Campaigns in Transition: Spain’s Radical Left Reframed

Abstract

This article examines the communicative transformation of the Spanish radical left in the 2019 and 2024 European Parliament elections. The study analyses how these actors reconfigured their campaign communication regarding emotional framing, Europeanisation, and visual style during a phase of party institutionalisation and organisational reconfiguration. Drawing on an integrated theoretical framework that connects research on emotional political communication, communicative Europeanisation, and multimodal campaigning, the article advances the concept of communicative normalisation. This concept captures how processes of institutional adaptation are reflected not only in programmatic or ideological shifts, but also in the emotional tone, territorial framing, and visual grammar of campaign communication. Methodologically, this study employs a mixed-methods design based on the systematic coding of 126 campaign materials—posters, videos, and social media content—combined with Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) and Fisher’s exact tests. The MCA identifies two main dimensions structuring the communicative space: a substantive central concept contrasting emotionally charged and Europeanised messages with more rational and nationally framed discourse, and a stylistic central concept distinguishing symbolic-affective formats from technocratic and informational presentations. The results show that 2019 campaign was characterised by higher emotional intensity, symbolic European references, and greater visual expressiveness, whereas in 2024 they used more rationalised, nationally oriented, and standardised communicative repertoires, albeit with internal variation between the two groups. This article contributes to political communication research by demonstrating how emotional framing, European references, and visual strategies are jointly reconstructed over time within a specific national context. Rather than treating Europeanisation or emotionality as isolated dimensions, this study demonstrates how their interaction provides insight into the communicative consequences of party institutionalisation in contemporary electoral campaigns.