Communication of European populist leaders on Twitter: Agenda setting and the ‘more is less’ effect

The populist phenomenon has acquired great relevance during the last decade. The emergence of new populist actors and the consolidation of the use of social media such as Twitter are transforming the field of political communication. The objective of this paper is to know the agenda set by the leaders of the main European populist political parties on Twitter, as well as the strategy they use and the user interaction achieved. The sample consists of the 2,310 tweets published by the leaders of Podemos, the 5 Stelle Movement, France’s National Front and UKIP during three random time periods. The results show a low degree of thematic fragmentation, the launch of proposals instead of attracting voters, and the existence of a strong negative correlation between the number of published tweets and user interest.