Enemies and friends. The instrumental social construction of populist identity through twitter in Italy at the time of COVID-19

Based on 2020 Twitter data, this article studies the social construction of populist identity in Italy. Starting from Tajfel's social identity theory (1978), the research aims at dissecting the elements at the basis of the populist identity construction process. The analysis focuses on both quantitative analysis and qualitative inspection of the tweets of four populist leaders, namely Salvini (LN), Meloni (FDI), Berlusconi (FI), and Di Maio (M5S). Results highlight the outgroup's position and its functional role in strengthening relative deprivation to facilitate ingroup identification. In addition, the populist social identity is built on group membership and the biased comparison between the ingroup and one or more outgroups. Results demonstrate how leaders’ strategies change based on being in government or not and according to their position on the left-right axis. In this context, the pandemic offered a further political opportunity, especially to those who have found themselves in government. © 2022 European Sociological Association.