Date of Graduation

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Degree Level

Undergraduate

Department

International and Global Studies

Advisor/Mentor

Corrigan, Lisa

Committee Member

Hare, Laurence

Second Committee Member

Calabretta-Sajder, Ryan

Third Committee Member

Warren, Ron

Abstract

Spanish right-wing political parties have become incredibly active on social media within the last decade, especially with the creation of the ultra-right wing party Vox, which now has the most followers of any Spanish political party across all social media platforms. The usage of social media by right-wing political parties is a populistic approach that allows politicians to connect directly to their voter base instead of utilizing more ‘elitist’ forms of media. This paper is focused on analyzing the rhetoric of two right-wing Spanish political parties, Vox and Partido Popular, in order to gauge their stances and impacts on gender equality in Spain. Previous research has been done to analyze how Vox’s operationalizes gender on their Instagram page in the lead-up to the 2019 general elections in Spain, but there remains a gap in research when it comes to analyzing how both Partido Popular and Vox use Facebook and Twitter to weaken gender equality in Spain. With the rise in populism throughout Europe and the creation of new reactionary right-wing parties like Vox, the impacts of emerging rhetoric on gender equality is a pressing modern issue. This paper focuses on three themes that emerge on both right-wing parties’ social medias: criticism of government equality measures and legislation, discriminatory LGBTQ+ treatment, and denial of gender-based violence. Vox and Partido Popular posted about a combination of these three themes a combined 727 times over the course of 2021-2022. I performed a feminist rhetorical analysis on all of these posts in order to understand the rhetoric surrounding gender equality that Vox and Partido Popular are promoting on their social media pages. I found that both parties had become more reactionary and radical on issues surrounding gender equality on their social media but also implement policies that reflect their reactionary views in many regions of Spain where they have a legislative majority. With the rise in violence and violent rhetoric around LGBTQ+ individuals and women in Spain, this research is vital in identifying how Spanish right-wing political parties promote rhetoric online that inhibits equality for women and the LGBTQ+ community.

Keywords

Populism; Social media; Digital Communication Anaysis; Spanish Political Parties; Gender Equality

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