#primagliitaliani: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Italian far-right Populist Discourse on Twitter

This paper is a case study about Matteo Salvini’s far-right populist discourse on Twitter. Specifically, the case study focuses on two immigration crises that happened in June and August 2018 since Salvini did not allow the disembarkation of immigrants on board the two NGOs Aquarius (10 June 2018) and Diciotti (22 August 2018). At the time Matteo Salvini was both Minister of the Interior and Vice Prime Minster for the new coalition government formed by the League and the Five Star Movement (the General Election took place on March 2018, but the new government was established the 1st June 2018). The case study aims to highlight the strategies of inclusion and exclusion used by Matteo Salvini on Twitter during the two immigration crises. Although the analysis focuses on Twitter, two traditional speeches were analysed as well in order to investigate the evolution of populist discourse.