Abstract

Since the 2014 European elections, populist organizations have been gaining a share of power, as finally ratified by their voters in May 2019. In the case of France, the rise of National Rally (NR) is, partially, due to a change of its communication strategy. In particular, in its online strategy framework for the European elections, a total of 1,256 tweets published by its official Twitter account during the 15-day electoral campaigns in 2014 and 2019 have been analyzed. The results confirm a reconfiguration of its online communicative strategy and how this shift allowed the organization to create a closer link with its audience to increase and build loyalty among the number of users who could become NR voters.