This study adopts a netnographic approach (Kozinets, 2015), combining systematic data collection with qualitative content analysis to examine the use of political memes during the 2024 European Parliament elections.
The empirical corpus consists of all posts published between 10 May 2024 and 9 June 2024, the so-called “hot phase” leading up to and including the election period, on the official Instagram and TikTok accounts of the three highest-vote parties in four member states: Fratelli d’Italia, Partito Democratico (PD), and Movimento 5 Stelle (Italy); PP, PSOE, and Vox (Spain); RN, Renaissance, and PS-Place Publique (France); CDU, AfD, and SPD (Germany).
These four countries were selected for their demographic and economic significance and their capacity to represent broader regional trends across Southern, Western, and Central Europe. The two platforms were chosen for their visual-first architecture and their relevance to platform-native political communication, while the cross-platform design follows digital-methods approaches.
Cite this study
Marseglia, S. (2026). From Jokes to Votes: Memes as a Political Communication Tool in the 2024 European Elections. Media and Journalism Research Center. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20537128
Author: Sara Marseglia
About the project
The From Jokes to Votes: Memes as a Political Communication Tool in the 2024 European Elections is part of MJRC’s Media Content Analysis Series, which focuses on systematically examining media output to uncover patterns in coverage, bias, framing, and editorial choices. This series includes both thematic studies—such as crisis coverage, disinformation, and political framing—and cross-national comparisons of media narratives. In recent years, MJRC has integrated AI-driven tools and machine learning models into its methodology, enabling large-scale analysis of news texts, sentiment, and visibility trends across multiple languages and platforms. The work as part of this series combines computational analysis with media research to expose trends in global media attention.
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