Right-wing parties weaponize images to shape refugee narratives online
Researchers have mapped how populist parties across Europe blend images and text on Facebook to subtly influence voters' views on refugee issues. The finding matters because advertisers, platforms, and policymakers need to understand how visual rhetoric drives political persuasion—and misinformation—at scale.
Originaltitel: Critical reconstructions of populist multimodal argumentation: Illustrations from right-wing parties' Facebook posts on the Russo-Ukrainian refugee issue
<p>This article extends to the study of populist argumentation a framework for the analysis of inferences implicitly emerging from multimodal artifacts. The framework builds on a post-structuralist approach to populism and integrates multimodal critical discourse studies and argumentation studies, specifically the Argumentum Model of Topics. Particular emphasis is laid on the contribution of visual discourse to the process of inference-making in interrelation with verbal discourse. We illustrate the framework by examining the social media posts of three populist right-wing parties/party members from Sweden, Greece and Romania. Finally, we discuss future avenues for the analysis of populist communication practices online from the perspective we propose.</p>