East European Politics are currently shaped by a massive democratic backsliding connected with the breakthrough of illiberal approaches (Cianetti et al., 2018). According to the authors, this regional trend prioritizes democratic stability and is based on oligarchical structures. The countries of the Visegrád Group, especially Poland and Hungary, are marked by the consolidation of a hegemonic right-wing populism that goes beyond the traditional anti-immigrant sentiments. These parties focus on the role of families or ethnic demography (Stubbs & Lendvai-Bainton, 2020), delivering a vision of what a proper citizen should be.

Most of European Eastern countries joined the EU in 2004, but this fact has not avoided the rise of a populist conservative turn in those states. Regarding Hungary, scholars such as Bozóki & Hegedűs (2018) points out that the illiberal Hungarian system has been supported and even legitimized by the European institutions. This paradoxical support has created a unique model, but the path of the EU integration towards supranationalism may change the assessment of membership.

One of the recent phenomena that blurs national boundaries is the possibility of political engagement through social media. Literature on public communication has portrayed that Twitter (currently named as X, although throughout the article we decided to use “Twitter” because the analysis was carried out prior to the platform’s name change) was the most suitable platform to build a transnational conversation in which people share content and discuss topics of common interest such as European politics (Bossetta et al., 2017). This huge use of digital technologies boosted optimism about the Internet as a chance to increase the feeling of European belonging. However, what occurs is the revitalization of nationalism and the polarization of politics as observed in Eastern Europe.

Literature underscores the alignment of interests between the social media ecology and populism over the last decade (Hopster, 2021). The information disorder is identified as the intervening variable that determines the nationalist and populist use of Internet (Kermer & Nijmeijer, 2020). Moreover, the working of platforms such as Twitter has been altered by the rise of algorithmic content curation, moving the online experience to social interest clusters in a process defined by Gerbaudo (2024) as ‘TikTokification’. On this matter, the Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter in 2022 led to an ideological drift that is perceived as unfavorable for journalists (Claesson, 2024).

How are European journalists covering this populist right-wing movement within a disinformation scenario? A longitudinal analysis of articles of newspapers shows that there is an increase in terms of supranational coverage, but this is characterized by a negative tone (Silva et al., 2022). Thus, the great media attention to the EU is not linked to a favorable Europeanisation of public debates. Conversely, reporting the EU focuses on the conflict between member states, being outstanding the democratic backsliding in some countries such as Poland and Hungary (van der Brug et al., 2022).

News provision on the EU suffers from structural problems that overlap with the classic distance of the European project (Rivas-de-Roca & García-Gordillo, 2022). In this sense, media consumption seems to have no effect on responsibility attributions at the EU level (Goldberg et al., 2022). Since providing information for defining causal responsibility is a key mission for the media, journalism on the EU level is far from enabling the necessary democratic accountability.

As stated, the erosion of institutions because of the emergence of populist nationalism has largely been explored with a strong focus on the Internet age (Persily, 2017). This links to the personalization of politics and the emergence of leaders designed for audiovisual platforms: social media, television, etc. For instance, previous studies illustrated how leaders have greater effects among citizens with a television media diet (Garzia et al., 2020).

The media representation of populism is complex as this concept works as a thin-centered ideology that fills the empty places of democracy by advocating the sovereign rule of the people (Abts & Rummens, 2007). Furthermore, it is not easy to separate political populism oriented to the media from those populist contents developed by the media themselves (Bos & Brants, 2014). However, some studies found that the more news media reported about populist-related topics such as migration, the more these issues influence vote intention (Boomgaarden & Vliegenthart, 2007).

The connection between media outlets and social media is seen on how politicians use these platforms to impact on electoral support (Kruikemeier, 2014). In the European framework, social media means an opportunity to shape a transnational conversation, but in a limited way (Ruiz-Soler et al., 2019). Likewise, in Europe there is not an only sort of reporting on the EU, but many journalisms linked to national traditions (Picard & Salgado, 2015). This may be a problem to achieve the visibility of the European project as the EU requires a two-way street of communication to ensure its working as democracy.

Considering the effects of news on the EU, some authors detected that the knowledge of its events is related to negative EU performance evaluations (Marquart et al., 2019). The criticism of this international project is fueled by the rise of populism, which defends a transformation of liberal democracy. The evolution of populism in America and Europe is quite similar, but one of the big differences is the focus of the latter on discrediting transnational integration (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2012), represented by the European Union. Indeed, this organization is assessed as a ruling elite (McNamara, 2019), against which the populists present themselves as defenders of the people (Jones & Sun, 2017). Beyond that, the presence of elements of populist communication is wider in Europe compared to other contexts (Zulianello et al., 2018). The communication strategies employed are different between social media, which have altered the news information cycle by enabling a kind of interaction that can contribute to the state of opinion.

The interrelation between the media system and populism is difficult as this fragmented ideology is tailor-made for digital technologies. Some prior research on global leading newspapers detected how they adopted populist categories to frame this kind of leader with Bolsonaro in Brazil (Araújo & Prior, 2021). In the United Kingdom, Brown and Mondon (2021) found how the reporting of the populist hype contributed to the mainstreaming of the far right as both concepts are usually conflated. Regarding the Euro Crisis, a previous study analyzed the news coverage of populist and non-populist candidates during national election campaigns (Salgado et al., 2021), showing a negative tone against populism. Nevertheless, Europe as a single area remains little addressed. Concretely, there is scant empirical research on how quality newspapers in Europe are reporting on leaders of countries with a huge contestation against EU integration.

On this backdrop, we argue that an examination of the news coverage of the main right-wing populist governments (Poland and Hungary) is crucial to understand the media representation of a turbulent relationship with the EU. Our analysis focuses on Twitter as social media is a relevant arena for public opinion. Accordingly, three research questions are posed:

The analysis of the media outlets’ accounts shows a quite similar distribution of the sample, with Der Spiegel being the only outlet that exceeds this trend and publishes up to 400 tweets. Germany is probably the country with a higher impact on EU politics, and particularly in the adoption of sanctioning procedures since it is the country with the most MEP/seats in the European Parliament. This may disclose why a German media outlet (Der Spiegel) pays greater attention to this topic. For its part, The Guardian, La Repubblica, and El País present close number of tweets. Based on the previous information, the percentual distribution of the sample per newspaper is the following: The Guardian: 19,1%; Der Spiegel: 37,2%; La Repubblica: 20,9%; El País: 22,8%.

Beyond little differences in the amount of news items through tweets, all the selected media outlets publish much more about Poland than about Hungary (Table 2). The Guardian, La Repubblica, and El País share a preference for Poland over 80% of the sample; whereas Der Spiegel is the one that publishes the most about Hungary (22,5%), but the frequency of Poland is much more outstanding.

Our evidence suggests that the populist criticism of the EU rule of law is mostly framed by a Polish perspective. Media outlets from different European countries devote greater attention to news caused by the response of the Polish government against the measures imposed. This could be linked to a cultural nearness of the European leading media with Poland, or maybe also to a distance concerning Hungarian politics.

Moreover, only few tweets allude to both Poland and Hungary. On this matter, La Repubblica has the highest figure with only 4,4%. It seems that the approach for the two countries is not relevant to the media. As aforementioned, the news coverage of the Eastern right-wing populism seems marked by the Polish government. It should be acknowledged that the European Commission has launched several infringement procedures against this government in recent years, turning it into an object of media attention.

The distribution of topics is considered as an indicator of the media agenda, delving into different issues depending on the country addressed (Table 3). There are two topics with the same percentages in Poland and Hungary: EU institutions and migration, which are key elements for the Eurosceptic narrative. However, most of the issues reveal a great level of divergence between countries. Environment (100%), war (96,5%), security (96,4%), energy (88,9%), rule of law (53,3%) and to a lesser extent the “other” category (50%), are more present when reporting on Poland.

Hungary is prioritized considering economy/commerce (75%) and education/research (66,7%), which are likely topics not expected in Eurosceptic discourses. Besides that, rule of law is the most frequent issue on tweets that deal with both countries (13,3%). This finding shows how the management of law is a common challenge that obtains widely international media attention.

As the media outlets chosen belonged to different countries, it is noteworthy to analyze the thematic composition not only by country, but also by newspaper (Table 4). Der Spiegel is the media outlet with the highest number of tweets on environment (100%), energy (77,8%), migration (75%), economy/commerce (68,8%), rule of law (53,3%), and security (49,1%). By contrast, war and the “other” category are well divided between all the media of the sample.

Likewise, education/research has an outstanding presence in El País (66,7%). The Spanish newspaper also shows a great use of EU institutions (50%), at the same level of the mentions to these institutions in La Repubblica. Italian and Spanish news organizations act in the same way on this point. Together with the rule of law and war as a topic, they are the topics in which Mediterranean newspapers have a common behavior.

Another highlighted use is thematic fragmentation. The Guardian deals with fewer topics when reporting about Poland and Hungary. In this sense, the news items on Twitter are related to issues connected to security or law, which are prominent newsworthy facts. This approach has implications as it shortens the scope of the media narrative. One of the possible reasons for this finding is that The Guardian comes from a country that has left the EU (the United Kingdom), which may explain the less interest in questions beyond security and law. On the other hand, Der Spiegel is the newspaper with the most plural agenda. Germany is the only country selected with borders with Poland, leading to a strong historical relationship.

Taking the findings into account, the agenda of Der Spiegel is plural, dealing with a wide range of topics, including typical ones in this framework such as rule of law or migration, but also environment. This result could lay on the environmental awareness of the German population. Against this backdrop, The Guardian refers to a few topics. The agenda in La Repubblica and El País is neither vast, but the figure for the category of EU institutions is high, revealing an interest for the relation of Poland and Hungary with those institutions.

At this point, we consider analyzing the shaping of the news coverage in terms of personalization and assessment of the EU project, which can trigger a kind of interaction by the public. First, the distribution of tone about the EU (Table 5) shows how the combination of positive and negative approaches is usual for international (35,8%) and local actors (34,9%). Conversely, the neutral tone is predominant in European (58,3%) and national (41%) actors.

Generally, the fact that the negative tone is distributed in a homogeneous way between European, national, and local actors convey how this Eurosceptic approach is not associated with a specific geographical area. As national leaders are typically described as those supporting a more negative view of the EU, our finding is surprising, showing a particular reporting on the governments of Poland and Hungary. This should boost a reflection upon the reasons that explain the news coverage applied to these countries within the European context.

What happens to the positive tone? Data points to that 75% of the news items on Twitter with positive approach have a national leader as the main actor. This is remarkable since prime ministers or leaders at the national level are assessed in a more positive way than European ones such as those ruling the EU. Therefore, the mention to specific leaders does not necessarily have to be negative.

When it comes to interaction, the results reveal a scant number of retweets for all the actors considered (international, European, national, and local actors). Although the category between 1 and 49 retweets is the most frequent (Table 6), the distribution shows how national actors generate messages between 100 and 299 retweets (6,5%) and over 299 retweets (4,8%). There is a light trend to catch more attention in posts about national actors, followed by international ones. It is significant that tweets on European actors never get the highest interaction variables. Still, these findings need to be interpreted within low interaction practices.

Since most of the news coverage was about Poland, the number of retweets is related to the interest for the issues on this country. The audience on Twitter tend to react positively to personalization based on a national approach. Indeed, national actors receive a little more attention. This means that the European project is associated with geopolitical communicative elements that prioritized nationalism in Western Europe. The discourses of leaders and the media is reshaped by this perspective applied through digital technologies, which can have impact on public opinion.

At the thematic level, there are no clear patterns to explain the interaction detected since most topics were placed between 1 and 49 retweets (Table 7). However, security, war and, to a lesser extent economy/commerce, have messages that receive greater attention. It seems that there is an increasing awareness of the importance of conflicts in current Europe, which leads to further dissemination of informative tweets on these topics (war and security).