Effects of populism: The agenda of fact-checking agencies to counter European right-wing populist parties

Effects of populism: The agenda of fact-checking agencies to counter European right-wing populist parties Rubén Rivas-de-Roca Rey Juan Carlos University, Fuenlabrada, Spain Concha Pérez-Curiel University of Seville, Seville, Spain Andreu Casero-Ripollés Jaume I University, Castelló de la Plana, Spain Abstract European right-wing populism is a widely studied phenomenon in recent years. At the same time, many fact-checking projects have been launched with the purpose of assessing statements from the most relevant social actors. The role of fact-checkers is growing, but there is scant literature on their agenda. In this study, we investigate the communication strategies on Twitter of European right-wing populist parties and their relationship with the agenda of fact-checking initiatives in Germany, France, Spain and Portugal. Based on a content analysis of tweets covering political content (n=4212), we analyze not only the agenda but also the use of propaganda mechanisms and the scope of the tweets. The results show how the agenda of right-wing populism was composed of ideological thematic issues. Fact-checkers focus on competitor leaders and generate lower interaction. These findings contribute to increasing research on both actors, arguing that the focus on political leaders impacts on fact-checking. Keywords Populism, European right-wing, fact-checking, agenda, Twitter Corresponding author: Rubén Rivas-de-Roca, Rey Juan Carlos University, Fuenlabrada, Spain. Email: [email protected] Full Length Article European Journal of Communication 2024, Vol. 39(2) 105–121 © The Author(s) 2023 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/02673231231197032 journals.sagepub.com/home/ejc Introduction The interest in right wing-populism is a long-lasting phenomenon in Western Europe (Betz, 1994), which has gained more importance because of the use of social media by populist leaders and parties (Gerbaudo, 2018). Populism is a widely studied concept that combines a particular communicative style with a thin-centered ideology (Aalberg and de Vreese, 2017; Block and Negrine, 2017), dividing the society between the elite and the people. This implies a simplification of complex political processes, which are treated from an emotional perspective. The problem is not only the loss of an in-depth rational discussion but also the proliferation of inaccurate information, especially triggered by populist leaders. In this sense, a kind of misinformation society emerges (Pickard, 2019) since the role of news gatekeeper is now performed by social media platforms (Carlson et al., 2022). Hence, the traditional modes of the journalism craft are no longer effective (Bennett and Livingston, 2018; Casero-Ripollés et al., 2023). Consequently, there is a huge academic debate on the impact of digital technologies on democracy because of the rise of populism, as these platforms follow a top-down approach that excludes divergent positions (Entman, 2018). The current digital economy is assessed as a monopoly that threatens democracy (Hindman, 2018). Accordingly, elections do not promote responsive governments (Achen and Bartels, 2017), which overlap with an agenda more focused on strategies rather than on issues. However, the digital age also brings a new turn in fact-checking. Although fact-checking is a classic task of journalism, this practice has been further developed by specific media and civic platforms as a response to the spread of misleading information. Specifically, between 2012 and 2017, there was a proliferation of fact-checking initiatives based on technologies (Vizoso and Vázquez-Herrero, 2019). In a time of acceleration of news production, the work of fact-checkers focuses on objectivity in order to verify false content and analyze its propagation (Graves, 2016). Moreover, these fact-checkers usually apply a triangulation approach between journalists and programming experts (Graves and Anderson, 2020), giving also the citizens the chance of being part of the verification process. In this study, we examine the communication strategies on Twitter of European right-wing populist parties as well as if this agenda agrees on the topics addressed by fact-checking initiatives. As aforementioned, these projects aim to assess statements from the most relevant social actors, including populist parties. The role of fact-checkers is growing in the society, but prior scholarship has paid little attention to how their agenda is determined. Beyond that, Twitter has worked as a channel for the dissemination of populist messages and a ‘candidate-centered politics’(Waisbord and Amado, 2017). The use of this tool may change among countries due to national factors, but most of previous literature describes the practices of leaders (Alonso-Muñoz and Casero-Ripollés, 2018). Social media are shaping the current media culture in Western democracies; meanwhile, fact-checkers have shown its influence on political beliefs (Walter et al., 2020). The consolidation of digital platforms is accompanied by a decline of the agenda-setting power of journalism, triggering a fragmented and polarized news consumption (Deuze, 2019). 106 European Journal of Communication 39(2) Therefore, it is relevant to further our understanding on which is the relationship between fact-checking and populism in Europe, whose right-wing parties have a long tradition. Right-Wing populist communication in Europe In recent decades, populism has marked many of the political debates in Western democracies. The emergence of new populist movements leads to a sort of historical populist period (Mudde, 2004). In the European framework, the sovereign debt crisis, the refugee crisis, Brexit or the rule-of-law crisis in Poland and Hungary have reinforced a Eurosceptic approach (Bergbauer et al., 2019). According to Mudde (2007), the European Union (EU) is assessed as a government of elites. The EU institutions are not reproved, but there is criticism of their policies. One of the key reasons to attack the EU is the matter of popular sovereignty, which works as a link between both left-wing and right-wing populist political parties (Gerbaudo, 2018). In a globalized world, they ask to take back control of the territory, explaining why membership in supranational organizations is seen as a threat (Alonso-Muñoz and Casero-Ripollés, 2020). This ideology connects with a cultural antiglobalism, opposed to cosmopolitan values (Norris and Inglehart, 2019). These movements are supposed to seek the break of the status quo. On this matter, populism links to anti-pluralism. A democratic majority is no longer relevant since they do not represent a part of the people, but the ‘people’(Müller, 2016). It fosters a feeling of belonging to a community based on a politics of fear, putting the focus on migrants and the elite (Wodak, 2015). This elite is also composed of the news media, which are usually framed as enemy by the populist actors (Meeks, 2020). The personalization of politics, through ‘individualization’and ‘privatization’ (Bennett and Segerberg, 2012), is also a trend of populism. Leaders are much more wellknown than parties, shaping the political discussion through a very emotional style (Kruikemeier et al., 2013). As a consequence, consuming news about those leaders has become an emotional experience (Wagner and Boczkowski, 2021). In this context, the communication actions of populism are mostly based on propaganda and inaccurate information (Mazzoleni, 2008), which may trigger a disinformation order. Although the US and Trump are mentioned as the main examples because of the political violence incited by this leader (Boydstun and Lawrence, 2020), in Europe, there is also a right-wing populism that use disinformation as strategy (Vasilopoulou, 2018; Pérez-Curiel, 2020). Social media, and particularly Twitter, have played an important role for spreading populist messages (Alonso-Muñoz and Casero-Ripollés, 2018). Twitter was useful to maintain the populism’s top-down approach to public communication but with a wider audience (Waisbord and Amado, 2017). This social network provides a platform to lash out at the enemies, amplifying attacks and getting media attention. The literature also suggests the relevance of the external socio-political context to evaluate the social influence on Twitter (Casero-Ripollés, 2021), which makes it noteworthy to explore different countries. In addition to that, Twitter has also been the preferred platform in Europe to develop political astroturfing, understood as a coordinated disinformation campaign (Keller et al., 2020). This type of campaign generates short-term effects by creating the impression that Rivas-de-Roca et al. 107 some opinions are supported by most of the population (Zerback et al., 2021), which may be exploited by populism. More generally, previous literature found that social media boost a spiral of silence, being only avoided by users with strong opinions such as populist ones (Hampton et al., 2017). Therefore, the visibility of their positions is intensified on these networks. The role of fact-checking platforms against disinformation In times of identity-driven politics and increasing polarization, journalism struggles to adapt to the needs of the media culture (Carlson et al., 2022). The consolidation of digital technologies has contributed to a polarization of politics (Papacharissi, 2015), since in social media people tend to follow users with their political predispositions. This partisan selective exposure triggers polarization according to research (Stroud, 2010). The changes in the information cycle and the dissemination of fake contents are phenomena that explain the emergence of independent fact-checking initiatives (Graves, 2016). Although politicians of right-wing populist parties were as dependent upon the media as other parties during the first decade of XXI century (Bos et al., 2011), their massive presence on social media has consequences in the media system such as the appearance of fact-checkers to verify their messages, among other purposes (Pérez-Curiel and Rivas-de-Roca, 2022). A cornerstone of fact-checkers is that they are independent political organizations dedicated exclusively to evaluating the truth of posts on digital platforms or political claims, which were previously goals of journalism (Graves, 2016). The mediatization of politics (Esser and Strömback, 2014) and the lack of trust in the news media (Lewis, 2019) are also factors that fuel the success of fact-checking initiatives. Between 2012 and 2016, most of fact-checking projects were launched in Europe (Graves and Cherubini, 2016). These organizations contribute to moderate the echo chamber effect on social media (Dubois and Blank, 2018) and are an example of journalistic autonomy (Sjøvaag, 2013; Örnebring et al., 2016), which is a key value of the professional identity. According to citizens’perceptions, fact-checking agencies are one of the best methods to fight against disinformation (Casero-Ripollés et al., 2023). However, due to its reactive nature, since it occurs after the hoax and does not prevent its circulation, it cannot eliminate much of the negative consequences generated by disinformation in people exposed to it (Andersen and Søe, 2020; Wittenberg and Berinsky, 2020). By denying fake news, understood as news with low levels of facticity or deceptive contents (Tandoc Jr. et al., 2018), the rise of fact-checkers contrasts with the aforementioned crisis of the news industry. Most of them are professionalized services that assess the statements of politicians compared to their previous speeches (Ufarte-Ruiz et al., 2018), also having an incipient collaboration with the EU institutions and major companies such as Google and Facebook (Graves and Anderson, 2020). The fact-checking movement denies false information that appears both on social networks and in the media. Specifically, statements by political actors or hoaxes, defined as contents believed by fraud and also meant to trick (Finneman and Thomas, 2018), are usually verified. Many of them are located at a digital user community (Vizoso and 108 European Journal of Communication 39(2) Vázquez-Herrero, 2019). This content adapts easily to the needs of the market and the audience. Research on the extreme right-wing populism in Europe has widely analyzed the shaping of the main parties (Muis and Immerzeel, 2017) and its connection with Euroscepticism (Mudde, 2007; Vasilopoulou, 2018; Alonso-Muñoz and Casero-Ripollés, 2020), focusing on leaders. Our study addresses the aforementioned gap in the literature by considering little explored countries and parties, adding also a comparison between fact-checking and populist parties. Three research questions were posed: •RQ1: Which topics characterize the right-wing populist parties by country? •RQ2: To what extent does the agenda of right-wing populist parties correlate with that of fact-checking? •RQ3: What is the focus and impact of the messages posted by those parties? Methodology For our study, we used a Twitter analysis based on the principles of content analysis (Krippendorf, 2004) to examine the practices developed on this social network by different European right-wing populist parties and fact-checking initiatives. Specifically, we analyze the profiles of these two types of organizations in Germany, France, Spain and Portugal. This sample allows to compare little polarized countries like Germany with others having a strong partisan history (Hallin and Mancini, 2017). Partisanship fosters a low resilience to online disinformation in Southern European countries such as Spain and Portugal (Humprecht et al., 2020), which may be relevant to the strategy of populist parties. Furthermore, France has a long-standing tradition of far-right that overlaps with populism. The sample is composed of the following political parties and fact-checking profiles: •-Germany: Alternative für Deutschland (@AfD); CORRECTIV.Faktencheck (@correctiv_fakt). •-France: Rassemblement National (@RNational_off); Les Décodeurs (@decodeurs). •-Spain: Vox (@vox_es); Maldita.es (@maldita). •-Portugal: Chega (@PartidoCHEGA); Polígrafo (@JornalPoligrafo). The political parties selected are those of right-wing populism with the higher number of seats in each national parliament; meanwhile, the fact-checking initiatives are prominent in their specific context in terms of followers on Twitter. The data were captured for a three-month and non-electoral period (October–December 2021) in order to avoid the competition that marks electoral campaigns (Mazzoleni, 2018). On a general sample of tweets of 6,853, we applied a manual content analysis on tweets covering political content (n=4212). All the messages posted are studied, including retweets. A mixed methodological approach is applied. Firstly, we content-analyzed the main issue and game frames present on the tweets, following a well-known approach that states that the current political communication is triggered from this kind of contents Rivas-de-Roca et al. 109 (Aalberg and de Vreese, 2017). Drawing upon the observance of the most frequent topics in the fact-checkers during the range of dates, eight dichotomous and exclusive categories were created to collect the issue frames. Regarding game frames, the four traditional categories defined by the literature were employed (Table 1). Secondly, the analysis of the communication practices was also based on the presence of propaganda mechanisms. These items may be used not only by the populist parties but also by fact-checking platforms. Moreover, the type of link posted on Twitter to disseminate propaganda was also analyzed since each format has different characteristics. Particularly, we consider web, image, video, media outlet and tweet as the main links. Categories were borrowed from discourse analysis and applied to propaganda (van Dijk, 2015): appeal to authority, appeal to emotion, fallacy against the man, appeal to force, appeal to ignorance, attributions, tendentious claims, emphasis, stereotypes, false analogy, speaking through other sources, opinions as facts, selecting information and use of labels, without any of them. Lastly, we delve into the focus of the tweets in terms of determining which are the main actors, organizations or issues mentioned. On this matter, populists, competitors and thematic topics are examined (Table 2). This is reinforced by an analysis on message distribution (retweets) to investigate how the attention of the audience is shaped. Table 1. Categories used for the analysis of tweet frames. Items Description Issue frame Conspiracy theories Tweets regarding possible conspiratorial explanations for political problems, as those mentioning a corrupted elite. Denial of hoaxes Tweets that verify hoaxes especially related to the political system. Immigration/security Tweets that refer to immigration and/or citizen security issues. Covid-19 Tweets that present contents about the pandemic. Social policy Tweets that allude to social issues such as education, healthcare or youth. Economy/industry Tweets on economic issues such as macroeconomy, unemployment or industry. Foreign affairs Tweets on international affairs such as trade or relations between countries. Elections and electoral program Tweets that focus on elections (past or future), including electoral polls. Game frame Horse race and governing frame Tweets on the competitors, post-electoral pacts or strategies. Politicians as individuals’frames Tweets that focus on aspects of the personal life. Political strategy frame Tweets on political events, ranging from TV debates to public meetings. News management frame Tweets related to mass media, including journalistic contents or the assessment of their work. Other Unclassifiable tweet in the previous categories. 110 European Journal of Communication 39(2) The codification was carried out by five coders. To evaluate the intercoder reliability, a pretest was conducted on 10% of the sample (421 units), reaching acceptable levels (α= 0.85) for all the variables according to Krippendorff’s alpha values (Neuendorf, 2002). A descriptive analysis of frequencies is provided together with a selection of the most outstanding quantitative figures as they are relevant to illustrate trends on the sample. Results Agenda The action on Twitter of the selected right-wing populist parties was marked by an ideological communication with topics such as migration and social policy. During the last three months of 2021, the four parties developed a narrative based on measures to care for working middle class, which was affected by a loss of purchasing power according to them. This links to a typical social approach of populism, consisting of ‘talking about people’s interests’(Mudde, 2004). Nevertheless, some remarkable differences emerged within a fragmented agenda (Table 3). In Germany (AfD), Covid-19 (17.9%) and social policy (19.7%) were the main topics; meanwhile, in France (RN), migration (16.1%) and elections (23.5%) focused the program. Elections were also a key issue for the Iberian parties (10.9% in Spain and 15.9% in Portugal), together with social policy (19.4% and 16.6%, respectively). By contrast, fact-checkers devoted greater attention to Covid-19 and the denial of hoaxes, imbedded as cornerstone of their work. Although no electoral competitions were scheduled, elections were also important for Les Décodeurs in France (22.7%) and Jornal Polígrafo in Portugal (14.6%). Beyond that, it is shown the mismatch between the issue frames of parties and fact-checking organizations. According to Table 4, the importance of the elections was also evidenced by the outstanding use of the horse race and governing frame (game frame). This means that the tweets focused on competition, criticizing the opponent. The right-wing populist parties in Spain (14.3%), Portugal (8.7%) and Germany (5.8%) were the ones that most resort to this frame. Moreover, the style of Vox (Spain) and Chega (Portugal) was much more oriented to political events through political strategy frames (7.7% and 6.3%, respectively). In fact, Table 2. Tweet focus. Items Description Populist leader Tweets whose main focus is the populist leader. Other populist party members The cornerstone of the tweets are other members of populist parties. Competitors (leaders) Tweets that have a focal point in the leaders of parties that compete with the populist one. Competitors (parties) Tweets that have a focal point in not populist parties. Thematic issues Tweets on thematic issues not related to leaders or parties. Rivas-de-Roca et al. 111 Table 3. Issue frame by party and fact-checker. Conspir. theories Denial of hoaxes Migration / segurity Covid-19 Social policy Economy / industry Foreign affairs Elections / program Alternative für Deutschland (DE) 11.6 4.0 12.7 17.919.75.2 5.8 13.3 CORRECTIV.Faktencheck (DE) 11.1 11.1 - 44.418.57.4 - 7.4 Rassemblement National (FR) 5.4 - 16.16.7 14.8 18.1 3.4 23.5 Les Décodeurs (FR) 13.6 22.74.5 - - 4.5 4.5 22.7 Vox (ES) 5.7 0.6 10.6 4.6 19.47.7 6.6 10.9 Maldita.es (ES) 2.0 29.4-21.617.6 9.8 3.9 - Chega (PT) 6.8 - 2.1 15.3 16.610.6 1.3 15.9 Jornal Polígrafo (PT) - 32.2- 5.4 9.8 6.2 - 14.6 Bold data with a significance level of 0.05. 112 European Journal of Communication 39(2) they had massive public meetings, which were not connected with elections. Other relevant finding was the personalized style of Chega (10% of the messages used politicians as individuals’frames). The Portuguese party made the different by employing tweets on aspects of personal life such as family and hobbies. Considering fact-checking platforms, their agenda was relatively fragmented. As seen in Table 3, the main purpose of most of them was to deny hoaxes (issue frame). In terms of game frames, no specific trend was found. However, the high use of politicians as individuals’frames and political strategy frames in Chega (7.3% and 6.3%) was accompanied by the fact-checker Jornal Polígrafo (10% and 10.6%) in Portugal. Populist messages were their main objective, especially when leaders were involved in Spain and Portugal. Propaganda mechanisms To further investigate the details of the populist communication, we analyzed the association between the presence of propaganda mechanisms. The employment of these items was highly plural among the right-wing parties selected, ranging from appeal to ignorance (20.8% in AfD) or attributions (16.1% in RN) to emphasis (13.7% in Vox) or appeal to emotion (12.9% in Chega). Some messages of fact-checkers did not have this kind of mechanisms, but we found that appeal to ignorance was key for both the party (20.8%) and the fact-checking initiative (42.1%) in Germany (Table 5). Our findings indicate that there was not a common pattern of using propaganda mechanisms by these parties in Europe. Hence, the communication of the right-wing populism was not as homogeneous as expected, at least in the field of propaganda. National factors could be helpful to understand why different mechanisms were employed by country. This argument may also be applied to the fact-checking initiatives, although it should be noted that Les Décodeurs (36.4%), Maldita.es (66.7%) and Jornal Table 4. Game frame by party and fact-checker. 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