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The Political Role of Emotions on Facebook: the Case of Leave.EU

Populism
Social Movements
Social Media
Brexit
Anna Nordstrom
Stockholm University
Anna Nordstrom
Stockholm University

Abstract

Social media platforms has been recognized by far-right actors as key sites for communication and political power (Titley, 2019; Åkerlund, 2022; Betz and Johnson, 2004). During the run up to the UK’s EU membership referendum (Brexit) political lobbying group Leave.EU were criticised for their overt racism. Although the group began as a single-issue pro-Brexit group, it has after the referendum, widened its focus to involve a variety of issues mainly from a far-right angle, with Facebook as its core communication tool. This paper is based on my PhD thesis which takes its departure point in Sara Ahmed’s (2014) theories on affective economy and in Ahmed’s claim that “political discourse transforms feeling by giving that feeling an object or target” (2014, p. 227), and in the openness by Leave.EU founders regarding emotions being at the centre of its campaign activities. An example of this is Arron Banks statement in relation to the Leave.EU campaign strategy “facts don’t work…You have got to connect with people emotionally” (Booth, Travis and Gentleman, 2016). Moreover, Leave.EU’s director of communications, Andrew Wigmore, claim that he received advice that “referendums are not about facts, it's about emotion and you have got to tap into that emotion” (BBC News, 2018b). As such the presentation concerns what the attempts at engaging emotions regarding far-right politics on social media look like, and how followers relate to and engage with different emotions on social media. I provide overview of the Leave.EU Facebook content based on a thematic analysis presenting themes in relation to different numbers of engagement and emotive reactions. To then move on to a qualitative analysis of content and comments to illustrate how and what objects of emotion are shaped on the Facebook page.