Populism and racism on social networks: an analysis of the Vox discourse on Twitter during the Ceuta 'migrant crisis'

Abstract

On 17 and 18 May 2021 almost 8,000 migrants arrived in Ceuta, crossing over from the Moroccan side of the border. The humanitarian emergency was evident, but the Spanish extreme right defined the situation as something quite different. This paper analyses Vox’s activity on Twitter during the two weeks following the arrival of the migrants, with the aim of identifying the logics of racism in its discourse. The methodology used is content analysis, focusing on topics frequency and discursive strategies used. A total of 762 publications from the official Vox account are analysed. The results indicate that the party constructs the aforementioned crisis as a warlike situation of threat, by way of populist discursive strategies. The logics of racist discourse are specifically xenophobic and cultural. Vox demands anti-immigrant institutional racism that does not respect human rights. This paper concludes with some reflections on the worrying normalisation of racist discourse today.