From Jokes to Votes: Memes as a Political Communication Tool in the 2024 European Elections

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).[1] 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.