Tweeting through a Public Health Crisis
Communication Strategies of Right-Wing Populist Leaders during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6267445 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Başak Taraktaş (0000-0001-5479-4801, Bogaziçi University, corresponding author), Berk Esen (0000-0002-6759-8903, Sabancı Üniversitesi), Suzan Uskudarli (0000-0002-0106-0182, Bogaziçi University) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 59 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 207-228 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Government and Opposition (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0017-257X • E-ISSN: 1477-7053 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/gov.2022.34 |
| OpenAlex | W4292478940 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
| References cited | 48 |
How do right-wing populist leaders address a public health crisis? This article addresses the evolution of right-wing populist leaders' communication tone and style during the COVID-19 pandemic. By analysing the Twitter accounts of Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and Narendra Modi, we explore how right-wing populist leaders control the portrayal of a health crisis from above, shift blame and consolidate support. We argue that while all three leaders initially downplay the pandemic, once they acknowledge the severity of the crisis, they vary in the extent to which they give importance to the coronavirus and shift blame. While Trump uses Twitter to praise himself and his policies, and to polarize the electorate, Modi and Johnson employ Twitter to inform the public and deliver solidarity messages. The frequency of Twitter use and the tone of the language leaders employ depend on the domestic context of that country. Our findings contribute to the scholarship on populist communication
Blame · Context (archaeology · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Crisis communication · Media studies · Pandemic · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Populism · Praise · Public health · Public relations · Right wing · Scholarship · Sociology · Solidarity · Tone (literature · Hate Speech and Cyberbullying Detection · History · Law · Medicine · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Populism, Right-Wing Movements · Psychology · Social Psychology
Rival or Villain? The Evolution of Language Depicting the Opposition under Authoritarianisation
Populist narrative power in a globalised infosphere
Problematic Reasoning Under the Guise of Anti-Māori Talk
Motivated reasoning and political ideology fueled political polarization regarding Covid-19 health recommendations in Spanish society
The Demand and Supply of Pandemic Populism
Unveiling crisis communication strategies
Vaccines as populist tropes in the Covid-19 pandemic
Hashtag activism and framing strategies in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death and the 2020 elections
Sanitary segregation imposed by Big Brother – a Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of Grzegorz Braun’s radical anti-vaccine rhetoric
Evolving populist rhetoric
Blame avoidance and credit-claiming dynamics in government policy communications
Mapping rhetorical styles in political crisis communication
“ They Did It”
World leaders’ usage of Twitter in response to the Covid-19 pandemic
The Digital Architectures of Social Media
The linguistics of self-branding and micro-celebrity in Twitter
Populist communication by digital means
‘Don’t panic people! Trump will tweet the virus away
Wave-Riding and Hashtag-Jumping
A populist paradise? Examining populists’ Twitter adoption and use
Science-related populism
Medical populism and the Covid-19 pandemic
Populism as an Expression of Political Communication Content and Style
Shifting the blame. Populist politicians’ use of Twitter as a tool of opposition
Extreme right-wing populism in Europe
Twitter and Facebook
Character assassination as a right-wing populist communication tactic on social media
Presidential Twitter in the face of Covid-19
Trump, Covid-19, and the War on Expertise
Media coverage of shifting emotional regimes
Exclusionary vs. Inclusionary Populism
Government capacity, societal trust or party preferences
European Populism in the Shadow of the Great Recession
From Brexit to Covid-19
What We Should Really Be Asking About Media Attention to Trump
The Language of Right-Wing Populist Leaders
Populism’s Threat to Democracy
Crisis exploitation
Crisis, Rhetoric and Right-Wing Populist Incumbency
Clarifying a Contested Concept
Populism, Political Conflict, and Grass-Roots Organization in Latin America
It's not Economic Interventionism, Stupid! Reassessing the Political Economy of Radical Right‐wing Populist Parties
Radical Right Populism and the Politics of Cruelty
An Alternative Account of the Populist Backlash in the United States
Policy-making by tweets
Populism, Twitter, and Covid-19
Populism as political communication style
Rethinking Populism
How to Perform Crisis
Define the populist political communication style
Extreme parties and populism
Populist online practices
The Populist Zeitgeist
Paradoxes of populism during the pandemic
Exclusionary Populism and Islamophobia
Populism and social media
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2026 (4) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |