"The language and rhetoric of right-wing populism across countries from 2001 to 2016. A bilingual and multimodal media and speech analysis of right-wing populist actors in online media and social media in Germany, the Netherlands and Flanders."

The aim of the project is to analyse the rhetoric and language of right-wing populist actors in public media and in internet-based communication formats in Germany, the Netherlands and Flanders by using discourse analytical approaches. Amongst others the focus is on representatives of AFD/Pegida Movement for the German discourse, the PVV (Party for Freedom) and the Vlaams Belang for the Dutch-language discourse.

The data basis consists of online formats of important German, Dutch and Flemish newspapers/magazines, YouTube videos or media libraries of different TV channels as well as Twitter and Facebook profiles of selected right-wing populist actors. In particular political speeches, interviews and statements in online media and social media will be analysed linguistically. The emphasis is thus on spoken language and the visualization of the actors in pictures and videos.

The analysis will show how populist actors present themselves in public discourse, which language they use and which similarities across countries exist. Of central interest are patterns of interpretation in terms of nation, identity, cultural diversity and Europe. In this context transnational discourse trends and interpretation patterns are identified in order to clarify the question which consequences they have on the European self-image and its idea of cultural diversity.