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New ranking: Sweden’s right-wing parties have social media edge ahead of election

Right-wing parties in Sweden have a clear edge on social media in the run-up to next year's election according to the latest ranking from the country's Mediaakademin, with the Sweden Democrats having easily the most reach of any political party and Moderate MP Hanif Bali the biggest reach on Twitter.

Published: 5 October 2021 15:47 CEST
New ranking: Sweden's right-wing parties have social media edge ahead of election
Moderate MP Hanif Bali (left) had the most reach on Twitter, while the Sweden Democrats, led by Jimmie Åkesson (right) were the most powerful party. Nooshi Dadgostar, the leader of the left party (centre) was this year's big new arrival. Photo: TT

According to the latest annual Maktbarometern power ranking, the Sweden Democrats have risen four places since last year, making the party the fifth-biggest social media influencer in the country.

This puts them just behind the Instagram influencer Therése Lindgren, the YouTube pranksters JLC, and Jocke & Jonna, the YouTube power couple who were this year for the second-year running ranked the most powerful social media operation in Sweden.

“The starting position on social media is quite clear in the run-up to the election,” Emanuel Karlsten, the Mediaakademin’s chair, told TT. 

“But it’s still a very limited part of the voters, two to three percent, and a little higher on Facebook at around 10 percent, who follow the election on social media and ‘like’ posts.”

The biggest political newcomer this year has been the Left Party’s new leader Nooshi Dadgostar, who came in from nowhere to take 127th place.

This still leaves her far behind the Sweden Democrat’s Jimmie Åkesson, the most powerful politician in 11th place, the Christian Democrats’ Ebba Busch, who rose 30 places to take 32nd place, and Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, who rose 33 places to take 47th place.

The Centre Party’s leader Annie Lööf climbed 37 places to take 73rd place, and Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson, who has obviously been putting in no small effort, leapt 101 places to take 86th place.

In the Twittersphere, Dadgostar’s arrival was even more pronounced, with the left-wing leader jumping 328 places to become tanked at 42 in terms of Twitter reach and engagement. .

Hanif Bali is now the top-ranked on Twitter after rising two places since 2020, while Dadgostar’s predecessor Jonas Sjöstedt still retained a strong position in fifth place. 

Karlsten said that even if social media still did not reach most voters, it was still potentially significant in an election.

“The parties want to reach so-called ‘talkers’, people who can spread their message further, so social media can be pretty important. Parties can create their own propaganda machines and set the agenda.”

If Sweden’s national parliament was decided on the back of Social Media engagement, the Sweden Democrats would be comfortably the biggest party.

If it was based on Facebook engagement, the right-wing parties would have a clear majority.

Source: Mediaakademin

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INSIDE SWEDEN

Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won’t spark a government crisis

The Local's editor Emma Löfgren rounds up the biggest stories of the week in our Inside Sweden newsletter.

Published: 18 May 2024 09:22 CEST
Inside Sweden: Why troll factory won't spark a government crisis

Hej,

News that the Sweden Democrats are operating a far-right troll factory – which among other things the party uses to smear political opponents as well as its supposed allies – has caused probably the biggest rift yet between them and the three other parties that make up Sweden’s ruling coalition.

The leaders of the Moderates, Christian Democrats and Liberals all strongly criticised the Sweden Democrats’ blatant violation of the so-called “respect clause” in their Tidö collaboration agreement – the clause that states that the four parties should speak respectfully of each other in the media.

But after crisis talks held on Thursday, the conflict appears to be dying down.

The Sweden Democrats hit out strongly at the TV4 Kalla Fakta documentary where the troll factory was revealed, calling it a smear campaign and disinformation, but simultaneously went as far as to confirm that they do run anonymous social media accounts for which they refused to apologise.

They did say sorry to the Tidö parties for including them in the smear campaigns, and promised to remove some of the posts that had offended the other three parties, plus reassign a couple of members of staff to other duties until they’ve been given training on the Tidö “respect clause”.

But that doesn’t remove the fact that they vowed to continue the anonymous social media accounts whose existence they had prior to the documentary consistently denied, or the fact that some of the social media posts shared not only vague anti-immigration content, but white power propaganda.

The Liberals took the row the furthest, with Liberal leader Johan Pehrson describing people in his party as skitförbannade – pissed off as hell. He said ahead of the crisis meeting that they would demand that the Sweden Democrats cease all anonymous posting, which the latter rejected.

The party had two choices: walk out of the government collaboration and possibly spark a snap election, or walk back its strong words ahead of the meeting and wait for it to blow over.

They chose a kind of middle way, and called for an inquiry to be launched into banning political parties from operating anonymous social media accounts. The Social Democrats immediately accused the Liberals of trying to “bury the issue in an inquiry” – a classic Swedish political method of indecisive conflict avoidance which the Social Democrats themselves are well familiar with.

The Christian Democrats and Moderates both said that the Sweden Democrats had accepted their criticism and welcomed the party’s reshuffling of staff within its communications department, adding that it still had to prove its commitment to the Tidö agreement going forward.

So why isn’t this causing a bigger government crisis?

We asked Evelyn Jones, a politics reporter for the Dagens Nyheter daily, to come on the Sweden in Focus podcast to explain it to us:

“The Sweden Democrats are the biggest party in this coalition, even though they’re not part of the government. So the government really needs them. It’s hard for them to just stop cooperating with the Sweden Democrats,” she said.

“The cooperation between the government parties and the Sweden Democrats has been going pretty smoothly since the last election – more smoothly than a lot of people thought. This is probably the biggest crisis so far, but how big it is, is hard to say.”

You can listen to the full interview with her and the rest of the Sweden in Focus podcast here. 

In other news

If you are a descendant of a Sweden-born person and would like to find out more about them, there are ways to do that. I wrote this week about how to research your Swedish ancestry.

That guide was prompted by my interview with the chair of a community history group in a small parish in north-central Sweden, which has tried to get to the bottom of rumours that US mega star Taylor Swift’s ancestors hail from their village. I had so much fun writing this article.

The EU elections will be held on June 9th, but advance voting begins next week in Sweden. And poll cards are already being sent out, so if you’re eligible to vote you should receive yours soon.

Sweden’s consumer price index fell to 3.9 percent in April, below 4.0 percent for the first time in two years, reinforcing predictions that the central bank will keep lowering interest rates.

Sweden’s four-party government bloc has broken with the other parties in a parliamentary committee on public service broadcasting, adding what the opposition complains are “radically changed” proposals. How shocking are they?

Many people move to Sweden because of their partner’s career. Perhaps you’re one of these so-called “trailing spouses”. I’ve been asking readers in this situation how they’re settling in, and will have an article for you next week. There’s still time to answer our survey to share your experience.

Thanks for reading.

Have a good weekend,

Emma

Inside Sweden is our weekly newsletter for members which gives you news, analysis and, sometimes, takes you behind the scenes at The Local. It’s published each Saturday and with Membership+ you can also receive it directly to your inbox.

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