Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter

Isidro Arroyo-Almaraz Francisco Del Pino Ortega Pilar Vicente-Fernández Universidad Rey Juan Carlos isidoro.arr[email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4000-5167 Universidad Rey Juan Carlos [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9531-3784 Universidad Rey Juan Carlos pilar.[email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4959-7325 // ARTÍCULO Recibido: 24 de abril de 2023 Solicitud de modificaciones: 4 de junio de 2023 Aceptado: 19 de junio de 2023 Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter Populismo 2.0 en la esfera pública española a través de Twitter Revista Comunicación, Vol. 21, Nº 1, año 2023, pp.96-114 DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 96 // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 97 Abstract The rise of right-wing populism raises growing concern about the health of representative democracies. In Spain, the emergence of VOX on the political scene has meant the end of Spanish exceptionalism, in addition to conditioning the political and media agenda as well as forcing other political parties to reconsider their strategies. Nowadays, social media occupy a central place in social and political life. Populism has been fuelled by the proliferation of social media such as Twitter, which brings together on the same platform the protagonists of the political debate and spreads messages in a fragmented way and out of the media’s control. This study aims to understand Santiago Abascal’s discursive strategy through a qualitative discourse analysis of his posts on Twitter as VOX’s leader during a decisive period for the party. The results indicate how his discourse focuses on building a populist political party that, in addition to basing its appeal on identifying threats and enemies, projects a heroic image of the party through the exaltation of victimization and the proclamation of its achievements using ideological terminology and collective imagination. The study confirms the importance of sentimental and emotional discourse and the role of the party leader in political communications. Keywords: populism, VOX, political discourse, social media, Twitter. Resumen El auge del populismo de derechas despierta una creciente preocupación en relación con la salud de las democracias representativas. En España, la irrupción de VOX en el escenario político ha significado el fin de la excepcionalidad española, además de condicionar la agenda política y mediática así como forzar al resto de partidos a reconsiderar sus estrategias. En la actualidad, las redes sociales ocupan un lugar determinante en el escenario social y político. El populismo se ha visto favorecido por la proliferación de redes sociales como Twitter, que sitúa en la misma plataforma a los protagonistas del debate político y difunde mensajes de manera fragmentada y fuera de control mediático. A través de un análisis del discurso cualitativo, se examinan en Twitter publicaciones de Santiago Abascal, líder de VOX, para conocer su estrategia discursiva en un periodo decisivo para el partido. Los resultados señalan cómo su discurso se centra en construir una fuerza política de carácter populista que, además de anclarse en la identificación de amenazas y enemigos, proyecta una imagen heroica del partido a través de la exaltación de la victimización y la proclamación de sus logros, gracias a la terminología y el imaginario ideológico. Se constata la trascendencia del discurso sentimental y emocional así como la impronta de la figura del líder en comunicación política. Palabras clave: populismo; VOX; discurso político; redes sociales; Twitter. // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 98 1. Introduction The heyday of far-right populist forces arouses the interest of the scientific community by questioning the health of the paradigm of representative democracies and establishing itself as a challenge in the political landscape impacted by social and media systems in today’s world (Krie- si, 2014; Mény and Surel, 2002). This is a political story that underlines the importance of political emotions as a key driver in the global rise of the far right (Ungureanu and Serrano, 2018). However, following the emergence of VOX on the political scene, its presence and that of its president Santiago Abascal are playing an increasingly relevant role. Nevertheless, the success of populism cannot be measured solely in electoral results. Its significance goes further, since its influence affects the way in which issues are dealt with in public debate (Alonso-Muñoz and Casero-Ripollés, 2018; Mudde and Rovira, 2019), in the relations between political parties —forcing them to define strategies of approach or opposition— (Wodak, 2015) and even modifying the ways in which the political subject is configured (Villacañas, 2015; Žižek, 2019). The analysis of its party manifesto and discourse positions VOX as a far-right organisation that has the characteristics of radical right-wing parties, with an authoritarian vision of society that advocates the values of law and order (Ferreira, 2019). Its emergence obeys largely to the changes that occurred as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, which favoured a populist movement that fuelled the acceptance of alternative discourse. The reactions to this crisis unleashed phenomena that still persist today, such as the breakdown of the two-party system, essentially with Podemos taking up the baton from the 15M movement (Del Pino and Arroyo-Almaraz, 2019; Errejón and Mouffe, 2015) and the revival of the Catalan independence movement (Gamper-Sachse, 2018). Thus, in the Spanish case, the push of the Catalan secessionist movement and the breakdown of the two-party system as a result of the 2008 crisis have favoured the creation of the ideal context for the birth of VOX (Müller, 2019), based on the exaltation of a feeling of victimhood by people identifying with Spanish nationalism and a favourable political scenario for the acceptance of new discourse and political forces. However, beyond these circumstantial reasons, there are two determining structural factors that create the ideal scenario for the appearance of populism. Firstly, the complex postmodern identity landscape whose main characteristic is the multiplicity of subject’s identities; secondly, the consolidation of digital communications, specifically of a political nature, through the different tools provided by Information and Communication Technologies (Chaves-Montero, 2017), which allow the production and dissemination of content outside mainstream media and favour a simplified emotional discourse. Added to the growing popularity of these digital platforms and the postmodern fragmentation of identity are the excessive rationalisation of the capitalist model and the measures to integrate disadvantaged groups as ingredients that have favoured the acceptance of a simplified emotional discourse. Despite the popularity and extension of populism, its approach does not offer a consensual definition. As Arroyas and Pérez (2016) point out, populism can be studied as a political discourse present in any democracy. In the present study we propose an operational definition of populism, understood as a discursive political strategy that can be used from different political positions // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 99 and whose objective is the construction of a popular identity by identifying a shared threat. From this approach to studying populism and focusing both on the current scenario of fragmenting identity politics, as well as on the new and emerging communication ecosystem led by digitization, this study’s general objective is to analyse the discourse of Santiago Abascal, leader of VOX, through his posts on his official Twitter account to better know and understand his party’s political strategy. The period studied spans from 23 October 2019 to 10 August 2020, a very important period for the party and its leader since VOX managed to poll as the third most voted political party nationally and therefore confirming the end of Spanish exceptionalism in this sense. This main goal then breaks down into the following specific objectives: • SO1. Outline which external and internal threats are identified by Abascal’s political discourse on Twitter, as well as the relationships established between them. • SO2. Examine the values that are linked to the defence of the Spanish identity. • SO3. Determine representations of victimization as seen by VOX and representations of success. • The following are proposed as the starting hypotheses of the study: • H1. Abascal tries to build a populist political force that unifies the social body through a discourse that portrays a victimisation of Spanish national identity. And he does so by: • H.1.1. Identifying external threats that put the Spanish national identity at risk. • H.1.2. Identifying internal threats that collaborate and enable external threats. • H.1.3. Tying his political cause to the defence of values that legitimise and justify it. • H.2. Abascal’s discourse on Twitter constructs a heroic image of VOX through victimization and highlights the party’s achievements. 2. Theoretical framework 2.1. The complexity of postmodern identity politics At present, we are witnessing a scenario of complex postmodern identity politics, in which the same subject has multiple identities in relation to their social position, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, etc. This circumstance favours the appearance of actors who try to build political forces that unify in response to a common threat. In this context, discourse plays a fundamental role both for the construction of victimization and for providing legitimacy. In this way, the struggle for discourse becomes a struggle for the appropriation of cultural values and identity elements that are perceived as apolitical, with which political mobilisation and its demands are framed and justified (Davis, 2015; Errejón, 2011; Laclau and Mouffe, 2014). For these discourses to be effective it is necessary that they occur in historical moments in which the prevailing dynamics are not capable of satisfying the demands of broad social sectors, thus favouring the acceptance of alternative discourses that promote a reconfiguration of threats and loyalties (Errejón and Mouffe, 2015; Mouffe, 2018). Some of these circumstances occur in periods of economic crisis, in which difficulties in maintaining the welfare state and providing the // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 100 population with access to consumer goods, lead to the emergence of populist discourses that strive to consolidate political forces that share a sense of economic victimhood. However, to understand the rise of populism, it is also necessary to address the perceived threats to identity that have arisen as a result of measures for the integration of minorities or underrepresented groups. These measures, which have been implemented by diverse political forces and international organisations, justify populist discourse that identify them as a threat to groups that have not been victimised so far, who see their interests relegated to the benefit of minority groups (Ahearne, 2017; Goldhammer, 2015). In the process of identifying threats and creating victimized identities, populist discourse follows similar patterns, in which threats and the relationships between them are defined. Therefore, threats can be constituted as external to the social body that the discourse aims to unify, and which in turn it defines in opposition, or internal to it. Among them, in addition, permissive and collaborative relationships are established that allow them to be politically oriented (Wodak, 2015; Žižek, 2013). 2.2. The digital communications ecosystem The debate on the use of the emotional persuasion techniques in political discourse (Bermúdez, 2014; Cala, 2019) shows the importance of emotional and sentimental aspects of the political sphere. Although the use of ambiguous and emotional discourse is not an exclusive to populism (Fernández, 2009; Gallardo, 2014; Nussbaum, 2014), the central role it occupies in the strategy of populist forces, recognised and justified by its two main advocates (Laclau, 2005; Mouffe, 2018), warns of the generalisation of an irrational policy, which simplifies social complexity and reduces it to confrontation (Charaudeau, 2009; Salmon, 2019). With this discourse, populism strives to operate in a society marked by unstable identity politics, recovering the emotional character of politics in lieu of the rationality promoted by the liberal technocracy (Innerarity, 2015; Žižek, 2019). In the current context, social media and digital devices enable this discourse to acquire media notoriety and reach, changing both the possibilities of production and dissemination of content as well as access and consumption habits (Chadwick, 2013; López-García, 2016). Thus, we find new forms of politics that take advantage of Internet social networks to build relationships with civil society and disseminate their messages (Arroyas and Pérez, 2016). Forms of digital communications, particularly social media, have led to the appearance of new communicative actors who possess tools to spread their message bypassing the filters of conventional communications media, leading to discrediting of said media and their role in curating and mediating content (Enli, 2017). In addition, digital media have modified production habits and access to news content, accelerating the rise of traditional infotainment and adding to the fragmentation, decontextualization and frivolity of content other characteristics such as hyper connection or hyper acceleration (Postman, 2006). All these characteristics make it difficult for a true understanding of social phenomena, by not allowing the necessary time for reflection to establish relationships between the content accessed and prior knowledge (van Dijk, 2016). Furthermore, this has led to changes in // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 101 validation criteria in which the weight of personal beliefs predominates over fact checking, giving rise to phenomena such as post-truth (Caldevilla and García, 2020). Among the social media available to citizens and political parties, Twitter stands as a 2.0 political communications tool (Guerrero-Solé, Mas-Manchón and Aira, 2022) that political actors have had to learn to manage and integrate into their discursive strategies, to the point of becoming “the leading platform for non-mediated communications” (Toro and Pérez-Curiel, 2021, p.1) in the current political scene characterised by polarization and political populism. The use of Twitter in the political sphere is aimed not so much at interaction with citizens but mainly at setting up a news and self-promotion soapbox (Gelado-Marcos, Puebla-Martínez and Rubira-García, 2019). Through this space, the exercise of criticism and the ideological axis of each of the parties dominate the political agenda of the populist discourse on Twitter. 2.3. The 2.0 political discourse of VOX and Santiago Abascal In the context of the Spanish public sphere, Twitter brings together on the same platform the protagonists of the political debate, who through the aforementioned social network must be able to combine the management of a distinctive personal brand with their role in opinion leadership (Fernández et al., 2018). In this sense, this study proposes it is possible to identify a political communications trend towards entertainment, which is linked to the so-called celebrity of politicians when it comes to building a certain public image, that is, it is about figures that emerge as “politician-celebrities” as the field of politics increasingly approaches celebrity culture (Oliva et al., 2015, p.1). The symbiosis between celebrity culture and politics is proposed as a way to revitalise the offering of parties and candidates. Thus, these digital platforms bring political candidates closer to public opinion, enabling the creation of ties (Domínguez, 2012) and allowing political actors to spread messages in a more personal, fast, and direct way. Therefore, the analysis of the contents of the social media accounts of political figures has become a primary way of researching data in political communications, taking into account that “the individuality of the political candidate is increasingly posited as a brand image” (Pérez-Curiel and Limón-Naharro, 2019, p.57). This is the case of VOX, previous studies indicate how its digital strategy is reflected not only through its website but also through the party’s social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Flickr, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Gab). Although the formats and styles differ depending on the channel, by targeting different types of audience, the content follows the same discursive pattern (Castro and Díaz, 2021). Analysing the trajectory of the party from its initial invisibility to its current overexposure, it is partly due to a skilful handling of Twitter in developing a persuasive narrative for public opinion, using semiotic elements that tailor political discourse to average citizens through multiple of emotional elements (Berlanga and Ortiz, 2021). Among them, VOX defends and advocates for patriotism, presenting the party as “the protector of families” and its leader as the party’s “saviour and leading standard” (González Castro, 2021, p.193). In addition to setting up its agenda to show propaganda content, VOX’s platform on Twitter also “personalises the discourse around the figure and private life of its leader […] portrayed as a // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 102 charismatic, empowered and value-filled leader, capable of ending corruption” (Lava, 2021, p.57). This vision is complemented by the discourse offered by Abascal’s official account on Twitter, which “is in line with the discursive strategies of populism” (Vázquez-Barrio, 2021, p.123). Through this social network, the leader of VOX uses forceful language, frequently resorting to aggressive language and disparaging terms directed both at his political adversaries and the media (Ramos, 2021). His rhetorical style is therefore inclined towards being politically incorrect, with the aim of encouraging polarisation and tension in the political debate (González Gómez, 2021), always positioning himself with a nationalist discourse as more ‘Spanish’ than the other parties and candidates (Méndez, 2020). 3. Methodology 3.1. Technique and instrument Discourse analysis is a research technique with great significance in the Social Sciences (Sayago, 2014). As Santander (2011) points, discourse analysis is part of qualitative knowledge and is part of the interpretative paradigm. Due to its multifaceted character, discourse analysis is of interest to and fits into different disciplines dealing with language, such as linguistics, history, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, etc. (Riba, 2010). All discourse has an intentional dimension, that is, it is formulated with a purpose (Reyes, 2017). In the case of political discourse, it is carefully crafted and designed since it is crucial to political activity as a whole and has the capacity to mobilize, persuade, seduce, and create opposition. The use of polysemic terms and presuppositions is something that is characteristic to political discourse (Fernández, 2009; Gallardo, 2014). In political discourse, words are used to define and label, but also to hide and establish relationships between ideas that require contextual knowledge and that are not always made explicit (van Dijk, 2016; Wodak and Meyer, 2003). In this way, this research proposes an analysis of the qualitative discourse of Abascal’s posts on Twitter in which, in addition to the linguistic material, the contextual and intertextual aspects are taken into account, making it possible to analyse the intentional dimension of the discourse. To this end, the following variable axes are delimited: • External threats in Abascal’s discourse on Twitter: those that come from outside the social body that it is intended to unify and that constitute the constitutive and threatening exterior. • Internal threats in Abascal’s discourse on Twitter: those that come from within the social body that it is intended to unify; in the present case, part of the Spanish identity. • The relationship established between the different threats, both internal and external, through which the responsibility for the presence of external threat is internalized. • The values that are linked to the defence of the Spanish identity: analysis of those values conceived as prior to the political debate that, when threatened, become demands that legitimise political action. // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 103 • The representation of VOX as a victim in Abascal’s discourse on Twitter: the presence of discursive elements that present an image of VOX’s victimhood and that of its environment. • The representation of VOX as a successful party in Abascal’s discourse on Twitter: the presence of elements that emphasise VOX’s achievements. 3.2. Analysis and sample period The period of analysis spans from 23 October 2019 to 10 August 2020, a period that is especially significant for VOX since it includes the election campaign and the elections of 10 November 2019, in which VOX consolidated its political presence in Spain as the third political party. Within this period of analysis, which covers a total of 292 days, the body of material under study is made up of all the posts, both tweets and retweets, from Santiago Abascal’s account ( @Santi _ ABASCAL) on Twitter. Using the Twlets tool, which allows you to retrieve up to a maximum of 3,200 tweets from any account on Twitter, a total of 3,193 tweets were obtained and counted. For the purposes of this research, and based on the corpus of these 3,193 publications, the 10 days in which the Abascal account has the highest activity were selected. Thus, the sample is made up of a total of 281 publications, whose distribution by dates and content typology is shown in the following table: Date Total publications Own tweets Retweets 24/10/2019 24 7 17 30/10/2019 26 10 16 05/11/2019 27 1 26 07/11/2019 29 9 20 08/11/2019 26 11 15 03/12/2019 24 12 12 04/01/2020 34 529 23/01/2020 36 13 23 15/04/2020 30 9 21 23/05/2020 25 5 20 Total 281 82 199 Table 1. Determination of units of analysis. Source: own elaboration Over these ten days in which there was more activity on Abascal’s Twitter, the number of publications doubles, in all cases, the average number of publications by Santiago Abascal (accounting for 10.9 per day). This circumstance is due to a series of events of a political nature in the Spanish public sphere: the exhumation of the remains of the dictator Francisco Franco from the Valley of the Fallen (24 October, 2019); the pre-electoral and electoral process of 10 November, 2019 (30October, 7 and 8 November, 2019); the constitution of the Bureau of the Congress of Deputies (3 December, 2019); the investiture of Pedro Sánchez (4 January, 2020); the temporary closure of VOX’s Twitter account for hate speech (23 January, 2020); the control session in Congress (15 April, 2020), in the context of the COVID-19 crisis; and the protest called against the government’s management of the COVID-19 crisis organised by VOX (23 May, 2020). // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 104 4. Results The publications corresponding to this period are consolidated in a data table to which columns are added that show the presence of references (implicit or explicit) related to each of the categories in which this analysis is structured. The data analysed, therefore, is reflected in the number of tweets with references, and not in the total number of references appeared in the sample. This data matrix enables us to know: 1) the frequency of appearance of each of the identified references; 2) the concurrence in the same tweet of more than one threat, and 3) the concurrence in the same tweet of threats and values. The results of this research are shown below, following the structure indicated in the objectives and in the methodology. The findings are accompanied by two tables that show: in table 2, the threats, both internal (int) and external (ext), the total frequency of appearance (in the shaded box), and the concurrence between them; and, in table 3, the values, the total frequency of appearance of each one of them (indicated in brackets) and the relationship with the threats. Threats Government (int) Pro-independence (ext) Left (int) Communications Media (int) Immigration (ext) Allied parties (int) Institutions (int) All political parties (int) ETA / Abertzale Left (ext) Other parties (int) Islam (ext) Economic Elites (int) Morocco (ext) Government (int) 121 16 22 14 5 4 4 2 5 0 0 1 0 Pro-independence (ext) 16 43 6 2 1 3 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 Left (int) 22 6 42 5 4 4 0 2 1 0 1 0 0 Communications Media (int) 14 2 5 32 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 Immigration (ext) 5 1 4 1 23 00100000 Allied parties (int) 4 3 4 1 0 14 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 Institutions (int) 4 0 0 1 0 1 9 0 0 0 0 0 0 All political parties (int) 2 0 2 0 1 0 0 7 0 0 1 0 0 ETA / Abertzale Left (ext) 5010000060000 Other parties (int) 0200000002000 Islam (ext) 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 Economic Elites (int) 1000000000010 Morocco (ext) 0000000000001 Table 2. Analysis of the threats and the relationship between them. Source: own elaboration The findings related to the analysis of external threats in Abascal’s discourse on Twitter place the Catalan independence movement as the main external threat (43 tweets), followed by immigration (23 tweets). Both, as can be seen in table 2, are among the five threats that appear with the highest frequency. To a lesser extent, other external threats are outlined, such as ETA and the Basque nationalist Left (6 tweets), Islam (2 tweets) and Morocco (1 tweet). // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 111 Del Pino, F. and Arroyo-Almaraz, I. (2019). La lucha discursiva por la creación del pueblo en los eslóganes de las manifestaciones de los movimientos sociales. En I. Arroyo, P.Vicente and S. Calle (coord), Las herramientas digitales en la comunicación social (pp.225-238). Fragua. Domínguez, N.R. (2012). Política 2.0: el uso de las redes sociales en la política argentina. Anuario Electrónico de Estudios en Comunicación Social ‘Disertaciones’, 5(1), 77-104. https://revistas. urosario.edu.co/index.php/disertaciones/article/view/3889 Enli, G. (2017). Twitter as arena for the authentic outsider: Exploring the social media campaigns of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 US presidential election. European Journal of Communication, 32(1), 50-61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0267323116682802 Errejón, Í. (2011). El 15-M como discurso contrahegemónico. Encrucijadas: Revista Crítica de Ciencias Sociales, (2), 120-145. Errejón, Í. and Mouffe, C. (2015). Construir pueblo: hegemonía y radicalización de la democracia. Icaria. Fernández Gómez, J.D., Hernández-Santaolalla, V. and Sanz-Marcos, P.(2018). Influencers, marca personal e ideología política en Twitter. Cuadernos.info, (42), 19-37. https://doi.org/10.7764/ cdi.42.1348 Fernández Lagunilla, M. (2009). La lengua de la comunicación política I: El discurso del poder. Arco Libros. Ferreira, C. (2019). Vox as representative of the radical right in Spain: A study of its ideology. Revista Española de Ciencia Política, (51), 73-98. https://doi.org/10.21308/recp.51.03 Fukuyama, F. (2019). Identidad. La demanda de dignidad y las políticas de resentimiento. Deusto. Gallardo, B. (2014). Usos políticos del lenguaje. Un discurso paradójico. Anthropos Editorial. Gamper-Sachse, D. (2018). Ambivalences of populism: The case of Catalan independentism. Social Science Information, 57(4), 573-587. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018418811685 Gelado-Marcos, R., Puebla-Martínez, B. and Rubira-García, R. (2019). Twitter, the End of Bipartisan Politics and the Rise of Populism. The Spanish Campaign in May 2015. Revista de Sociologia e Politica, 27(71). https://doi.org/10.1590/1678-987319277107 Goldhammer, A. (2015). Explaining the Rise of the Front National. Political Rhetoric or Cultural Insecurity? French Politics, Culture & Society, 33(2), 134-142. https://doi.org/10.3167/ fpcs.2015.330208 González Bengoechea, A. (2015). Redes sociales y política: el uso comunicativo de Twitter por parte de los principales partidos políticos. Fòrum de Recerca, (20), 539-555. http://doi. org/10.6035/ForumRecerca.2015.20.36 González Castro, J. (2021). Communication and populism 2.0 in the new Spanish politics: the case of United We Can and Vox. aDResearch ESIC International Journal of Communication Research, 26(26), 76-103. https://doi.org/10.7263/adresic-026-09 // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 112 González Gómez, C. (2021). Lexical and argumentative analysis of Santiago Abascal’s discourse on Twitter: populism in 280 characters? Tonos Digital: Revista de estudios filológicos, (41), 1-26. https://digitum.um.es/digitum/handle/10201/111065 Guerrero-Solé, F., Mas-Manchón, L. and Aira, T. (2022). El impacto de la ultraderecha en Twitter durante las elecciones españolas de 2019. Cuadernos.info, (51), 223-245. https://doi. org/10.7764/cdi.51.27471 Guerrero-Solé, F., Suárez-Gonzalo, S., Rovira, C. and Codina, L. (2020). Social media, context collapse and the future of data-driven populism. El Profesional de la Información, 29(5). https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.sep.06 Herrero Izquierdo, J., Reguero Sanz, I., Berdón Prieto, P.and Martín Jiménez, V. (2022). La estrategia del odio: polarización y enfrentamiento partidista en Twitter durante las elecciones a la Asamblea de Madrid de 2021. Revista Prisma Social, (39), 183-212. https:// revistaprismasocial.es/article/view/4829 Innerarity, D. (2015). La política en tiempos de indignación. Galaxia Gutenberg. Kelly, C.R. (2020). Donald J. Trump and the rhetoric of ressentiment. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 106(1), 2-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335630.2019.1698756 Kriesi, H. (2014). The Populist Challenge. West European Politics, 37(2), 361-378. https://doi.org/10. 1080/01402382.2014.887879 Laclau, E. (2005). La razón populista. Fondo de Cultura Económica. Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (2014). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. Verso. Lava, D. (2021). VOX´s populist discourse in the 2019 General Elections: comparative analysis ofthematic agendas on television and Twitter. Dígitos. Revista de Comunicación Digital, (7), 37-65. http://doi.org/10.7203/rd.v1i7.200 López-García, G. (2016). “New” vs “old” leaderships: the campaign of Spanish general elections 2015 on Twitter. Communication & Society, 29(3), 149-168. http://doi.org/ doi:10.15581/003.29.3.149-168 Marín, P.P., Simancas, E. and Berzosa, A. (2019). Uso e influencia de Twitter en la comunicación política: el caso del Partido Popular y Podemos en las elecciones generales de 2016. Cuadernos.info, (45), 129-144. https://doi.org/10.7764/cdi.45.1595 Méndez, M.C. (2020). La construcción de la identidad lingüística de Santiago Abascal en Twitter. Revista Estudios del Discurso Digital, (3), 50-77. https://doi.org/10.24197/redd.3.2020.50-77 Mény, Y. and Surel, Y. (Eds.) (2002). Democracies and the Populist Challenge. Palgrave Macmillan. Moret Soler, D., Alonso-Muñoz, L. and Casero-Ripollés (2022). La negatividad digital como estrategia de campaña en las elecciones de la Comunidad de Madrid de 2021 en Twitter. Revista Prisma Social, (39), 48-73. https://revistaprismasocial.es/article/view/4860 Mouffe, C. (2018). Por un populismo de izquierda. Siglo XXI. // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 113 Mudde, C. and Rovira, C. (2019). Populismo: una breve introducción. Alianza. Müller, J.F. (2019). La sorpresa VOX: las respuestas a las 10 grandes preguntas que todos nos hacemos sobre VOX. Deusto. Nussbaum, M.C. (2014). Emociones políticas: ¿Por qué el amor es importante para la justicia? Paidós. Oliva, M., Pérez-Latorre, Ó. and Besalú, R. (2015). The celebrification of political candidates. Celebrity culture, electoral marketing and the construction of politician’s public image. ARBOR Ciencia, Pensamiento y Cultura, 191(775). http://doi.org/10.3989/arbor.2015.775n5009 Pérez-Curiel, C. and Limón-Naharro, P.(2019). Political influencers. A study of Donald Trump’s personal brand on Twitter and its impact on the media and users. Communication & Society, 32(1), 57-75. https://doi.org/10.15581/003.32.1.57-76 Postman, N. (2006). Amusing ourselves to death: Public discourse in the age of show business. Penguin. Ramos, R. (2021). The Covid-19 crisis as a political opportunity. Santiago Abascal’s use of Twitter during the State of Alarm in Spain (March 14-June 20, 2020). Doxa Comunicación, (33), 75-98. https://doi.org/10.31921/doxacom.n33a993 Reyes, G. (2017). El abecé de la pragmática. Arco Libros. Riba Campos, C.E. (2010). Tècniques d’anàlisi de dades qualitatives. Editorial UOC. http://hdl. handle.net/10609/52441 Salmon, C. (2019). La era del enfrentamiento: del storytelling a la ausencia de relato. Península. Sampietro, A. and Sánchez-Castillo, S. (2020). La promoción de la imagen política en Instagram: un estudio del perfil personal de Santiago Abascal (Vox) en 2018. Communication & Society, 33(1), 169-184. http://doi.org/10.15581/003.33.1.169-184 Santander, P.(2011). Por qué y cómo hacer análisis de discurso. Cinta de Moebio. Revista de Epistemología de Ciencias Sociales, (41), 207-224. http://doi.org/10.4067/S0717- 554X2011000200006 Sayago, S. (2014). El análisis del discurso como técnica de investigación cualitativa y cuantitativa en las ciencias sociales. Cinta de Moebio. Revista de Epistemología de Ciencias Sociales, (49), 1-10. http://doi.org/10.4067/S0717-554X2014000100001 Toro, S. and Pérez-Curiel, C. (2021). Political populism in Covid’s time. Analysis of Donald Trump and Boris Johnson communication strategy on Twitter. Revista de Comunicación de la SEECI, (54), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.15198/seeci.2021.54.e700 Ungureanu, C. and Serrano, I. (2018). El populismo como relato y la crisis de la democracia representativa. Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals, (119), 13-34. https://doi.org/10.24241/ rcai.2018.119.2.13 van Dijk, T.A. (2016). Discurso y conocimiento: una aproximación sociocognitiva. Gedisa. // ARTÍCULO Arroyo-Almaraz, I., Del Pino Ortega F. y Vicente-Fernández, P. (2023). Populism 2.0 in the Spanish public sphere through Twitter. Comunicación. Revista Internacional de Comunicación Audiovisual, Publicidad y Estudios Culturales, 22(1), 96-114. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/Comunicacion.2023.v21.i01.06 114 Vázquez-Barrio, T. (2021). Populism in the 2019 General Elections. Analysis of the speeches by the three right-wing candidates on Twitter. Communication & Society, 34(1), 123-141. https://doi. org/10.15581/003.34.1.123-141 Villacañas, J.L. (2015). Populismo. La Huerta Grande. Wodak, R. (2015). The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. Sage. Wodak, R. and Meyer, M. (2003). Métodos de análisis crítico del discurso. Gedisa. Žižek, S. (2013). El año que soñamos peligrosamente. Akal. Žižek, S. (2019). Contra la tentación populista. Godot.