Australian National Populism on Twitter: A mixed-method analysis of communication strategy, attitudes and socio-economic influences during the 2019 Australian Federal Election cycle and beyond

Haylee N Ruwaard

Right-wing populism has been a significant mainstream topic since US former President Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016. Populism’s status as a negative political force and a pathology of modern society is a popularly held view. The media’s ability to influence such attitudes has been subject to institutional scrutiny, with reports warning that populism communicated online is negatively influential. Underscoring such attitudes towards right-wing populism are theories such as the pathology thesis which sees the political form as outside normal democratic politics. The pathology thesis has inspired the view that right-wing populism is abnormal and in need of intervention, with a range of politically-involved studies confirming this conclusion (Ott 2017; Kreis 2017; Ott and Dickinson 2019; Sengul 2020) Twitter studies of right-wing populists prior to elections, are largely European focused. While Australian right-wing populism is not new, recent academic insight has only directed inquiry at One Nation leader Pauline Hanson. Responding to gaps in research and building on related European studies, this thesis expands the scope of analysis to focus on three populist politicians in Australia before, during and after the 2019 federal election cycle using a mixed-method content analysis. Twitter is the media system for analysis due to the high uptake of politicians relying on Twitter and the platform’s structures that parallel features of populist language. Units of analysis are tweets constructed during the election cycle, collected via a consecutive day/multi-level sample. Tweets were coded according to a coding scheme that integrated varying definitions of populism, to develop nine communication strategies that emerge from three core populist dimensions. Following inter-coder reliability testing, codes were ranked according to use and correlated with user-metrics for each tweet to determine the strategy strength. The examination of mainstream media communication was undertaken via a thematic analysis of speeches, media conferences and press releases, using the core dimensions of populism as the guiding framework for analysis. Further noting the need to study populism through alternative theories and frameworks, agenda-setting, framing and priming tactics were analysed, and their interrelationships considered. The study incorporated a socio-economic dimension to thematically explore social conditions that occur alongside right-wing populism. The study revealed populist communication on Twitter incorporated a complex construction of multiple strategies and frames, operating in a matrix. Populists appeared to rely on four main strategies, where the elite were blamed and discredited, with lesser-used strategies applied as complementary to boost tweets. Higher strategy frequency did not always predict higher user metrics, suggesting the issue communicated played a significant role in engaging audiences. As a result, the research offers adaptions to the analytical framework used to account for complex strategy and frame construction for future consideration. The research suggests globalisation, neoliberalism, and liberal democracies are significant within right-wing populism that occur alongside a hybrid media system. In conclusion, a thin and thick analysis revealed the term right-wing populism is problematic, with the analysis suggesting national populism to be more precise. The finding has implications for future research in terms of definitions, theory and methods used within the field.

Australian National Populism on Twitter: A mixed-method analysis of communication strategy, attitudes and socio-economic influences during the 2019 Australian Federal Election cycle and beyond

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