The EU, populism and pandemic politics : a study on political discourses during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Political discourses have varied widely especially with the introduction of social media. Political leaders seem to rely on it as a source of communication with their followers. This study aims to analyse political discourse in relation to the covid-19 pandemic. Rapid change was witnessed the moment the virus started spreading late 2019 early 2020. The EU and rest of the world have not managed to fully control its spread. The study takes a deeper look at how prominent European Union leaders use their power to spread information, be it factual or fictitious. To be able to do this, the study, through comparative analysis combined speeches, relevant literature, and social media postings for in-depth analysis on what has been said so far. The results implicate that populism is on the rise more than ever and the pandemic has given populist leaders more leverage. Misinformation has indeed been spread on social media by the said leaders. Other key findings include informal political discourse mainly because of the constant use of social media. There seems to be no filter whatsoever. The pandemic has shed light on the kind of post-truth era citizens are living in. Having said that, political discourse should be examined further in future research because of growing populist leaders within EU countries. This will enable better assessment of the changes being brought about.