Mainstreaming the populist radical right? Online news exposure and voting behavior in the 2019 European Parliament election

Media Cues and Citizen Support for Right-Wing Populist Parties

Abstract. Right-wing populist parties are thriving across Europe. Their success is usually attributed to demand-side voter factors and supply-side factors

How to break populist parties’ appeal? An experimental evaluation of communication counter-strategies

Right-wing populist parties have become a major challenge to liberal democracies worldwide. How can mainstream parties effectively counter their appeal? While prior research has focused on the drivers of populist support, much less is known about how to counter right-wing populist rhetoric. We test four communication counter-strategies that target core elements of right-wing populist appeals: (i) undermining populists’ claims to democratic credibility, (ii) promoting inclusive in-group identity to counter exclusionary narratives, (iii) highlighting their performance legitimacy, and (iv) emphasizing the procedural legitimacy of mainstream parties. Drawing on real-world party communications from social media, manifestos, and press releases, we created 170 experimental treatments (posters and social media posts varying in format and complexity) to simulate how voters encounter political messages in everyday life. In a large-scale survey experiment with over 24,000 respondents in Germany, messages undermining right-wing populists’ democratic credibility prove most effective, particularly among citizens with high initial support for such parties.

Persuasion and resistance: A survey experiment on messaging for and against One Nation | School of Politics & International Relations

Since the May 2025 federal election, One Nation's primary vote has risen sharply across published polling. If an election were held today, it would likely be the second-largest bloc in the House of Representatives. What drives this surge — and what, if anything, suppresses it — remains contested, with explanations ranging from economic grievance and cultural backlash to anti-establishment disaffection. While these accounts have been tested experimentally for radical-right parties abroad, they remain largely untested in Australia.

How do social media feed algorithms affect attitudes and behavior in an election campaign?

We investigated the effects of Facebook’s and Instagram’s feed algorithms during the 2020 US election. We assigned a sample of consenting users to reverse-chronologically-ordered feeds instead of the default algorithms. Moving users out of algorithmic feeds substantially decreased the time they spent on the platforms and their activity. The chronological feed also affected exposure to content: The amount of political and untrustworthy content they saw increased on both platforms, the amount of content classified as uncivil or containing slur words they saw decreased on Facebook, and the amount of content from moderate friends and sources with ideologically mixed audiences they saw increased on Facebook. Despite these substantial changes in users’ on-platform experience, the chronological feed did not significantly alter levels of issue polarization, affective polarization, political knowledge, or other key attitudes during the 3-month study period.

Sharing without clicking on news in social media

Social media have enabled laypersons to disseminate, at scale, links to news and public affairs information. Many individuals share such links without first reading the linked information. Here we analysed over 35 million public Facebook posts with uniform resource locators shared between 2017 and 2020, and discovered that such ‘shares without clicks’ (SwoCs) constitute around 75% of forwarded links. Extreme and user-aligned political content received more SwoCs, with partisans engaging in it more than politically neutral users. In addition, analyses with 2,969 false uniform resource locators revealed higher shares and, hence, SwoCs by conservatives (76.94%) than liberals (14.25%), probably because, in our dataset, the vast majority (76–82%) of them originated from conservative news domains. Findings suggest that the virality of political content on social media (including misinformation) is driven by superficial processing of headlines and blurbs rather than systematic processing of core content, which has design implications for promoting deliberate discourse in the online public sphere.

Shifts in U.S. Social Media Use, 2020–2024: Decline, Fragmentation, and Enduring Polarization

Using nationally representative data from the 2020 and 2024 American National Election Studies (ANES), this paper describes how U.S. social media use has shifted across platforms, demographics, and politics. Overall platform reach declined, driven by growth in the share of Americans — especially the youngest and oldest cohorts — who report using no social media. Visiting and posting activity on Twitter/X and Facebook have fallen by nearly 50% since 2020, with the decline on Twitter/X driven primarily by reduced participation among Democratic users. While Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter/X lost ground, TikTok and Reddit grew modestly, consistent with a more fragmented digital public sphere. Platform audiences aged and became slightly more educated and racially diverse. Politically, most platforms shifted toward Republican users while remaining, on balance, Democratic-leaning. Twitter/X experienced the largest change: among posters, the partisan balance swung over 70 percentage points from Democrats to Republicans. Across platforms, political posting remains closely tied to affective polarization, as the most partisan respondents are also the most active. As casual users disengage while polarized partisans remain vocal, online discourse becomes narrower and more ideologically extreme.

The political effects of X’s feed algorithm

Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects1. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk’s platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users’ feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X’s algorithm has persistent effects on users’ current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

The political effects of X’s feed algorithm

Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects1. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk’s platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users’ feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X’s algorithm has persistent effects on users’ current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

When Do Parties Lie? Misinformation and Radical-Right Populism Across 26 Countries

The spread of misinformation has emerged as a global concern. Academic attention has recently shifted to emphasize the role of political elites as drivers of misinformation. Yet, little is known of the relationship between party politics and the spread of misinformation—in part due to a dearth of cross-national empirical data needed for comparative study. This article examines which parties are more likely to spread misinformation, by drawing on a comprehensive database of 32M tweets from parliamentarians in 26 countries, spanning 6 years and several election periods. The dataset is combined with external databases such as Parlgov and V-Dem, linking the spread of misinformation to detailed information about political parties and cabinets, thus enabling a comparative politics approach to misinformation. Using multilevel analysis with random country intercepts, we find that radical-right populism is the strongest determinant for the propensity to spread misinformation. Populism, left-wing populism, and right-wing politics are not linked to the spread of misinformation. These results suggest that political misinformation should be understood as part and parcel of the current wave of radical right populism, and its opposition to liberal democratic institution.

Public support for the <i>cordon sanitaire</i> : Descriptive evidence from Spain

Reactions to the rise of far-right parties that advocate democratic backsliding, and the dilution of socially liberal democratic norms present a dilemma for existing political parties. How should existing political parties respond to this challenge? A commonly adopted strategy is to apply a cordon sanitaire which excludes radical right-wing challengers from the government-forming process. Do voters support this policy? Leveraging data from Spain – where the mainstream right has accommodated the radical right-wing party, VOX, via numerous governing coalitions – I rely on individual citizens’ views on how parties should respond to rise of the far-right party, to answer this question. Empirically, the results show very low-level support for the cordon sanitaire in Spain. Indeed, the modal position of the electorate, regardless of their ideological position, is to treat the party just like any other. These results are not conditioned by the propensity of individuals to identify VOX as indeed being a “radical right” party. These descriptive findings suggest that whilst radical right-wing parties may present an inimical threat to democratic norms, citizens do not necessarily view the means of squashing this threat to be one of strategic exclusion. This likely explains why the mainstream right has been able to institutionalise VOX as a political ally: where strategic exclusion is not expected, the mainstream right need not fear violating an expectation that does not exist.

Public support for the <i>cordon sanitaire</i> : Descriptive evidence from Spain

Reactions to the rise of far-right parties that advocate democratic backsliding, and the dilution of socially liberal democratic norms present a dilemma for existing political parties. How should existing political parties respond to this challenge? A commonly adopted strategy is to apply a cordon sanitaire which excludes radical right-wing challengers from the government-forming process. Do voters support this policy? Leveraging data from Spain – where the mainstream right has accommodated the radical right-wing party, VOX, via numerous governing coalitions – I rely on individual citizens’ views on how parties should respond to rise of the far-right party, to answer this question. Empirically, the results show very low-level support for the cordon sanitaire in Spain. Indeed, the modal position of the electorate, regardless of their ideological position, is to treat the party just like any other. These results are not conditioned by the propensity of individuals to identify VOX as indeed being a “radical right” party. These descriptive findings suggest that whilst radical right-wing parties may present an inimical threat to democratic norms, citizens do not necessarily view the means of squashing this threat to be one of strategic exclusion. This likely explains why the mainstream right has been able to institutionalise VOX as a political ally: where strategic exclusion is not expected, the mainstream right need not fear violating an expectation that does not exist.

The small effects of political advertising are small regardless of context, message, sender, or receiver: Evidence from 59 real-time randomized experiments

Campaign persuasion operates with notable consistency across political parties, message tone, and information environment., Evidence across social science indicates that average effects of persuasive messages are small. One commonly offered explanation for these small effects is heterogeneity: Persuasion may only work well in specific circumstances. To evaluate heterogeneity, we repeated an experiment weekly in real time using 2016 U.S. presidential election campaign advertisements. We tested 49 political advertisements in 59 unique experiments on 34,000 people. We investigate heterogeneous effects by sender (candidates or groups), receiver (subject partisanship), content (attack or promotional), and context (battleground versus non-battleground, primary versus general election, and early versus late). We find small average effects on candidate favorability and vote. These small effects, however, do not mask substantial heterogeneity even where theory from political science suggests that we should find it. During the primary and general election, in battleground states, for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, effects are similarly small. Heterogeneity with large offsetting effects is not the source of small average effects.

Undermining a Rival Party’s Issue Competence through Negative Campaigning: Experimental Evidence from the USA, Denmark, and Australia

Much party communication encourages voters to lower issue-related evaluations of rival parties. Yet, studies of such influence are rare. Drawing on research on political parties’ negative campaigning, this article starts to fill this gap. We triangulate evidence from four survey experiments across six issues in Denmark, the US, and Australia, and show that a party’s negative campaigning decreases voters’ evaluations of the target party’s issue-handling competence (i.e. issue ownership), but does not backlash on voters’ evaluations of the sponsor. Such attack on the target party does not have to be tied to a negative policy development like the crime rate to undermine the target party’s competence evaluations. At the same time, a negative policy development only undermines a party’s evaluations when it is accompanied by a rival party’s negative campaigning attack. The implications for party competition and the mass-elite linkage are important.

Partidismo negativo, derecha radical y voto: un análisis de su relación en el contexto de las elecciones generales españolas de 2023

Although the concept of partisan identification included a positive and a negative dimension as postulated by the Michigan model, the truth is that the latter dimension has received practically no attention. The present research aims to evaluate to what extent negative partisanship currently represents an explanatory factor of electoral behavior in Spain. Specifically, we study how, in the context of the Spanish general elections of July 2023, negative partisanship towards the radical right increased the probability of voting for the PSOE and whether, in turn, the rejection generated by the PSOE also promoted support for Vox. To test these hypotheses, we use data from the III National Survey of Political Polarization in Spain, elaborated by the Murcian Centre for Public Opinion Studies (CEMOP) in the middle of the election campaign. The results of the binary logistic regression models implemented show that negative partisanship towards the radical right represents a (novel) explanatory factor of the vote for the PSOE, but that Vox did not feed significantly on the rejection of the socialists —nor even of Sumar—.We also note the exceptional capacity of the radical right to arouse processes of negative identification, especially among women.

The Minimal Persuasive Effects of Campaign Contact in General Elections: Evidence from 49 Field Experiments

Significant theories of democratic accountability hinge on how political campaigns affect Americans’ candidate choices. We argue that the best estimate of the effects of campaign contact and advertising on Americans’ candidates choices in general elections is zero. First, a systematic meta-analysis of 40 field experiments estimates an average effect of zero in general elections. Second, we present nine original field experiments that increase the statistical evidence in the literature about the persuasive effects of personal contact tenfold. These experiments’ average effect is also zero. In both existing and our original experiments, persuasive effects only appear to emerge in two rare circumstances. First, when candidates take unusually unpopular positions and campaigns invest unusually heavily in identifying persuadable voters. Second, when campaigns contact voters long before election day and measure effects immediately—although this early persuasion decays. These findings contribute to ongoing debates about how political elites influence citizens’ judgments.

Auditing Political Exposure Bias: Algorithmic Amplification on Twitter/X During the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election

Approximately 50% of tweets in X's user timelines are personalized recommendations from accounts they do not follow. This raises a critical question: What political content are users exposed to beyond their established networks, and what implications does this have for democratic discourse online? In this paper, we present a six-week audit of X's algorithmic content recommendations during the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election by deploying 120 sock-puppet monitoring accounts to capture tweets from their personalized "For You" timelines. Our objective is to quantify out-of-network content exposure for right- and left-leaning user profiles and assess any potential inequalities and biases in political exposure. Our findings indicate that X's algorithm skews exposure toward a few high-popularity accounts across all users, with right-leaning users experiencing the highest level of exposure inequality. Both left- and right-leaning users encounter amplified exposure to accounts aligned with their own political views and reduced exposure to opposing viewpoints. Additionally, we observe that new accounts experience a right-leaning bias in exposure within their default timelines. Our work contributes to understanding how content recommendation systems may induce and reinforce biases while exacerbating vulnerabilities among politically polarized user groups. We underscore the importance of transparency-aware algorithms in addressing critical issues such as safeguarding election integrity and fostering a more informed digital public sphere.