Media and Communication

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2183-2439

Article | Open Access

Weaponizing Wedge Issues: Strategies of Populism and Illiberalism in European Election Campaigning on Facebook

  • Jörg Haßler Department of Media and Communication, LMU Munich, Germany
  • Melanie Magin Department of Sociology and Political Science, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway
  • Uta Russmann Department of Media, Society and Communication, University of Innsbruck, Austria
  • Anna-Katharina Wurst Department of Media and Communication, LMU Munich, Germany
  • Delia Cristina Balaban Department of Communication, Public Relations, and Advertising, Babeș‐Bolyai University, Romania
  • Paweł Baranowski Institute of Journalism and Social Communication, University of Wrocław, Poland
  • Jakob Linaa Jensen Department of Media and Journalism Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark
  • Simon Kruschinski Department of Communication, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany
  • Georgios Lappas Communication and Digital Media Department, University of Western Macedonia, Greece
  • Sara Machado Transdisciplinary Research Center for Culture, Space and Memory (CITCEM), University of Porto, Portugal
  • Martina Novotná Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
  • Silvia Marcos-García Department of Communication Sciences, Universitat Jaume I, Spain
  • Ioannis Petridis Communication and Digital Media Department, University of Western Macedonia, Greece
  • Anda Rožukalne Social Sciences Research Centre, Riga Stradiņš University, Latvia
  • Annamária Sebestyén Institute for Political Science, Hungarian Research Network (HUN-REN) Centre for Social Sciences, Hungary
  • Felix‐Christopher von Nostitz ESPOL-LAB, Université Catholique de Lille, France
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Abstract:  The 2024 European Parliament elections took place against a backdrop of overlapping crises, including climate change, migration, and the Russian war against Ukraine, all of which have the potential to drive political polarization. These wedge issues can be strategically used in campaign communication to activate strong emotional and moral responses, exploit societal divisions, and fracture opposing coalitions. When combined with populist communication and illiberal rhetoric, they align closely with the attention dynamics of social media but also carry potential dangers for democratic discourse. However, research on how these elements are combined in parties’ campaign communication remains limited. To address this gap, we conducted a comprehensive manual quantitative content analysis of 8,748 Facebook posts from parties in 13 EU member states, examining how wedge issues were communicated and combined with populism and illiberalism during the 2024 European Parliament elections. Our analyses reveal that populist parties relied more heavily on wedge issues and combined them with populist communication and illiberal rhetoric more often than non-populist parties. Certain wedge issues appeared more conducive to these elements than others. The combination of wedge issues with populist communication and illiberal rhetoric as exclusionary rhetorical strategies thus emerges as a defining feature of populist digital campaigning. These elements can be seen as mutually reinforcing tools that structure harmful political interpretation patterns, particularly in times of polycrises. This underscores how digital platforms can be used to redefine the contours of democratic debate, making it even more essential to understand the communicative mechanisms through which parties influence public discourse in order to defend democracy.

Keywords:  election campaigning; European Parliament elections; European Union; Facebook; illiberalism; issue strategies; populism; social media; wedge issues

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Published:  

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.10718

Issue:   Vol 13 (2025): Electoral Communication: European Elections in Times of (Poly)Crises (In Progress)


© Jörg Haßler, Melanie Magin, Uta Russmann, Anna-Katharina Wurst, Delia Cristina Balaban, Paweł Baranowski, Jakob Linaa Jensen, Simon Kruschinski, Georgios Lappas, Sara Machado, Martina Novotná, Silvia Marcos-García, Ioannis Petridis, Anda Rožukalne, Annamária Sebestyén, Felix‐Christopher von Nostitz. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

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