Finland: Populist Polarisation of the Finnish Political Communication

The chapter discusses the political context in Finland during the 2019 EP elections and introduces the political communication environment of the country. Particular attention is given to the role of Twitter in Finnish political communication and populism in country’s party field during the twenty-first century. The empirical Twitter analysis focuses on 4211 tweets sent from 123 Twitter accounts by various political actors during a one-month period in May 2019. About one-quarter of the tweets were sent from the account of a political party, and more than three-quarters were sent by individuals, demonstrating that Twitter in Finland serves as a platform for personal campaigning. Tweeting was favoured especially by young, female and not yet established political actors who cannot gain much attention in news media. Pro-European liberal National Coalition and Greens affiliated actors were the most active tweeters creating a joint ‘us-Europeans’ spirit, but in retweeting and commenting, the populist radical right and radical left were also emphasised. The European themes concerning the elections, the EU and encouraging voting for one’s own party were popular Finnish tweeting themes, but a clear antagonism between the radical right Finns Party and other political parties characterised both the Twitter topics and the networks in Finland. Therefore, populism in Finland has remained ‘fringe’.