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image of Exploring viewers’ visual attention and emotional responses to populist communication: A laboratory study of the Finns Party leader’s strategies on Instagram and TikTok

Abstract

This study examines how social media users engage with visual populist content on Instagram and TikTok, specifically focusing on ‘de-demonization’ strategies used by party leader Riikka Purra of the populist radical right-wing Finns Party. The study investigates how these strategies have been received among a young audience who oppose the populist party. By combining eye-tracking data with facial expression analysis, this research offers a novel methodological approach to understanding visual attention and emotional responses. The results reveal insights into the effectiveness of visual populist communication, suggesting that, while visual elements are often emphasized, captions and user-generated comments play a significant role in shaping emotional engagement. These findings underscore the need for a comprehensive approach to analysing social media content, especially in the context of visual populist strategies on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Academy of Finland (Award 350947)
  • Svenska Litteratursällskapet (SLS) (Award 6071)
This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND), which allows users to copy, distribute and transmit the article as long as the author is attributed, the article is not used for commercial purposes, and the work is not modified or adapted in any way. To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
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2026-01-22
2026-04-12

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