Susana Salgado’s research while affiliated with University of Lisbon and other places

This research relies on a two-stage content analysis of Reddit to test the assumption that by emphasizing othering and polarizing opinions, homogeneous ideological spaces trigger impolite and uncivil comments towards others, as opposed to spaces that enable cross partisan-ideological exposure, which overall are seen as positive for democracy. It examines subreddits with varying probability of occurrence of echo chamber effects to measure the prevalence and the targets of incivility and studies the interactions in which these comments emerge in discussions about immigration. Findings show that incivility is higher in subreddits that bring together users with the same ideological and political profile, in which echo chamber effects are more likely to occur, but the redditors’ reactions are similar in both types of environments. The targets of incivility vary according to the political orientation of the comments and the political context of the country.

The processes through which ethnicity becomes visible are varied, and its impacts have not always been the same throughout history. Investigating the roles ethnicity played in Angolan, Mozambican, Cape Verdean, and São Tomé and Principean histories makes clear that colonizers themselves placed different emphases on the relevance and the role of ethnicity in these countries. Currently, partly due to the traumas engendered by decades of conflict in Angola and Mozambique, ethnicity is mostly a silent factor, operating in the ways people interact with one another but not overtly mentioned by politicians. The insular nations’ (Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe) history with ethnicity is different from that of their continental counterparts, – partly due to the influence of Creoleness – but is not devoid of tensions; nevertheless, politicians from both archipelagic countries tend to downplay the influence of ethnicity, even if its effects can also be occasionally but subtly felt. More recently, mainstream political discourses focused on the idea of the “unitary nation” are being paired with those of spontaneous movements advocating the valorization of local cultures and languages, which are being boosted by the use of social media.

Drawing on discussions about the manifestation of incivility in online news comments sections, our research operationalizes the concept of incivility and suggests a methodological approach that relies on manual and automated text analysis and regression analysis to assess its prevalence and identify its predictors. Relying on a data analysis of over two million comments on immigration and unemployment retrieved from twelve newspapers websites from six countries (Brazil, Chile, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States), our study confirms the prevalence of incivility in online news comments sections and shows that comments on the topic of immigration, with clear political orientation, particularly right-wing, and displaying populism and false information perception are more prone to include discursive features of incivility. ARTICLE HISTORY

This research addresses the role of populist parties as disinformation agents. It specifically focuses on their use of Twitter to challenge the traditional authorities of knowledge and sources of information. The analysis relies on a content analysis of tweets to identify 1) the strategies employed to contest the “truth”; 2) the alternative sources of knowledge and information proposed; 3) the specific issues mentioned in those tweets and used to substantiate such strategies. Our findings confirm the relevance of these discourses and strategies in the populist parties’ tweets and particularly in the radical right.

This chapter examines the discourse of the Portuguese right-wing populist André Ventura and compares it with his close counterparts, Santiago Abascal, Marine Le Pen, and Matteo Salvini. The empirical analysis is focused on the 2021 presidential campaign and looks at Twitter and YouTube as parts of an integrated political communication strategy that are used as tools of exposure and message dissemination. The results show how André Ventura appropriates the features of right-wing populism but adapts those to the Portuguese specific context as a strategy to gain both wider media visibility and popular support.

This research scrutinizes the content, spread, and implications of disinformation in Brazil’s 2018 pre-election period. It focuses specifically on the most widely shared fake news about Lula da Silva and links these with the preexisting polarization and political radicalization, ascertaining the role of context. The research relied on a case study and mixed-methods approach that combined an online data collection of content, spread, propagators, and interactions’ analyses, with in-depth analysis of the meaning of such fake news. The results show that the most successful fake news about Lula capitalized on prior hostility toward him, several originated or were spread by conservative right-wing politicians and mainstream journalists, and that the pro-Lula fake news circulated in smaller networks and had overall less global reach. Facebook and WhatsApp were the main dissemination platforms of these contents.

This research investigates links between the Euro Crisis and populism and asks whether there are patterns of populism in different election campaigns, namely is there country-specific populist rhetoric or similar anti-elite criticisms? Through content analysis, we examine the mainstream media coverage of populist and non-populist actors in the countries that were most affected by the Euro Crisis (Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain) and in Poland, a country that, despite not being part of the Euro, has been experiencing a significant rise of populism recently. These are also countries underrepresented in systematic empirical political communication research and that represent different levels of success of populism. Our findings show that although mainstream news media tends to be negative towards populist candidates, there are important cross-country differences with potential impact on the electoral success and failure of populist actors.