opinion-based messages as factual (0.8%).
With regard to Salvini, he used many propaganda resources involving all of the mechanisms mentioned. Within this fragmented strategy, the Italian leader prioritized emphasis (13.8%) and classic appeal to emotion (13.2%). In contrast, Abascal was the politician in this research who presented differential behavior. Appeal to force (17.9%), typical of the militaristic environment that surrounds his party, and attributions (10.4%), together with presenting opinions as facts, were found to be his preferred tools.
The sample of tweets analyzed showed the spectacularizing message of populist leaders, which was reinforced many times with propaganda mechanisms. Indeed, the tweets from Trump, Le Pen, and Abascal always used this kind of strategy. Falsehood and emotion were found to work as the basis of these discourses in a common pattern, regardless of national differences. However, these national contexts are relevant to the understanding of adaptions of populism. The preference for opinions instead of facts harms the value of information in a democracy.
4.3. Impact of Populism on Legacy Media
At this point, it is interesting to consider how populist strategies are presented in traditional media. The data show that propaganda resources appeared on the front pages of newspapers (
Table 5), although there was not a perfect correlation between the language marks prioritized by politicians on Twitter and those picked up in the media. Meanwhile, appeal to emotion (234 mentions), and the presentation of opinions as facts (210) were the mechanisms preferred by leaders; attributions (16.4%) and information selection (14.7%) were the most commonly used strategies on the front pages.
As can be seen from
Table 5, the media prefer to use conflictive approaches such as attributions, which pose a direct confrontation between political actors. In addition, the use of information selection was remarkable, particularly the use of data biased by emotion (5.2%) or opinion (6.9%), which are typical false messages. Although propaganda mechanisms were not fully transferred to the front pages, it is worth emphasizing the great presence of these biased resources in the media (only 8.6% of the front pages lack them), showing the journalistic weight of disinformation in the coverage of the US elections.
Nevertheless, in some cases, the tweets published by populist leaders during the US campaign were directly reflected on the front pages (
Table 6). The
New York Times, as the selected media outlet with a high level of reporting on the elections, showed a clear negative information bias (81.7% of the front pages). In other less representative examples, reference to these tweets was either negative (
Le Monde) or more positive than negative (
O Globo and
La Repubblica). However, on average, the analysis of front pages with the presence of tweets reveals a prevalent negative tone (80.4%).
A negative approach (60%) was also identified on front pages in which there were no tweets, despite the higher levels of positive (22.1%) and neutral (17.8%) contents. All of these figures show that negative frames were a constant feature of the journalistic treatment of the US elections, especially when the front pages of newspapers were based on populist tweets.
As we previously noted, the negative approach was identified as a priority in
The New York Times. During the 2020 election campaign, this prestigious media placed messages from Trump that had been broadcasted primarily on social networks at a top position. This was the case when Trump fostered distrust in the vote-counting process and minimized the real impact of the COVID-19 virus after leaving the hospital (
Figure 4).
The link between traditional media and the messages of a populist leader on a social network provides evidence of the hybridization of the current political landscape. Trump used Twitter as his main communication channel, but the propaganda mechanisms did not remain on social media; rather, they moved to the quality press. Most of the front pages of the sample applied this type of propaganda label, which should trigger a deep reflection on the amplified role of legacy media in far-right populism.
5. Discussion and Conclusions
The 2020 US presidential election attracted global attention. Trump’s political campaign, the use of a cyber-rhetoric, and a narrative based on electoral fraud reinforced the image of the Republican candidate among populist politicians, the media, and citizens. Other far-right populist leaders placed him as the center of the conversation on Twitter; meanwhile, the press gave a large amount of coverage to the process, and polls stated that a huge percentage of citizens continue to consider him the winner of the election.
On the one hand, this study aimed to verify the presence of propaganda mechanisms in Trump’s speech on Twitter and to determine the extent to which their themes and strategies coincide with those of other extreme right-wing populist leaders. On the other hand, we analyzed how the US elections were presented on the front pages of the international press and investigated the information bias with regard to Trump and news about the electoral process.
Our study offers insightful findings on the use of propaganda mechanisms as a common trend in the accounts of populist leaders on Twitter. These rhetorical resources reinforce both the issues (issue frame) and the strategies (game frame) used by politicians to promote polarization, attack opponents, and confusion of public opinion (
Neudert and Marchal 2019). Beyond that, the legacy media are far from showing a critical attitude towards political lies, contributing to the development of different ideological approaches and increasing the level of disinformation that populism fosters (
Bennett and Livingston 2018). Everything occurs in a context of platformization (
Smyrnaios and Rebillard 2019), confrontation, and a political infodemic that affects the public sphere as a space for deliberative democracy (
López-Borrull et al. 2018).
In response to
RQ1, which was developed to investigate how the themes and strategies of far-right populism identify with the speech of Trump and the populist leaders on Twitter, a prevalence of the conflictive framework (horse race) as a game frame was detected. In addition to that, corruption was identified as the most relevant thematic issue in Trump’s tweets. In this sense, the theory of fraud and delegitimization of the elections was the basis of his narrative, explaining the public belief about Trump’s victory collected by the polls (
Pew Research Center 2020). For European leaders (Salvini, Le Pen, and Abascal), the most prominent frames were related to COVID-19 and immigration issues, topics avoided by Trump and Bolsonaro, given their controversial management of these problems.
Another of Trump’s strategies shared by the rest of the leaders was the use of rhetoric on Twitter. The most commonly referenced resources consisted of appeal to emotion and the presentation of opinions as facts, showing a pattern of false messages. Information selection and the use of attributions also seem to be outstanding tools. Trump built false arguments about election fraud through the use of simple language, the selection of information, and by attacking other sources (adversaries, institutions, media, etc.). The use of spectacular language for propaganda purposes was used as a strategy by all leaders, regardless of geographic scope. This provided the answer to the second research question (RQ2), as that these mechanisms triggered the spread of disinformation. This is considered a characteristic of the messages of populist leaders on Twitter and endangers institutions and democracy.
Finally, we found that the press also reproduced messages of populism and disinformation on the digital front pages. In line with the discourse of the leaders on Twitter, the fallacy and mechanisms of propaganda were integrated into the news. However, there was less weight given to resources such as the appeal to emotion and the use of opinions as facts. Instead, other mechanisms such as attributions and information selection were used. It is remarkable that most of the front pages contained elements of the populist narrative.
Likewise, the information bias in news coverage was identified as a factor shared by the newspapers with a prevalence of 80% over the use of positive or neutral tones. As in other election contests held in the United States and other European contexts, the level of hostility between populist leaders and the media has been constant (
Pérez-Curiel 2020). The negative tone used to describe the attitudes of the leaders, and a large amount of news on the American elections was identified as trends in all the analyzed newspapers. This dynamic collides with their responsibility as verifiers and guarantors of journalistic quality (
Palau-Sampio 2018). In this sense, the third research question (
RQ3) was also answered. The media were found to have an information bias in the coverage of issues published by populist leaders on Twitter.
Therefore, we argue that, like Trump, some of the main global populist leaders share speeches full of strategy and propaganda mechanisms on Twitter, especially messages containing emotion and the absence of factuality. Likewise, this study confirmed the negative bias and the prominence of disinformation on the US elections in the press, imitating their linguistic schemes. We showed that the leaders of far-right populism reproduced Trump’s themes and strategies, reinforcing the idea of electoral fraud through mechanisms that promote disinformation. The international media also depicted the fallacy spread by politicians on Twitter on their front pages, revealing a significant critical attitude with a negative information bias in the coverage of facts and opinions.
Our findings are part of a wave of global illiberal populism, which has several characteristics (
Waisbord and Amado 2017). This movement has implications in the public sphere, threatening the future of democracy (
Moernaut et al. 2020). In the 2020 US elections, this was evidenced by the rejection of the results by many Republican voters (
Pew Research Center 2020). However, our research also confirms that there is a certain level of adaptation of these strategies and fallacies depending on the national context, beyond an international trend with points in common.
A limitation of this article concerns the reduced volumes of messages on Twitter disseminated by leaders such as Abascal or Le Pen, in contrast to the levels of production of tweets by other politicians. However, the main objective of this study required us to focus on the US elections. It would be of interest to study other elections in which popular populist leaders participate in future studies as well as to evaluate their behavior during non-electoral periods. The impact of the elections in the United States gave relevance to the time frame studied, although broader longitudinal approximations could further our understanding of how populist strategies enter the quality press. Additionally, academic works on fact-checking are relevant to this matter, highlighting the role of journalists as verifiers of fake news.
In conclusion, this contribution confirms the hybrid nature of populist communication and how it permeates the mainstream media from Twitter. This finding is relevant because the media selected have also been anti-right-wing populist press, advocating for cosmopolitan values. Besides that, the messages of the main international leaders are similar to Trump’s speech during the US elections, prioritizing false and fraud-related content. In short, this communication model may spur cynicism and distrust towards democracy. It also fosters the negation of the electoral results and likely violent actions such as those witnessed later during the assault on the US Capitol. According to the Twitter messages analyzed, these trends are supported by extreme right-wing populism worldwide.