IN3’s Communication Networks & Social Change (CNSC) research group is pleased to invite you to the research Seminar «Far-right in Spain: an analysis of the internal communication of the VOX party through MachineLearning» given by Tatiana Fernández, PhD candidate in the PhD Doctoral Programme in Society, Technology, and Culture at the UOC and predoctoral researcher at the CNSC.
The seminar will be held, virtually and in person, on Wednesday, July 5 at 10:00 h (CEST) in Room 101 of the Research Hub (Building C).
Venue
Research Hub (Building C - Room 101)
Rambla del Poblenou, 154
08018 Barcelona
Espanya
When
05/07/2023 10.00h
Organized by
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, IN3's Communication Networks & Social Change (CNSC) research group
Program
Summary
The concern about the growth or stabilization of far-right political parties is a hot topic in political science research. This paper proposes to analyse the far-right in Spain from the perspective of the supply side with MachineLearning Methodology. The prism through which extreme right-wing parties are viewed, focusing on the demand side, lies in the viewpoint of considering this phenomenon as something alien to democracy rather than as a product of the tensions inherent to liberal democracies.
VOX has been analysed mainly from the perspective of demand, i.e., its ideology or the party's voter profile. The internal organization of the far-right parties in general is very impoverished research. Even so, the main contributions point to the fact that these types of parties present a vertical organization, fully centralized in the hand of the leader. Due to the opacity of the VOX party and the leaders' refusal to grant interviews, the study of their internal organization is analysed through their internal communication via their official Telegram channels.
VOX is the national party in Spain with the most subscribers on the Telegram platform, and they have a meticulous channel architecture. The party manages 82 channels, in this research, 38 are analysed. The main objective of this paper is to compare the national channel of the party and 37 channels dedicated to the provinces of Spain. This research starts from the hypothesis that the VOX party has a centralization of its communication based on topics that will be replicated in the secondary channels, i.e. the provincial channels.
Tatiana Fernández
PhD candidate in the PhD Doctoral Programme in Society, Technology, and Culture at the UOC and predoctoral researcher at the CNSC.