Populism, cyberdemocracy and disinformation: analysis of the social media strategies of the French extreme right in the 2014 and 2019 European elections

The paper situates the rise of populism in Europe within the post-truth/disinformation era, highlighting social media—especially Twitter—as central to populist communication strategies. The French Rassemblement National (RN), led by Marine Le Pen, serves as a focal case due to its notable electoral success in 2014 and 2019 European Parliament (EP) elections. The authors propose that RN adapted its communication strategy to social networks to broaden its base, diversify representation on its official account, and increase engagement, thereby whitening its image to appear as a mainstream party while maintaining a populist core. The study seeks to compare RN’s Twitter campaigning across the 2014 and 2019 EP elections, assess changes in content, authorship, interactivity, and engagement, and evaluate whether RN remains populist or has shifted toward establishment politics.

The review discusses conceptualizations of populism as a malleable discourse centered on ‘the people’ versus ‘the elites’ (Taggart; Laclau; Mouffe; Mudde), featuring charismatic leadership, reductionist messaging, and emotional appeals. It addresses the weakening of traditional parties and broader crises (Euro, refugees, Brexit, COVID-19) as fertile ground for populism. The role of media and especially social networks is emphasized: social media facilitate disintermediation, personalization, micro-targeting, and real-time engagement, offering populist actors direct channels to citizens and agenda-setting power. The notion of ‘cyberdemocracy’ is introduced as the restructuring of political communication through ICTs and social platforms, with debates on inclusivity and influence. Prior research on political Twitter use covers strategic communication, rapid information dissemination, mobilization, self-promotion, thematic focus, and usage frequency, with mixed findings at the pan-European level. For far-right populists like RN, social media amplify rhetorical attacks on elites, emotionality, and personalization, while also shaping media coverage and public agendas.

Case study of the French Rassemblement National’s official Twitter account (@RNational_off) during the EP election campaigns of 2014 and 2019. The corpus comprises 1,256 tweets from the party’s official profile posted during the campaign fortnights. Data collection used the “Tweets” application (free online). The study employed a hybrid quantitative content analysis with computational and manual coding, using an eight-variable scheme arranged across three levels (storytelling/subjects; authorship; purpose; interaction/mentions; content type; engagement/retweets intervals; etc.), inspired by prior studies. Pro rata intervals were established for engagement metrics to account for disparity in activity/visibility. Data were coded and analyzed with IBM SPSS v25 to compute distributions, percentages, and correlations. Research questions: (1) Does RN value Twitter as a main resource of its communication strategy? (2) Has opening authorship increased vitality/engagement? (3) Can RN still be considered a populist party or has it adapted to the French establishment? The analysis compares content, authorship diversification, interactivity, and engagement across the two elections, and assesses persisting populist features (enemy construction; polarization).

- Twitter centrality and volume: RN’s activity increased markedly, with a reported 400% rise in tweets from 254 (2014) to 1,002 (2019), indicating Twitter’s consolidation as a key communication channel. - Content shift to multimedia and platform-native formats: In 2019, 86.8% of tweets contained embedded media—images (44.3%) and video/audio (33.9%)—contrasting with 2014 when 98% of links drove users to the party website. The 2014 strategy was one-directional and yielded low engagement; 2019 favored in-platform consumption and higher interactivity. - Media integration: Increased sharing of clips and links to media appearances in 2019 (about one in three tweets related to such content), reflecting a strategy to be present in traditional media while selecting favorable coverage. - Interaction patterns: Emergence of limited dialogic techniques in 2019 (e.g., quoting previous tweets in replies: 14.6% of sample), growth of mentions; whereas in 2014, 80% of messages lacked appeals/mentions. However, RN did not engage in genuine Twitter threads with other actors; provocative mentions served to spotlight ‘enemies’ rather than converse. - Authorship diversification: 2014 output came solely from the official account; by 2019, RN expanded voices on its official profile. Approximately six of ten tweets were responses/retweets featuring party figures. Marine Le Pen accounted for 21.4% and Jordan Bardella 20.8% of highlighted authorship in 2019. Minimal space was given to rivals (0.3%) and media (0.1%). - Engagement gains with diversified authorship: In 2014, the median retweet range clustered at 6–25 RTs (57.9% of cases). In 2019, typical engagement shifted to 26–100 RTs. Tweets authored by individual leaders (Le Pen, Bardella) were more likely to surpass 500 RTs than those from the RN account. ‘Likes’ exhibited an even sharper divergence, with leaders’ posts dominating higher favorite intervals. Tweets with no audience response dropped from 57.1% (2014) to 13.87% (2019). - Persistence of populist features—enemy construction and polarization: Media became the most mentioned actor in 2019 (31.9% of mentions), while direct mentions of political agents were 7.7%. Mentions for complaints to media jumped from 6 (2014) to 56 (2019), indicating strategic positioning of media as an ‘enemy’. Tone analysis shows strong polarization: • 2014 positive: campaign/party (93%), EU (88%); negative: immigration (100%), euro crisis (63%). • 2019 positive: overwhelmingly about party/campaign (72%); negative across specific topics—immigration 77% negative (23% positive), EU 70% negative (23% positive), economy 90% negative (10% positive), social policies largely negative (approx. 92% negative/8% positive), justice mostly negative. - Strategic ‘whitening’ with retained populist essence: RN broadened appeal via professionalized, multimedia-rich, multi-voice messaging and higher engagement while preserving a populist identity grounded in antagonism toward elites/media and issue-framed negativity.

The findings address the research questions as follows: (1) RN clearly values Twitter as a primary strategic channel, evidenced by a large increase in output and a shift to platform-optimized multimedia that enhanced visibility and user experience. (2) Opening authorship to multiple party figures—especially Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella—correlates with higher engagement and virality (more RTs and likes), indicating that diversified, personalized messaging strengthens audience connection. (3) Despite efforts to ‘whiten’ its image and appear mainstream, RN retains key populist traits: constructing ‘enemies’ (notably the media in 2019) and employing a polarized moral framing (good versus evil) across issues, with positive tone concentrated on party/campaign promotion and negative tone dominating substantive policy themes. Thus, RN’s communication evolution improved reach and engagement and broadened its voter appeal without abandoning its populist core.

The study demonstrates that RN strategically professionalized its Twitter use between the 2014 and 2019 EP elections: increasing output, embracing multimedia-native content, integrating traditional media touchpoints, and diversifying authorship to leverage leader-centric engagement. This ‘whitening’ of the party’s image aimed to normalize RN within the French political landscape and expand its electorate. Nonetheless, analysis of mentions and tone indicates that core populist features—enemy construction and polarization—persist, with negativity concentrated on substantive policy themes and positivity centered on party self-promotion. The paper underscores how populist actors convert digital engagement (retweets, likes) into political capital. Future research directions are not specified in the text.

The analysis focuses exclusively on the RN’s official Twitter account and compares only two EP campaign fortnights (2014 and 2019), limiting generalizability across platforms, parties, or longer time spans. The study did not conduct qualitative discourse analysis to identify specific adversaries or nuanced framing beyond the coded categories. Engagement measures rely on predefined intervals (pro rata) and may be sensitive to temporal/contextual factors. The text presents some internal inconsistencies in reported tweet counts across sections, which may affect interpretation.