Abstract

This article is about the great changes that have happened in recent years in international politics as well as the challenges that these thorough transformations imply. Some examples of great significance are the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), the attack on the New York World Trade Centers twin towers and the Pentagon (2001), and the crash of Wall Street (2008). These are historical events that have had practical and theoretical repercussions for different humanistic disciplines like political science, law and international studies. The authors purpose is to analyze both practically and theoretically the new paradigms of global politics. The impact of globalization on Latin America is given special attention. The author concludes by presenting some alternatives in order to resolve the dilemmas posed by globalization.

Abstract

The main theoretical approaches related to the study of political communication, defined as the interaction between political parties, the media, and citizens, are analyzed. The theories are summarized into two main currents: first, those theories and approaches that emphasize political mediatization, which is the adaptation of political messages to the discourse, strategies, interests, and logic of mass media; second, the theoretical approaches that warn about the dependence of the media on external actors, as well as the loss of influence and relative importance of the media in the last years.

Abstract

This article examines President Donald Trump’s treatment on Twitter towards the US media during his first six months in office, from January 20 to July 20, 2017. Based on a content analysis of the tweets published in the account @realDonaldTrump, we study the mentions to the media and their tone, and the presence and use of keywords related to the media. In addition, we analyze Trump’s treatment of the press in relation to political control and the role of journalism as watchdog of democracy. As main conclusions it is noted that Trump, in a very simplistic way, praises those media that treat him positively and criticizes those that –in his view- portrait him negatively, which are often dubbed as fake news. Through this process, Trump avoids the mediator role of the media and rejects the watchdog role that democratic systems have attributed to them.

Abstract

The populist phenomenon has acquired great relevance during the last decade. The emergence of new populist actors and the consolidation of the use of social media such as Twitter are transforming the field of political communication. The objective of this paper is to know the agenda set by the leaders of the main European populist political parties on Twitter, as well as the strategy they use and the user interaction achieved. The sample consists of the 2,310 tweets published by the leaders of Podemos, the 5 Stelle Movement, France’s National Front and UKIP during three random time periods. The results show a low degree of thematic fragmentation, the launch of proposals instead of attracting voters, and the existence of a strong negative correlation between the number of published tweets and user interest.

Abstract

The populist phenomenon has acquired great relevance during the last decade. The emergence of new populist actors and the consolidation of the use of social media such as Twitter are transforming the field of political communication. The objective of this paper is to know the agenda set by the leaders of the main European populist political parties on Twitter, as well as the strategy they use and the user interaction achieved. The sample consists of the 2,310 tweets published by the leaders of Podemos, the 5 Stelle Movement, France’s National Front and UKIP during three random time periods. The results show a low degree of thematic fragmentation, the launch of proposals instead of attracting voters, and the existence of a strong negative correlation between the number of published tweets and user interest.

Abstract

  The wide adoption of the Internet gave rise to populism, which is regarded as a critical threat to deliberative democracy. This paper was a cross-national panel study to explore the Internet’s populist impacts on deliberative democracy. It had two specific objectives. One was to examine whether or to what extent Internet penetration has populist impacts on deliberative dimensions, including reasoned justification, common good, respectful counterarguments, range of consultation, and engaged society. The other was to examine how Internet penetration moderates a country’s formal deliberative process, referring to the interaction among state institutions, the public sphere, and civil society. Using data from Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) and the United Nations, we run panel analyses with a sample of 3,173 units in 167 countries from 2000 to 2018. The results showed that Internet penetration increased calls for the common good, disrespected counterarguments, narrowed the range of consultation, and expanded engagement in public deliberation. In addition, Internet penetration strengthened the effects of public sphere on reasoned justification and range of consultation, but weakened the effects of civil society on reasoned justification, common good, respectful counterarguments, and range of consultation.

Abstract

The 2019 European Parliament elections were held in Spain in a context of political fragmentation and polarisation, following the recent incorporation of the extreme right into the national parliament. Elections to the European Parliament are considered second-order elections and are sometimes used by citizens to cast a punishment vote, favouring new political actors of a contestatary character to gain visibility. Social media networks such as Facebook play an important role because they offer these parties a space where they can disseminate their messages on equal terms, beyond media control. This study conducts a content analysis of the posts published on Facebook by Spanish national political parties in the month prior to the 2019 local, regional and European elections. The main goal is to analyse the communication strategy used by Spanish political parties in this social media, in order to find out the importance given by the parties to the European elections and whether there are differences in strategy at each level. The results reveal that the European elections are a third-order election for Spanish parties, behind local elections. Most parties practice a dual campaign, in which the topics, goals and emotions posted on Facebook vary according to the political level at which they are targeted. This tendency is more pronounced in populist parties and seems to be shaped by the national political context and aimed at matching the concerns of Spaniards at the European level. Despite the incorporation of the extreme right into the Spanish political chessboard, the negative Eurosceptic discourse is only present in the two populist parties and does not affect the rest of the political forces.

Abstract

In the context of the political instability shown by the calling of four general elections between 2015 and 2019, the populist party Vox gained parliamentary seats for the first time in a country that, thus far, had always remained outside of European trends. When populism, and especially the presence of far-right parties, are taken into account as a potential barometer of the health of representative politics, it is paramount to understand how these organizations build their discourses and spread them on social media. To identify the main ideas that guided Vox’s online campaign and how its community is defined, we analyzed both the morphology of the community (n1 = 1,674,681) and discourses on Twitter during the two 2019 campaign periods. The samples used (n2 = 511, n3 = 746) are made up of all the tweets posted by Vox, its presidential candidate Santiago Abascal, and the main profiles of the online community. We used critical metaphor analysis, which allows us to qualitatively approach the content of the messages and establish whether the characteristic features of populist political communication are present. The results show that, in both campaigns, the organization’s strategy was developed from the metaphorical frames of “the progressive dictatorship” as opposed to “living Spain/tradesmen/the Spain of common sense,” threatened by “wild immigrants,” “coup plotters,” and “fake media.” This framework was partially distributed among its online community.

Abstract

This paper analyses the context of disinformation in Spain from the perspective of the pseudo-media (i.e., websites that mimic conventional media to offer partisan content based on alternative facts). Using a quantitative (N = 1,143) and qualitative (n = 396) methodology, this research analyses publications from eight Spanish pseudo-media that reach more than 4 million unique users. Results reveal an interest in three topics: vaccination, restrictions and speculation about Covid-19, national politics –focused on criticism against government– and topics related to human rights –mainly LGBTI, gender, immigration– with a total of 58.1% of the content published in four sections (International, Spain, Society, and Economy). The study reveals a growing trend towards polarisation and the use of clickbait techniques in four out of ten headlines. The Internet and social media are the most common sources quoted, while a third of the items lack sources or correspond to opinion pieces. Minorities and vulnerable groups are framed as a social threat, and the presentation of the coalition government as a danger to Spain that must be put to an end, which makes the discourse of these websites in tune with the ideology of the far right wing.