Abstract

The current debate in the academic sphere regarding the role of extreme right-wing parties during the coronavirus pandemic extends to its communicative aspect. While some authors argue that these parties have focused their messages on the perspectives of fear, the threat represented by immigrants, or conspiracies in an unsuccessful way, even considering them to be the “losers of the crisis,” others emphasize their ability to build a sense of community through resilience. The present research aims to take up these discussions and delve deeper into the study of the communicative frames of European political parties, with a particular focus on the far right, to draw more nuanced conclusions. For this purpose, a double methodology has been implemented through the coding of the frames used in a total of 2,757 Twitter posts during the month of March 2020 from the major government and extreme right-wing parties in Germany, France, Spain, and Poland. The results show that the parties studied present differences in their communicative frames, not according to their position on the ideological spectrum, as might be expected, but rather to their role as the executive power in the government or as part of the opposition of their respective legislative chambers.