Angry Posts Mobilize: Emotional Communication and Online Mobilization in the Facebook Pages of Western European Right-Wing Populist Leaders

Abstract

The rise of right-wing populists in Western Europe has often been linked to their ability to exploit social media affordances to fuel anger. While scholarship has already examined the emotional dimension of the populist right’s online communication, with some researchers studying specifically the fuelling of anger among social media users, we still lack empirical proof of the mobilizational effectiveness of what we describe as “anger-triggering communication.” To explore this question, in this article, we develop a statistical and topic analysis of right-wing populists’ Facebook pages in Italy, France, Spain, and Germany during the 2019 European Union (EU) election campaign. We find that (a) right-wing populists on Facebook have a significantly higher number of “Angry” Facebook reactions per post compared to their political adversaries; (b) there is a positive and significant effect of the number of Angry reactions on the number of times a post is shared; (c) Angry reactions and Shares are overrepresented in posts on immigration and security, but anger-fuelled mobilization is not limited to these topics. These findings contribute to the scholarship on social media, emotional communication, and populism, adding insights on the mobilizational effectiveness of negative campaigning. The article highlights that stoking public anger, especially around controversial issues such as immigration and security, is a rewarding tactic because it increases motivational strength, and contributes to triggering high-threshold interactions such as sharing, which, in turn, are key for achieving virality in the diffusion of political messages.

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“…The few differences we found mainly reflect internal political debates. For instance, the predominance of themes such as "Threats and Internal Security" in Spain, "Crime and Justice" in Italy, and "Islamism and Internal Security" in France reflects a tendency to emphasize issues that can fuel anger and division within societies (Gerbaudo et al 2023). These themes tend to create a clear distinction between 'Us' and 'Them', often resulting in a less inclusive and more confrontational public dialogue.…”

“…They tend to take antidemocratic forms, capitalizing on the broken promises of established oligarchic forces that failed to honor the founding principles of democracy, hence actively participating in its destruction (Stavrakakis 2018). Right-wing populists dwell so much on certain topics, such as those related to immigration and security issues, to fuel anger among social media users (Gerbaudo et al 2023). For instance, the leaders here analyzed-Giorgia Meloni (Fratelli d'Italia) and Matteo Salvini (Lega) in Italy; Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella (Rassemblement National) in France; Santiago Abascal (Vox) in Spain-belong to this category.…”