Representations of immigration on Facebook: A lexicographic analysis of the communication of Italian political leaders and their followers (2019-2021)

This study proposes a psycho-social reading of immigration communication on Facebook by five Italian political leaders and their followers during the Conte II government (5/09/2019-13/02/2021). We analyzed the discursive construction of the migration phenomenon in the posts published by two leaders of the right and center-right populist parties (Giorgia Meloni and Matteo Salvini, respectively), the leader of the populist catch-all party 5-Star Movement (Luigi Di Maio) and two left-wing non-populist leaders (Nicola Zingaretti and Laura Boldrini), to ensure comprehensive coverage of the different political ideologies in the Italian context. The textual analysis, with the Spad-t statistical package, highlighted two opposing ways of constructing the representations of the migration: that of the populist right of the angry-disparaging exclusionary type and that humanitarian inclusive of the center-left, while the transversal populism is placed in an intermediated position with exclusionary rhetoric without emotional tones. Furthermore, comments related to these posts, made by ordinary users of Facebook, were examined, showing that the narratives of political leaders are able to influence social representations of migrants in their constituents: while the posts published by populist leaders predominantly generate comments expressing anger and fear towards migrants, the posts of the two non-populist leaders favor the publication of less emotionally charged comments.