Populist Narratives on Facebook: How the Far-Right Hijacks the Romanian Discourse on the Russo-Ukrainian War

Abstract

The social media discourse on the Russo-Ukrainian conflict has proven to be a full-fledged information war. This paper investigates how the public discussion has been hijacked by far-right political actors, who were able to identify and address citizen grievances with the aim of garnering political support. As such, master narratives were crystalized with the usage of various rhetorical strategies, ranging from emotional appeal, alarmist and sensationalist framing. Additionally, following the development of the populist narrative, the findings indicate an adjacent rise in conspiratorial content and overall spread of disinformation, consistent with the characteristics of a post-truth era. As such, in this paper we analyze the Romanian public discourse on Facebook in the first year of the war. Using digital methods and a quali-quanti approach, we aim to show how during times of turmoil, in such cases where trust in authorities and mainstream media is low, there is a high chance that far-right narratives can become popular. This represents a threat for democracy and goes hand in hand with the spread of disinformation online, which has been a problem in recent years.