United for a more divided Europe

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UNITED FOR A MORE

DIVIDED EUROPE

A medium speciﬁc approach to the mapping of risk cultures associated with the EU

on Twitter by the Front National, the Partij oor de Vrijheid, and the Vlaams Belang.

Inte Gloerich

Supervisor: drs. E.J.T. Weltevrede Second Reader: prof. dr. R.A. Rogers

MA New Media & Digital Culture

Graduate School of Humanities | University of Amsterdam

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Abstract

is research takes the paradox of Euroscepticism in European alliances as its central notion. It argues that the EU is perceived as a risk in the Beckian sense, and that the collaborating parties of the French

Front National, the Dutch Partij oor de Vrijheid, and the Belgian Vlaams Belang each produce

diﬀerent risk cultures around it. Using Actor-Network eory and digital methods, the issues at stake in the creation of the risk are traced as they manifest themselves on Twitter. Focussing on @mentions, hashtags, and URLs sent by the politicians of these parties, the unique and shared concerns related to the EU are found. e research ﬁnds that the digital methods approach adds new layers to the political science conceptualisation of Euroscepticism.

Keywords

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List of Figures

Figure 1: p. 24 Welcome to Twitter screenshot

Figure 2: p. 24 Twitter privacy settings screenshot

Figure 3: p. 33 Tweet statistics

Figure 4: p. 33 Following counts

Figure 5: p. 33 Follower counts

Figure 6: p. 39 Inter-party @mention network

Figure 7: p. 40 Shared @mention target accounts network

Figure 8: p. 41 Shared @mention source accounts network

Figure 9: p. 43 Unique hashtag issues

Figure 10: p. 47 Finance and work related hashtag graph

Figure 11: p. 48 International aﬀairs hashtag graph

Figure 12: p. 48 Nationalism and independence hashtag graph

Figure 13: p. 49 Anti-EU hashtag graph

Figure 14: p. 50 Israel & Judaism hashtag graph

Figure 15: p.50 Islam hashtag graph

Figure 16: p. 51 Immigration hashtag graph

Figure 17: p. 52 Ukraine and Russia hashtag graph

Figure 18: p. 52 General society hashtag graph

Figure 19: p. 52 Minor issues hashtag graph

Figure 20: p. 54 Overall hashtag graph

Figure 21: p. 56 Overall politicians host name graph

Figure 22: p. 57 Overall keywords host name graph

Figure 23: p. 58 Charts of types of host names politicians

Figure 24: p. 59 Charts of types of host names keywords

Figure 25: p. 60 Overall deeplink graph politicians

Figure 26: p. 61 Overall deeplink graph keywords

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List of Acronyms

ANT Actor-Network eory

API Application Programming Interface

BE Belgium

CIDI Centrum Informatie en Documentatie Israël (Centre Information and Documentation

Israel, NL)

DMI Digital Methods Initiative

EEC European Economic Community

EP European Parliament

EU European Union

FN Front National (National Front, party, FR)

FR France

LGBT Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender

LPF Lijst Pim Fortuyn (List Pim Fortuyn, party, NL)

MEP Member of the European Parliament

NL e Netherlands

PVV Partij oor de vrijheid (Party for the Freedom, party, NL)

RT Retweet

TCAT Twitter Capturing and Analysis Toolset

TON Trots op Nederland (Proud of the Netherlands, party, NL)

UK United Kingdom

USA United States of America

UKIP United Kingdom Independence Party (party, UK)

VB Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest, party, BE)

VVD Volkspartij oor Vrijheid en Democratie (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy,

party, NL)

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1 Introduction

e European Parliament elections of 2014 have become the scene for a unique paradox. Traditionally incompatible far right and nationalist parties have taken the elections as a stage to form international allegiances. e primary goal of the collaborations is to limit the power of the EU, and ultimately, to bring the whole institution down, in favour of national sovereignty. In light of the increasing support for Euroscepticism accross the continent (Torreblanca et al.), questions regarding the nature of the political convictions that make up this ideal become ever more relevant. In the months leading up to the May elections, the French Front National, Belgian Vlaams Belang, and Dutch Partij oor de Vrijheid have publicly joined forced to form an oﬃcial Eurosceptic alliance consisting of far right ideologies. It is especially because of the known internal diﬀerences between the parties, such as stances on LGBT rights and the topics of Israel and Judaism ("is Monster Called Europe"), that Euroscepticism as a concept is worthy of investigation.

Despite having been perceived as meaningless and phatic in the past (e.g. Street Porter; Miller), the events of the Arab spring in 2011 in particular, have caused Twitter to gain political relevance (Bruns et al. 873). In the West as well, the practice of political interactions has increasingly found an additional outlet in the relatively new medium. Because of their traceable nature, in terms of content and connectivity, tweets are especially useful in the mapping of a controversy such as the concept of Euroscepticism. is research takes the far right parties, and follows their ventures onto Twitter, to get a digitally informed insight into which issues make up Euroscepticism for the far right. e research question reads as follows:

How can Twitter be repurposed to expose the risk of the EU, as perceived by the European far right parties of the Front National, Partij oor de Vrijheid, and Vlaams Belang?

is research starts its investigation with the field of risk cartography. I will theorise how the EU acts as a risk for the parties involved, and what this means for the collaboration they envision. Here, it becomes clear that the differences between the parties, and how they are overcome, fit the concept of the cosmopolitan moment that is central to risk solutions (see Chapter 2). To create a general understanding of Euroscepticism, far right politics, and the three parties at stake, I will then introduce the way they have traditionally been framed. ese concepts from political sciences, will later serve as a reference to relate the Twitter findings to. Because the research question centres around the way political findings can be reached through this medium, I will then highlight the field of digital methods and the importance of medium specificity to this kind of research. e social cartography and controversy mapping methodology that will be applied further on, is used to find additional guidelines for the decision taking involved in the research. rough the combination with digital methods and Actor-Network eory, social cartography will be extended to an online investigation. Aer this, the specific features of the method will be presented, as well as the data that is used. e findings will be discussed in terms of the issue at hand; how the risk and its risk cultures are found through @mentions,

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hashtags, and URLs. Subsequently, they will be pulled into reﬂections on the methodology and how digital methods can be used to do political research.

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2 Risks in the Modern World

Since the turn of the century Western societies have been faced with threats of great magnitude in the form of, for instance, the events of 9/11 and the global ﬁnancial crisis. We live in a world no longer structured around the fear of God, but rather progressing towards a self-made future (Beck, World at

Risk 4). Perceiving of the world as being, to an unprecedented degree, the product of our own

inﬂuence, changes how we deal with it. What does it mean to perceive a risk in a world where we are actually in control? Sociologist Ulrich Beck begins his book on risk cartography with the idea that modern risks are oen the "product of the success of civilisation" (4). rough the ability of decision, we open up new opportunities for uncertainty; through human error and unforeseeable consequences, the world is now under the inﬂuence of human agency. e bitterness of the self-made risk is something that modern society inherently has to deal with (4-5).

An important distinction Beck makes, is that between the real world existence of a catastrophe, and the anticipatory, imagined reality of a risk. With regard to global risks, he concisely summarises the concept as follows: "risk is the staging of the reality" of a risk (10). In other words, risk is the perception or anticipation of that what would exist if the risk turned into reality. It is in fact the risk, not the catastrophe, that shapes society, an idea that Beck illustrates with the risk of a terrorist attack. e actual catastrophe of 9/11 did not excavate freedom and privacy in America or the rest of the world, the fear and risk of another such attack did (10). is is because, in fact, the "staged anticipation of disasters and catastrophes obliges us to take preventive action" (11). Here it hardly

matters anymore whether a risk turns into a catastrophe or not, its probabilities can be calculated1_and

the appropriate action can be taken (11).

Interestingly, different (groups of ) people perceive risks in different ways, in what Beck terms different "risk cultures" (12). is is where disagreements and controversies can be found on the nature and actuality of risks. It is exactly because of the processes of unification and globalisation, the antitheses of Euroscepticism, that the contrasts between these perceptions become clear. Beck explains that risks exist in this controversy; if all parties involved agree on a risk, it is treatable and no longer in the same sense a risk (13). If every possible actor involved agreed that climate change is (a) happening,

and (b) a threat,2_{preventive action would be taken and the risk would not exist in the same terms.}

Beck states however, that "the actual staging of risks presupposes their social recognition" (24), which leads to the necessity to communicate and transport the risk before it is accepted and shared. e perception of a risk exist within a system of knowledge, whether this is based on scientiﬁc fact or not. is means that a risk can be exaggerated or downplayed, as long as some form of knowledge supports it (31). ere is indeed no truth about the existence of risks; Beck states that "no one is an expert, especially not the experts" (35). If the imminence of a catastrophe would be undeniably proven

1_{Especially in today's increasingly digital, data-ﬁlled world.}

2_{Beck proposes that climate change is unique among global risks, as its eﬀects are already in existence at the same time as it is a}

threat; these effects are however so diffuse and subtle that they are not felt directly, but are only revealed through scientific investigation (71).

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before it occurred, across scientiﬁc as well as religious and other systems of knowledge, it would stop being a risk.

Given that there is no truth about risks and different sets of knowledge support different risks, the framing of a risk becomes particularly political. is is how Euroscepticism can exist within a unified Europe; it is only one type of knowledge-system regarding the union. Here it becomes clear how important language is in the conviction that this union is a risk. Consider for example the infamous and ultimately derogatory Dutch term of "kopoddentaks" which was broad to the public by Geert Wilders of the PVV, and refers to his proposed tax on the wearing of the Muslim hijab publicly (Sanders). When consisting of these types of terms, a discussion on the matter is framed and directed before it even begins, and defending for instance the right to religious freedom becomes rather incredible, if not impossible, through this language usage. Talking about the EU in terms of the hashtag

#EUSSR, and thus comparing it to the Soviet regime of the twentieth century, has a similar eﬀect.3_A

shared factor between the parties under investigation here is that they use strong language to support

their Eurosceptic ideals;4_{their manifestos each build systems of knowledge through persuasive wording}

to support a fortress of almost undeniable truths about national decay as a result of the EU.5

Each risk separates the world in winners and losers. e consequences of risks are indeed not evenly distributed across the involved actors (Beck, World at Risk 38). Some parts of the world are more prone to the negative effects of climate change, while others, for instance cold and currently uninhabitable regions, profit from it. To activate a political audience towards the acceptance of a risk as present, they have to be convinced of the negative effects it has on their own world. In other words, each party must frame the EU in a way that is relevant to their country. Euroscepticism is thus not a stable thing across cultures or nations, it is subject to the needs of its various audiences.

2.1 e EU as a Risk

Beck describes the risks society is faced with today as products of modernity (4). He distinguishes environmental, ﬁnancial, and terrorist risks as the three types that the world is threatened by today (199), later adding the digital freedom risk ("e Digital Freedom Risk"). Although the environmental risk of climate change is concerned with nature, it exists due to industrialisation, and without the impersonal and ungrounded global market systems that make up the economic world of today, global ﬁnancial risks would not exist in the way they do now (World at Risk 199-200). e terrorist threat is

3_{e relevance of language usage as a constructing element in systems of knowledge has been argued thoroughly through the}

DMI research project on conﬂicting and charged Israeli and Palestinian terms for the 'structure' dividing the region in two (Rogers and Ben-David 2, 22). Similarly, investigation of the naming of diﬀerent language versions of the Wikipedia article on the thousands of people killed in Srebrenica in July of 1995, reveals the impact of terminology; should this event be called the Fall of Srebrenica, the Srebrenica Massacre, or the Srebrenica Genocide? And what does that mean for the article and those reading and writing it? (Rogers, Digital Methods 172-177).

4_{See for instance the following material: Geert Wilders inciting his audience to chant that they want fewer Moroccans in their}

city: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cYhLHNYgEE>, or Filip Dewinter telling a joke with a morale that can be summarised as: members of the VB want Moroccans to leave Belgium no matter what: <https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=ap8FOtxwPmE>.

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diﬀerent, as it is deliberately staged, but still resembles the other risks; it targets exactly the modernised, Western world, which is also under threat from the environmental and economic risks (203). e coming into existence of the digital freedom risk, as argued by Beck in 2013, is a direct product of governments dealing with the modern, digital society ("e Digital Freedom Risk").

I want to argue for the existence of an additional political risk; the Euroscepticism the parties of this research are concerned with, is evoked by the perception and framing of uniﬁed Europe as a risk in the Beckian sense.

e EU is a modern political institution pur sang; it deﬁes the idea of the ultimate robustness and internal consistency of the traditional nation state. It is composed of international collaboration and representation in the name of peacekeeping, not colonial might, and economic prosperity for all, using an inclusive identity that goes beyond traditional cultural, ethnic, or religious constraints. To Eurosceptics however, the EU is the modernisation of politics gone too far.

e most central feature of Beck's risks is that they are tied to a catastrophe, whether it is one that is directly felt, such as the deaths caused by terrorist attacks, or a more subtle one, such as the loss of freedom through digital surveillance ("e Digital Freedom Risk"). e catastrophe of the EU can involve the loss of democracy or sovereignty, economic hardship, or the gradual but forced cultural

submission to Edward Said's Other,6_{but can indeed extend beyond these perceived catastrophes. Like}

the digital freedom risk, the risk of a uniﬁed Europe deals with parts of society which we have taken for granted, and which are perceived to be threatened from within ("e Digital Freedom Risk"); although democracy, freedom, and self-governance seem to be part and parcel of life in Western Europe, Eurosceptics belief the EU threatens exactly these central characteristics.

As Beck argued that, in the acceptance of risks, scientific fact is not sacred, and plays a role like any other method of persuasion, society is divided into different risk cultures. Approaching it as "risk religion," Beck points out that some belief that the idea of climate change as a pressing matter is delirious, while others belief it to be proven by undeniable facts (World at Risk 73). Although the FN, PVV, and VB agree that the existence of the EU is a risk, they might have very differing understandings of that risk. Beck continues to say that in the necessity of what he calls a cosmopolitan moment of enlightenment, or the recognition of the "non-excludability of those who are culturally different" (56) in the addressing of risks, leads risk cultures to be a "glue for diversity" (188). As will soon be shown, the parties hold far from multicultural ideals, but their own differing opinions of what the EU risk consists of, are glued together by the overarching aim of demolishing the institution.

e global nature of the risks Beck discusses, lead him to the conclusion that national solutions do not suﬃce to overcome them. He calls for a cosmopolitan moment in which the global risk can be addressed with global preventive action ("e Digital Freedom Risk"). e international collaboration aimed for by the parties, stems from the recognition that national answers to the EU risk would not be as productive as they need them to be. Although their ultimate goal is quite opposite to

6_{In his inﬂuential book on Orientalism, Said presents the concept of Otherness, or the understanding of that which is not}

related to the own self, as essentially Other and inherently and incommensurably diﬀerent, and especially focusses on the relationship between the Western world and the Islam. For introductory texts on the concept, see: <http://en.wikipedia.org/

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what Beck proposes, their intermediary means come to the same border crossing solution.

In the following sections, I will present the concepts of Euroscepticism, far right politics, and populism as they are described academically. Each of these holds within it risks that are framed in specific ways by each of the parties. is research is in fact aimed at the discovery of shared and unique risks related to these concepts between PVV, VB, and FN. Instead of investigating official statements and proposed solutions, I will focus on the volatile and on the fly nature of Twitter to reach concise and telling views.

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3 Euroscepticism and the Far Right

Although the aim of Euroscepticism is quite one dimensional, the exact characteristics of the risk cultures that make up the idea of the EU as a risk might differ for each party. Before diving into the Twitter data, it is important to create a basic idea of the concept of Euroscepticism as it is presented in academic research, and the way in which the parties are perceived to be positioned within it. Besides Euroscepticism, a defining aspect these parties share is their position on the far right of the political spectrum. ese are in fact far from separate characteristics; a le-wing Eurosceptic party finds other

threats in the union than these parties do.7_{e following sections subsequently present academic}

descriptions of Euroscepticism and the far right, before introducing the way in which the parties are positioned in these concepts. ese deﬁnitions will become useful in recognising themes and discrepancies in the investigations of Euroscepticism on Twitter.

3.1 Deﬁning Euroscepticism

Euroscepticism is not a new phenomenon: the term was ﬁrst published in 1985 to refer to British opposition to the European Union (Harmsen and Spiering 15-16). It was the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, which marked the birth of the EU, that revealed how real its opposition was; in France for instance, only 51 per cent of voters was in favour of the union (Brack 67, 87). e ideas that shape this opposition to a uniﬁed Europe are discussed here.

Political scientists, and influentials in the field of academic research on Euroscepticism, Aleks Szczerbiak and Paul Taggart made a basic distinction between hard and so Euroscepticism. e first is a characteristic of parties that are principally against European integration. ey oen express their demands of an EU they would find agreeable in such unrealistic terms that their only real solution is to disregard such a union altogether. So Euroscepticism contains more mainstream and nuanced positions; parties that are grouped in this subset are concerned that specific characteristics of the EU and its practices stifle the progress of their respective countries (7-8). Political scientists Petr Kopecky and Cas Mudde make a similar distinction, naming their categories "diffuse opposition" and "specific opposition" respectively. ey stress, however, that theirs is a distinction that separates the -phobes from the -philes (diffuse), and the pessimists from the optimists (specific) (300-302).

Combining their political research interests of Euroscepticism and the far right, Simon Usherwood and Nick Startin add to Szczerbiak and Taggart's distinction by looking at the traditional political le-right axis. Within the hard Eurosceptic grouping, they ﬁnd single issue parties concerned

with the sovereignty of their country. Leaving the EU8_{is the principal reason these parties exist.}

Secondly, the radical right parties, also mostly part of the hard eurosceptic group, although less intrinsically so, have appropriated anti-EU stances to suite their puristic and anti-immigration ideas.

7_{E.g. the Dutch Socialist Party criticises the capitalist principles of the EU: <}_{http://www.sp.nl/standpunten/cd_63/}

standpunt_over_europese_unie_superstaat_nee_samenwerken_ja.html>.

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e third category, which is less relevant to this research, includes far le parties that fear European integration will be a cornerstone of capitalist growth. Lastly, Euroscepticism has seeped into the mainstream in the form of so Eurosceptic discourses on the EU-budget, the Euro, and the possible additions of new member states (5-6). Usherwood and Startin's distinctions lead to the ﬁrst risks in the form of perceived threats to the progress of a country, as well as its existence as a uniﬁed, sovereign whole.

While the above mentioned categorisations are useful for recognising degrees of Euroscepticism, the following will reveal the risks involved more specifically. Focussing on the EU, French political scientist Cécile Leconte distinguishes four reasons for turning to Euroscepticism. e first is utilitarian; parties of this delineation basically look at whether they consider there to be a net gain to their country if it is in the EU. e socio-economic benefits needs to exceed member commissions and other economic contributions made to the EU (46-54), such as, recently, those need for the establishment of the European Financial Stability Facility ("European Stability Mechanism"). is is however not as easily quantifiable as it seems, and different parties have different opinions on the utilitarian benefits of the EU.

e second form of Euroscepticism is more political. is category is host to critiques regarding the nature of the institution. With the introduction of EU citizenship through the Maastricht Treaty, fears arose that this would lead to double allegiance in the member states. As the EU got a flag, and an anthem, sceptics thought the European identity would disregard or crush national identities (Leconte 46-54). Although it was first used to describe the EEC (Chalmers et al. 64), the claimed "democratic deficit" (Marquand 67) of the EU, a result of, for example, its power to override certain national decisions, is one of the main arguments for political Euroscepticism.

e third category is centred around values. It stems from the idea that European integration will interfere with issues that are part of national identities and cultures, such as stances on abortion and minorities' rights. Lastly, Leconte distinguishes cultural Euroscepticism. is category rejects the existence of an, in any way beyond economically, uniﬁable Europe. It sees the national identity as incompatible with any other identity, or indeed with one overarching identity. In extreme cases this category is host to ethnocentrism and xenophobia.

In summary, the reasons to be Eurosceptic according to Leconte are economic, political, value-based, and cultural (54-66). With current discussion of the possible accession of Turkey to the EU, the cultural reasons to be Eurosceptic get a more pronounced religious ﬂavour; it would be the ﬁrst non-Judeo-Christian country to have a say in pan-European politics, and would subsequently mean that the institution has to reevaluate its multicultural nature (Hobolt et al. 360). On a smaller scale, a strong sense of national identity or integrity is indicative of hostile feelings towards political, value-based, or cultural bonds extending beyond national borders (Carey 406-408; McLaren 554).

Regarding the ﬁnancial crisis and the risk of further economic loss, the correlation between Euroscepticism and perceptions of national economies is interesting to look into. Using data from the

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Eurobarometer9_{, which surveys thousands of European citizens biyearly regarding their stance on the}

EU and its projects, Italian academic Fabio Serricchio et al., in their search for the influence of the financial crisis, find that Euroscepticism has increased dramatically since 2007 (57). When they subsequently graph the different positions on the opinion that EU membership is a bad thing between 2007 and 2011 for each country separately, it becomes clear that although Belgium and the Netherlands are among the countries this opinion resonates least, they do show an increase, which in the later case is indeed substantial. France shows a slight decrease, but does however rank among the most Eurosceptic countries regarding this specific question (58). When this information is compared with a bad perception of the national economy, the correlation is weakest for Belgium and the Netherlands (59).

Lecontes reasons describe what are different risk cultures. Enveloped within Euroscepticism lie the fear of economic loss, the crumbling of democracy, the loss of national identity in terms of values, and lastly, the degrading of the own culture under the influence of external cultures. ese are all threats associated with the risk of the EU that can be combined to form specific risk cultures. How this is done by each of the parties will be evaluated aer the following section, which first describes the political ideologies associated with the far right, and allow the parties and their Euroscepticism to be evaluated in more general political terms.

3.2 Deﬁning the Far Right

Euroscepticism is a conviction that can exist in different political ideologies, and as described above, can consist of very differing critiques on the institution. e underlying political strand the parties are identified with, belongs to the far right of the spectrum. In order to recognise the differences between the parties, the following paragraphs explore the way the far right has been defined in political science research.

As concepts like xenophobia and ethnocentrism started to come up in the previous section, it becomes clear that terminology in this section of the political spectrum matters quite dramatically. While extremism and radicalism are terms that have been associated with the parties of this research,

their connotation of being oﬀ the map, beside the range of accepted political positions,10_{leads me to}

veer away from using them.11_{Each of these parties, even the relatively small VB, is responsible for an}

9_{e Eurobarometer is funded by the European Commission, and can be found here: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/}

index_en.htm

10_{For instance, parties that are labelled extremist (in terms of anti-democratic, anti-constitutional, or anti-liberal views) are}

banned in Germany (Carter 22).

11_{Perhaps of interest in this regard is the fact that Fleur Agema of the PVV has herself expressed a dislike of the term radical}

right, prefering 'stevig' (solid or strong) right, although her reasons might be of a diﬀerent nature than mine. Agema's appearance on the Dutch television programme 5 Jaar Later (Five Years Later) in which she makes this statement, can be viewed here: <http://www.uitzendinggemist.nl/aﬂeveringen/1386566>.

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amount of votes that has to be recognised as inﬂuential,12_{especially taking into account the nature of}

their ideologies. eir societal position in terms of resonance can hardly be seen as extreme or part of a fringe, when one in twenty (in Belgium) to one in four (in France) of the voters share their views. I will instead use the term far right, which allows for diﬀerences between the parties to be analysed without discarding them as all the same extreme, and accepts them as political forces to be reckoned with.

Studies on right-wing extremism and radicalism will prove to be useful, despite the connotations of the term, to delimit the ideologies and political heritage this study deals with. Extremist right-wing parties are generally characterised as nationalistic, xenophobic, racist, anti-democratic, and calling for a strong state (Mudde 209-218), and while some of these features are relevant to this research, others are less so.

As Elisabeth Carter points out in her study on extreme right ideologies, many studies have tried to categorise it in terms of being neo-fascist or neo-nazist. Nevertheless, she proceeds to point out that these categorisations have lost their relevance as times have changed (24-28). She instead proposes an alternative categorisation that is ﬁtted to a more current (2005) political situations. e characteristics that Mudde put forward do prove to be useful, but as degrees, rather than necessary elements (27-28). Carter tests parties on the following features:

1. the importance attached by the parties to the issue of immigration; 2. the nature of the parties' racist attitudes;

3. the parties' attitutes towards democracy, parliamentarism and pluralism13_(28).

e ﬁrst feature might be in an indicator of a party's xenophobic tendencies. To be hostile to the concept of immigration is related to nationalistic tendencies and ideals of internal homogenisation (29), which are connected to the cultural reasoning to be Eurosceptic and the risk of cultural degrading as mentioned above. According to Carter, racism can exist in three basic forms: classical racism, new racism or culturalism, or as the absence of racism. e ﬁrst type can be characterised as overtly and

traditionally racist14_{or anti-Semitic. Culturalism consists of the idea that culture is the deﬁning factor}

of differences among peoples, rather than race. ese differences are oen perceived by these parties as irreconcilable (35-39). Another difference with classical racism is that culturalism does not tend to think in terms of hierarchies, it simply wishes to keep different heritages separate, or pure (Caiani et al. 150). e third feature in Carter's list is also separable into three main groupings. e first group wishes to rid society of the democratic system altogether, and replace it with another form of ruling. e second group is similarly dissatisfied with the current democratic system, but wishes to alter it, instead

12_{In the European Parliament elections of 2014, the VB managed to ensure 6.8% of the Belgian votes, which is good for one}

seat, while the PVV received 13.3% of Dutch votes (or four seats), and the FN became the biggest party in France, jumping from three seats in the previous elections, to 23 (or 25%) this time. All election results can be found in detail on the website of the European Parliament: <http://www.results-elections2014.eu/en/country-introduction-2014.html>.

13_{See for more on the concept of political pluralism: <}_{http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/465174/pluralism}_>. 14_{In terms of for instance being concerned with bloodlines.}

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of do away with it. ey want less parliamentary power, and less democracy. Instead, they envision a system that strengthens executive power. e last group calls for less power to the state, more democracy, and puts the freedom of individuals as a central value in their programmes (Carter 41). rough examining parties along these three lines, Carter produced a typology of right-wing extremist parties:

1. Neo-Nazi parties (radically xenophobic; adhere to classical racism; reject outright existing democratic system);

2. Neo-fascist parties (not xenophobic; not racist; reject outright existing democratic system); 3. Authoritarian xenophobic parties (radically xenophobic; culturist; demand reform of existing

system: less democracy, less pluralism, more state);

4. Neo-liberal xenophobic parties (radically xenophobic; culturist; demand reform of existing system: more democracy, less state);

5. Neo-liberal populist parties (not xenophobic; not racist; demand reform of existing system: more democracy, less state) (50-51).

While it is clear that this research does not involve the ﬁrst two types - all parties are involved with and participating in the democratic system - the last three types will provide insight into the similarities and diﬀerences between these parties.

As the term populism become part of the equation, it is important to look at it in a little more detail. It has been summarised as a "thin-centred ideology" (Rooduijn 75) that revolves around the opposition between good, pure people and the bad, corrupt elite. It is not exclusively part of any political ideology, and can be employed from both sides of the political spectrum (Rooduijn 6-7, 75-76). Political sociologist and social network researcher Jens Rydgren adds to this the dimension that the term populism is indicative of adherence to the democratic political scheme. A far right populist party is part of the parliamentary right; and separates itself from liberal democrats through their concern for the people (Populist Challenge 12). Arising from their interest in Italian politics, researchers Daniele Albertazzi and Duncan McDonnell have identiﬁed four main principles of populism: "the people are one and inherently 'good,' the people are sovereign, the people's culture and way of life are of paramount value, [and] the leader and party/movement are one with the people" (6).

As a reaction to the increasingly multicultural nature of Western Europe, far right parties have gained many voters in recent years (Pettigrew 78, 91; Rydgren, "Sociology of the Radical Right" 242). In combination with the European Parliament elections of 2014 and the growing importance in Euroscepticism since 2007 (Serricchio et al. 57), this makes for a relevant subject to research. In order to make grounded comparisons between the parties' online behaviour and this situation, I will first continue to characterise the PVV, VB, and FN according to the features discussed above. Szczerbiak and Taggart recommend that, to find out where a party situates itself in the Eurosceptic field, it is useful to look at official statements, votes on European issues, and manifestos (9).

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3.3 Localising Far Right Euroscepticism

In search of the risk cultures that inform the parties' similarities and diﬀerences on Twitter, the characteristics described in relation to Euroscepticism and the ideologies of the far right, light the way to the political paths the parties take through oﬃcial statements and manifestos. Here, each party will be discussed in terms of the previously presented terminology, before looking at the way in which the politicians' tweets might nuance these in following chapters.

3.3.1 In the Netherlands

e Dutch PVV was only established in 2005, and needs to be situated with a short history of the far right in the Netherlands. Having shared coalition responsibilities between four relatively central and traditional parties for years, politics in the Netherlands never received much attention from abroad. at is, until the turn of the century (Vossen, "Populism in the Netherlands" 22). e first decade of the 21st century was filled to the brim with short-lived political initiatives inhabiting the far right or populist part of the spectrum. Parties like the LPF, whose leader was killed as a result of his views, and TON were each able to generate an audience for about five years each. rough a myriad of internal crises and subsequent dissidents, these parties generated an offspring that had a harder time standing the test of time (22-23). For the better part of the decade, the far right seemed plagued by big ego's, fiery disagreements, and dubious pasts (De Lange & Art 1235-1237). is is the setting to which Geert Wilders took the stage. While he had been a member of parliament for the established liberal party (VVD), their loyalty to the European Union at the moment the possibility of Turkey joining it became present, led Wilders to leave the VVD and remain in parliament in his own one-man party ("Wilders Stapt uit de VVD-Fractie"). Wilders claimed to have learnt from the recent past of the Dutch far right, and formed the PVV on his own terms; there was to be only one member, Wilders himself, and the party would not rely on state subsidies, so as to remain independent. Wilders was building his party in a way that did not allow any room for the mishaps of the past (De Lange & Art 1237). Additionally, this structure also allows Wilders to remain in full control over anything the party representatives do and say (1240-1241).

With the national parliament elections of 2006, the cornerstones of the ideology of the PVV became clear. Firstly, the PVV is opposed to the idea of an imminent Eurabia, and expresses this through "Islam-alarmist" opinions (Vossen, Rondom Wilders 66). It regards Muslim immigration to the West as part of a domination strategy that is inherent to the Islam, which they consider to be a "totalitarian ideology" (67). Secondly, the PVV is a populist party, defending the rights of Henk and Ingrid, the imaginary and stereotypical working class Dutch voters at the centre of the party's aim, against the corrupt political elites. e third important feature of the party is their nationalistic character. e aversion to the European Union that the party is known for, stems from the idea that the Union will become more important than the national identity. Lastly, and least relevant to this research, the PVV preaches strict a law and order system that features such pragmatic aspects as a three

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strikes and you are out principle. e party oen relates this standpoint to their anti-immigration and anti-Islam ideas (65-98).

e Euroscepticism of the PVV can be characterised as hard or diﬀuse. It is against the international political collaboration altogether and places national identity above all else. e party is however not a single-issue party; its Euroscepticism acts in support of its ideas on immigration and the

Islam.15_{e party is thus part of the radical right parties that Leconte distinguishes. e PVV's reasons}

for its Euroscepticism are mainly political and cultural. It sees the EU as an anti-democratic institution and fears mass-immigration from other member states as it grows (Lucardie 164). e party merges the neo-liberal xenophobic and populist categories on the far right; it demands more democracy, less state, less immigration, and more power to the people. In the previous European Parliament elections, the PVV managed to get 17 per cent of the votes in the Netherlands (Rooduijn 109), making it the second-biggest party. During and aer this election, the PVV refused to join an international political group, to help strengthen their voice in the parliament (Vossen, Rondom Wilders 149). Experiencing the lack of inﬂuence this resulted in, the party has sought to create a new grouping on the far Eurosceptic right in the European Parliament as the elections of 2014 drew nearer ("is Monster Called Europe").

3.3.2 In Belgium

Officially, the VB has a similarly short history, having been founded in 2004. It is however rooted in the older and strongly connected Vlaams Blok. In response to the latter's controversial slogan "eigen volk eerst" (put their own people first), all other parliamentary parties committed to a cordon sanitaire that excluded the Vlaams Blok from any direct influence in government (Erk 496) Due to subsequent charges of racism, the Blok decided to change its name and start fresh with a slightly changed programme. Although the outright racism has faded a little, the VB cannot be said to tread delicately around subjects like immigration and the Islam (493-496). As the cordon sanitaire lingered on, and the party remained doomed to the opposition, its anti-establishment attitude flourished. Fighting for the rights of the (narrowly defined) people against the corrupt political elite, makes the VB a populist party (Pauwels 114). e two main figures of the party, Gerolf Annemans and Filip Dewinter, represent two important parts of the party's ideology; they stand for Flemish separatism and anti-immigration stances respectively (Erk 498). Mudde characterises the VB as nativist and xenophobic (22). e Flemish identity is built through its opposition to two Others: the Walloons, and the immigrants (De Cleen & Carpentier 182-183). e VB expresses culturalist views however, rather than classically racist views, and claims that Flemish people are equal to others, but it is best that they are not mixed (Carter 38). Regarding all these factors, Carter describes the VB as an "authoritarian xenophobic party" (51), to which, especially in recent years, the term populist has to be added (Pauwels 114).

e Eurosceptic ideas of the VB, although they certainly exist, are not central to the party's ideology. e party is however categorised in the hard Eurosceptic group, but mostly because

15_{See for instance the descriptions of the EU on page 10 and 11 of the party's 2012 manifesto: <}_{http://www.pvv.nl/images/}

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Euroscepticism seems to be thinly spread across parties in Belgium. In comparison with Euroscepticism in other Western European countries, the VB ranks as so (Deschouwer and Van Assche 88-91). While in 2008 the party did not mobilise voters against the EU (92), their 2014 manifesto has a Eurosceptic section which states that the VB sees beneﬁts to European collaboration, but not in its current form and scale. ey call to dismantle the EU as it has become through the Maastricht Treaty. e manifesto focusses on the negative democratic, cultural, and economic aspect of the EU (Vlaams Belang 9-11). Along with their stances on immigration and the Islam, the VB can be grouped in Usherwood and Startin's radical right party category.

Although their ideologies diﬀer on some points, the Dutch PVV and the VB have created

strong links between their parties.16_{In the previous European Elections, the VB was part of the}

Identity, Tradition, Sovereignty faction (Mahony). Aer this group fell apart, the VB has not assigned itself to a new grouping yet.

3.3.3 In France

e Front National is the oldest party considered in this research, having been founded in 1972. Aer a 39 year long leadership of the party, Jean-Marie Le Pen found his successor in his daughter, Marine Le Pen, in 2011 (Rooduijn 43-45). Before discussing current party characteristics, it is important to linger shortly on one particular legacy Jean-Marie le Marine to deal with. Known for his anti-Semitism, Jean-Marie's trivialising statement in 1987 that the WW2 gas chambers were a historical detail (Rydgren, Populist challenge 180), was one that stuck in people's memories. Since her election as party

leader, Marine17_{has tried to soen its anti-Semitic ﬂavour in her ﬁght to attract a bigger and more}

mainstream audience. Election results compared between 2007 and 2012 show that she indeed succeeded; the FN was good for 4.3 per cent of the votes in 2007, which turned into 13.6 per cent of the votes in 2012 (Shields 191, 194).

Having referred to itself in 1984 as the "National Opposition Front for a Europe of Nations" (Grunberg 39), the FN has a long history of Euroscepticism. e parties anti-immigration stances are first and foremost incentives for this history. e idea of a united Europe is seen by the party as a failure in keeping immigration in check, which leads the party to be identified as part of the hard Eurosceptic group (43-44). Furthermore, Usherwood and Startin identify the FN as part of the radical right Eurosceptic group (5). e focus on immigration is indicative of the FN's two main reasons to be Eurosceptic: the perception that the EU's influence on the national cultural identity would destroy it, and the stance that the EU, with its open borders, is bad for the economic situations of the French (Startin & Krouwel 69-70). e FN's strong proposed measures to secure the French cultural identity stem from culturalism, rather than racism. e party is of the opinion that other cultures, especially those originating from Africa, should not be mixed with the French culture (Carter 37-38).

16_{See e.g. Wilders' tweet calling Annemans en Dewinter his 'Flemish friends' aer meeting with them in e Hague <}_https://

twitter.com/search?q=zojuist%20samen%20met%20bosma%20een%20geweldige&src=typd>.

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Furthermore, the party is critical of the current form of democracy in France, but does not want to disregard the system as a whole. It calls for more referenda instead, leaning to a more direct democracy, especially on subjects such as immigration. However, the party is characterised as authoritarian; it ultimately wants to use democracy to place the rights of the collective over the rights of the individual (45). All of these characteristics make the FN an authoritarian, xenophobic party (51). Rooduijn has also identiﬁed populist aspects in the FN; it sees the established political mainstream as a corrupt elite against which the good people need to be protected (44). Moreover, it does not distinguish between diﬀerent parties of this political elite; socialists are as corrupt as liberals (Rydgren, "France" 177) Together with the ethno-nationalist ideas mentioned above, this leads to a democratic system only for a narrow description of the people (Rydgren, Populist Challenge 206).

When parties from seven EU-states with at least 25 seats in the EP are able to group into a faction, they receive privileges such as European subsidies and more speaking time in debates. During the lead up to the elections and its immediate aermath, the FN, PVV, and VB aimed to create such a grouping with Euroscepticism and far right ideals at its core. At the time of writing, the parties have not been able to ﬁnd enough allies in the European Parliament yet. As the deadline of 1 July 2014 draws closer, it becomes increasingly unlikely that they will ("'Wilders in Europa'").

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4 Twitter and Politics

In the relatively short time since its founding moment in 2006, Twitter has sparked the interest of many researchers. A quick search through the online catalog of the University of Amsterdam's database for items with 'twitter' in their title returns nearly 5,000 items, while 'twitter' in any descriptive field of an entry, even more tellingly, returns over 150,000 items, and Google Scholar lists over four million entries. While all these articles and books might cover different topics all together from the one I will approach, the sheer volume is impressive. In this chapter, I will situate my research among existing studies, and point to the methodological direction I will take more specifically. First I will introduce why it is insightful to do political inquiries through the platform at all. I will look at various findings that have been made by examining tweets and the methods to get at them. rough knowledge of the methods and findings of previously conducted research, I will be able to build my own, while critically assessing their value as well as standing on their shoulders.

Twitter conversation has been described in popular media outlets as meaningless or even insulting to human intelligence (e.g. "Twitter Tweets"; Street Porter) and academically as "phatic culture" (Miller 396). at these news examples come from respectively a government funded and a tabloid source indicates how widespread the reach of the notion was until recently. When in 2011, the world witnessed a Twitter influenced revolution in the Arab spring (Bruns et al 873), the platform's relevance to politics and sociological investigations regarding human interaction became hard to deny. Founder of the DMI and web epistemologist Richard Rogers has identified three different, mostly chronological, kinds of Twitter research: (1) focussing on its presumed "banal, phatic, shallow" characteristics, (2) studying it as "a news medium for event following," and (3) "as (archived) data set" ("Debanalizing Twitter" 2-7). In 2010, science communication and social network researchers Will Grant et al. proposed that, in comparison with Facebook, Twitter is not so much concerned with private, real life friends, but it is rather about publishing content to the world, and can be seen as a strong political tool (581). is is not to deny that content on Twitter might be banal, rather to point out that, when it is not, as the Arab spring example shows, it can be influential in political settings. It was for instance through the use of the #IranElections hashtag that protests were organised and the events became traceable, largely without interference by media institutions or governments (Rogers, "Debanalizing Twitter" 4-5). While the first two instances of Twitter research study it as it happens, the most recent addition is the examination of tweets as they are collected into a database (7). Although my research is focussed on the European Parliamentary elections, and thus is concerned with an event, it is through the appropriation of this last strand of studies that I will be able to investigate in depth the networks of topics and user associations. In the chapter on methodology I will expand on my usage of

the DMI-TCAT,18_{which allows me to do so. Twitter researcher David Gunnarsson Lorentzen}

furthermore lists the types of political Twitter research with the following types: "(1) predicting

18_{A short description and a link to previous research done with this tool can be found at <https://wiki.digitalmethods.net/}

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election results, (2) tweeting during elections campaigns, (3) predicting political preference and aﬃliations, (4) examining the correlation between political opinion polls and sentiment words, (5) and usage by political leaders or governmental organisations" (331). Of these strands of inquiry, the second and ﬁh are most relevant to the research question this project tries to answer.

Before focussing on the way politicians and the public use Twitter for political conversations, I will highlight the medium specific features that make it especially suitable for these conversations. Rogers urges the internet researcher to "follow the medium," and allow the features that the medium consists of to take the lead in the inquiry (Digital Methods 24). e particularly flexible and changing nature of online objects, is the precise reason that they should not be fixed for research, but rather studied in their temporal specifics (24). e following section will explain how the medium specific features of Twitter can be seen to enable and enhance the usage of the application as a political conversation tool.

4.1 Medium Speciﬁcity; Why and How Twitter is Used Politically

Figure 1: Twitter's welcoming message to new users, as it was featured on 8 May 2014, captured om <http://twitter.com/>.

As Grant et al. pointed out in 2010, Twitter introduces itself as a conversational medium (580), and points out that it allows users to "join the conversation" and "share and discover what's happening right now" (Twitter.com qtd. in Grant et al. 580). e change to the introductory note of "start a conversation, explore your interests, and be in the know" featured in Figure 1, suggests perhaps an even more active user proﬁle in an engaged network. Grant et al. have proposed that the speciﬁc "modeling of human relationships" that happens on Twitter, makes it especially suitable for political content (580).

First of all, looking at the privacy settings of the application reveals that it is aimed at public discussion; by default, anyone can see anybody's tweets. Even if you tick the box to protect your tweets, the private nature of those that were sent previously is not guaranteed, see Figure 2:

Figure 2: Twitter's function for protecting the privacy of tweets, as featured on 9 May 2014 on <https://twitter.com/settings/ security>.

e public nature of Twitter has been compared by Grant et al. to the "public spaces of the square and the bazaar" (580). e application enhances that space for public discussion with several features:

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@mentions, hashtags, retweets, and URL sharing. e most extraordinarily daring feature of the medium however, is its 140 character limit. Twitter insists on short bursts of information or opinion, rather than detailed views. is makes it necessary for the writer of a tweet to be concise and to the point, while remaining understandable.

@Mentions are used to link a tweet to another user, either to directly address them, oen

done at the beginning of a tweet,19_{or to "broadcast" the tweet to the followers of that @mention}

account, which is mostly done in the main text of the tweet (Grant et al. 584; boyd et al. 2). Digital communications and social media politics researchers Julian Ausserhofer and Axel Maireder suggest that, because of this second usage, the amount of incoming @mentions an account receives, rather than for instance their number of followers, is indicative of their inﬂuence within their network (293, 297), and can thus help point to networks of inﬂuence and clustering of political issues regarding Euroscepticism. is follower-followee structure of the medium creates a directed network of associations. Following a large amount of accounts does not intrinsically lead to a large following in return, as the mutual friendships on Facebook do.

Hashtags are more straightforwardly political. e introduction of the functionality of grouping tweets by subject through the use of categorising hashtags was a particularly bottom-up one; the idea is credited to a Twitter user, not the company itself (Bruns and Burgess 2). It became institutionalised through uses such as the 2007 #sandiegofires hashtag that allowed an event to be followed by users (Rogers, "Debanalizing Twitter" 2). However, hashtags can be employed to achieve a variety of goals. As in the #sandiegofires example, hashtags can be used to link a tweet to a known theme or event and join the conversation around that theme (Bruns and Burgess 3-4). An example of this, relevant to the current study, would be the use of #neuro to criticise or more generally address the controversy of the Euro currency and the financial risk of the EU. Tweets that use hashtags in this manner, can be seen to address an "imagined community of users", and are able to connect (briefly) the network of followers the source user has, with the network of followers of the hashtag (3-4). ere is indeed a sense of temporality attached to hashtags, as they are not stable entities; users change the way they refer to events, and hashtags can be contested by others (Larssen and Moe 743-744). Nevertheless, the referencing of an event or topic usually centres around one or a few hashtags. Before the crowd is at the stage of settling on these hashtags, tweets are oen tagged with multiple related hashtags, so as not to miss their audience. However, through this practice, hashtags get broader, like for example a #france hashtag. Here, they most likely don't have a (tight-knit) network of followers. ese hashtags can be seen as "twitter spam", in terms of their lack of targeting (Bruns and Burgess 4-5). Lastly, there is the more emotional or personal usage of hashtags, such as #tired or #fail (5), which could be useful at distilling opinion or perspective on the topic at hand when they are used together with more objective ones like #elections or #pvv.

Another way of joining the conversation on Twitter is through retweets (RT). While the syntax of hashtags is perfectly standardised, that of retweets is, unfortunately, less so. Before Twitter

19_{Which, in speciﬁc cases of direct conversation, is also called @replies. rough this feature, the tweet is attached to the one}

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introduced a retweet button in 2009,20_{retweets were, most generally, structured like this: "RT @user}

original tweet," but many syntactical and punctuational variations occurred (boyd et al. 3). e button has simpliﬁed things, as retweeting is now done with the click of a mouse, but many nuances are lost. Retweeting through the button only supports the exact citing of a tweet, annotated systematically by the name of the retweeter. Manual retweeting, which is still practiced and preferred by many, allows the retweeter to add a layer of comments to the original tweet, thus appropriating it more personally. is means a retweet can be seen as a sign of endorsement, but also as an inversion of its content. e retweet is most suited to information sharing tweets (6), rather than in the babble mentioned earlier. As a rebroadcasting device, it draws new users into the topic of the tweet, allows new associations to occur (1). e act of retweeting can be compared with the forwarding of emails; a message is re-sent as it is to a new audience in order to share content (3). It is important to note that the retweet structure is sometimes used to cite content encountered through another medium and thus links Twitter to outside content (3). In the broadest sense, retweeting is the broadcasting of previously released information to a new audience. Retweets in a political setting can be inﬂuential in the spreading of support for opinions and actions.

Not uniquely speciﬁc to Twitter, but also worthy of discussion, are the various other options of content sharing through tweets. Like Facebook, Twitter supports the sharing of original or quoted pictures and videos. Contrastingly, Twitter does not favour this content above text; pictures and video content shared through twitter is shown in a partly collapsed window underneath the tweet. is means that, despite popular marketing studies that have shown that visual content engages users more

than textual content,21_{Twitter directs the focus to its 140 character limited tweets, although}

subsequent redesigns have allowed more and more space for images. An eﬀective way to convey meaning beyond this limit, is posting URLs in tweets. Which is especially popular through the aid of

shortening services like bit.ly22_{or ow.ly}23_{(boyd et al. 2-3). By pointing to outside content and allowing}

a story to unfold there, a user can indicate his or her own position on more complex topics. In particular because of the references to society and news stories that are inherent in politics and the usefulness of linking to address these topics, this will be a central feature of the analysis.

4.2 Twitter Usage by Politicians and the Public

In 2008, as a ﬁrst in American politics, Barack Obama and his team launched a successful online and social media campaign that many argued helped him win presidency in the United States (e.g. Farrell 371; Larssen and Moe 370; Carr). Now, in 2014, its almost unthinkable for a major politician not to

20_{See the oﬃcial Twitter blogpost introducing the functionality here: <}

https://blog.twitter.com/2009/retweet-limited-rollout>.

21_{e.g. <http://blog.buﬀerapp.com/the-power-of-twitters-new-expanded-images-and-how-to-make-the-most-of-it> or}

<http://brockcomm.com/5-stats-prove-facebook-content-visual/>.

22_{https://bitly.com/}

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reach out to his or her audience through online communication. e political use of Twitter, by politicians as well as other actors, has increased to the point where it has become an important facet in political reality (Ausserhofer and Maireder 291; Grant et al. 599). It is a way to start a conversation without the inﬂuence of traditional media as a gatekeeper, or the constraints of time and space; audiences are now addressable in a completely new assemblage (boyd et al. 1). is pulls the idea of a "networked public sphere" as thought of by cyber law and online information production expert Yochai Benkler (22) into a political sphere of information sharing through an abundance of sources (Ausserhofer and Maireder 293). rough the use of hashtags and retweets, political talk on Twitter is amalgamated into "spheres of communication", which allow not only established actors, but also a wider public to join in the conversation (294). ese spheres, or clusters, have been shown to consist mostly of users that are of similar political orientations that retweet and link strongly within their cluster (Farrell 41; Conover et al. 91). Furthermore, while the online presence of politicians has been described as an "electronic brochure" of their party, hopes are that through the unmediated connections possibly made with citizens, Twitter allows users to engage on a new level (Larssen & Moe 732). rough an investigation of Twitter usage by American politicians it has become clear that the incentive to become active on social media was larger in the minority party; it is seen as away to route around the traditional media's attentions and agendas, which is usually dominated by the major party (Lassen and Brown 421, 431). Maireder and Ausserhofer have found that, indeed, the political agendas of Twitter conversations and those present in the mainstream media, are not the same (307). Although they generate a substantial amount of votes, none of the parties considered in this research is part of the mainstream, and can therefore indeed turn to Twitter to get their opinions and solutions across unmediated by traditional media.

Several studies have investigated the way politicians in various countries use Twitter politically. Generally their tweets have been categorised as campaigning, self-promoting, spreading information, for instance through links to news articles, and reporting on day-to-day activities (Ausserhofer and Maireder 293; Golbeck et al. 1612, 1619-1620), while a less well-represented category constitutes of direct conversations with general users (Waters and Williams 395; Grant et al. 587). Direct interaction with the public is important however; those who do, proﬁt more from their social media ventures than those who do not (Grant et al. 579). Ausserhofer and Maireder state that when these interactions occur, the political Twitter sphere is more than an "echo chamber of a political elite," and becomes a space in which more people can join the conversation (305). Gunnarsson Lorentzen found that the political Twitter sphere is prone to polarisation and users generally expose themselves (or are exposed to) like-minded users (8). Finally, the volume of political tweets from the general public is triggered to increase by events such as elections ( Jürgens and Jungherr 210-212).