Media use, cultural orientations and support for radical right-wing parties: comparing nine European countries

Abstract

In the past decades, radical right-wing parties have gained increasing prominence in European politics, often promoting xenophobia, intolerance towards minority groups, anti-elitism, and anti-democratic sentiments. This paper examines how media and culture predict radical right-wing voting from a cross-national perspective, using survey data collected in 2021 from nine European countries – Croatia, Denmark, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. The study contributes to the literature by taking broader socio-cultural value orientations as the baseline to examine more specifically the predictive value of media use and cultural taste. While cultural backlash indicators have the largest predictive value, media use and cultural taste also matter. There are differences between using public television broadcasters and press (less radical right-wing support) and commercial television and online video platforms (more radical right-wing support). We find limited signs of predictors exacerbating each other's effects, but cross-national differences in predicting radical right-wing voting are evident, particularly regarding Serbia and Croatia.