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Belgian-style compromise? Negativity and positivity in the online communication of Belgian parties across the electoral cycle

(2024-2027)

Politics in the last decades have been marked by profound transformations that have raised concerns about the quality of the democratic debate. First, political communication would be marked by increasing negativity or ‘incivility’. Second, societies would have become more polarised, with political and social groups growing increasingly distant from one another, both ideologically and affectively. Third, the generalisation of social media among elites and citizens would reinforce and encourage these two phenomena, given the permanent campaigning and 'homophilic' interactions produced by these platforms. However, the genuine effects of these transformations, and their causal relationship, are still debated. Besides, existing research is still dominated by perspectives developed in Anglo-Saxon contexts, particularly those shaped by the American two-party system. The extent to which multiparty systems and consensus democracies follow similar trends remains unclear. Focusing on Belgium, this project aims to explore whether and how consensus democracy can tame harsher forms of negative political communication and group-based polarisation on social media.  

In pursuit of that objective, the project follows several steps. First, it analyses how Belgian parties and party leaders communicate on social media in terms of positive and negative appeals to political actors but also to social groups. The project examines these variations across parties, language communities, but also across social media platforms (X and Facebook). Second, to assess the permanent campaign effect, the project analyses variations across the electoral cycle, including pre-campaign periods and government formation phases. Third, the project assesses how this online communication can affect citizens’ political trust and level of affective polarisation. In that way, the project aims to make significant empirical and theoretical contributions, and to better understand online communication patterns and dynamics of polarisation in consensus democracies. 


So far, the project has provided the following empirical insights: 

(1) Harsher forms of negative campaigning (in the form of personal-based attacks) remain limited in Belgium, but negativity is higher among Dutch-speaking elites than among French-speaking ones. 

(2) Though all parties criticise each other on policy, radical (right) parties, and party leaders are consistently more likely to use harsher forms of negativity (i.e., personal-based attacks and incivility). 

(3) Negativity remains concentrated around political targets, with fewer (social) outgroup mentions than political attacks, and (much) more ingroup appeals than outgroup derogation. There is, however, much variation between parties. 

(4)  The types of groups in society that parties and their leaders appeal to on social media align with their anchorage in traditional and new cleavages, though issues also play a role. 

(5) Campaigns do not boost negativity, but political actors strategically adapt the content and target of their attacks depending on the period. 

And there is still more to come, stay tuned! 

The project is embedded within the Social Media Lab, where it connects to a broader programme of research on digital political communication and its multiple ramifications. The SML web and social media pages also provide an overview of the lab’s publications, key research findings and activities. 

Funding

ARC - Action de Recherche Concertée 



 
Mis à jour le 25 août 2026