Feelings among friends and foes in populist communication: The Finns Party leadership’s emotional appeals on social media during the 2023 Finnish parliamentary election

This study examines the use of emotional appeals in the social media communication by members of the populist radical right Finns Party leadership during the 2023 Finnish parliamentary election campaign. While previous research has highlighted the importance of emotions in populist communication, less empirical attention has been devoted to how populist radical right actors employ both negative and positive emotional appeals, how these appeals are directed toward different targets, and how their use varies across social media platforms. To address these gaps, we conducted a quantitative content analysis of 524 social media posts published on X (Twitter), TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram by six members of the Finns Party leadership. The findings show that negative emotional appeals are more prevalent and are primarily directed toward “elites” and “dangerous outgroups”, reinforcing a negative collective identity construction of antagonistic “others”. In contrast, positive emotional appeals are also used extensively and are primarily directed toward “the people” and populist actors as their representatives, reinforcing a positive collective identity construction of “us”. Finally, the analysis reveals variation across platforms, highlighting the need for further research on the relationship between social media platforms and emotional appeals.