Myths, the Bible, and Romanticism as ingredients of political narratives in the Finns Party election video

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Rinnakkaistallenteet Yhteiskuntatieteiden ja kauppatieteiden tiedekunta

2021

Myths, the Bible, and Romanticism as ingredients of political narratives in the Finns Party election video

Martikainen, Jari

Elsevier BV

Tieteelliset aikakauslehtiartikkelit

© 2021 The Authors

CC BY-NC-ND https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100466

https://erepo.uef.fi/handle/123456789/24756

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Myths, the Bible, and Romanticism as ingredients of political narratives in the Finns Party election video

Jari Martikainen

^⇑

, Inari Sakki

University of Eastern Finland, Yliopistonranta 1, (PL 1627), 70210 Kuopio, Finland

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 16 June 2020

Received in revised form 15 January 2021 Accepted 17 January 2021

Available online 27 January 2021

Keywords:

Multimodality Myth

Palingenetic myth Radical right populism Religion

Romanticism

a b s t r a c t

This research set out to examine how ancient myths, Bible stories, and romantic visual imagery were used as discursive devices in the populist communication of the 2019 Finns Party election video. This study draws from systematic functional multimodal discourse analysis and its concepts of intersemiotic texture, co-contextualization, and re-contextualization to examine how different semiotic resources work together in the video. The multimodal analysis demonstrated the aforementioned resources served as a means of constructing a palingenetic myth, intertwining mythical resources with current social and political circumstances in Finland. Together, the verbal, visual, and sonic modalities as well as the mythical, biblical, and artistic rhetorical devices constructed multimodal political communication that was capable of appealing to emotions, constructing collective identities, and mobilizing people.

Ó2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction

The rise of populist radical right parties in recent decades in many western countries has directed scholarly interest to an analysis of populist content and style (Wettstein et al., 2019; Wodak, 2015). Mudde (2004) describes populism as a ‘‘thin ideology,”

according to which society is divided into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups—a ‘‘pure” people and a ‘‘corrupt” elite—and politics should be the expression of the generalvolontéof the people. Scholars use the radical right populist content of communication in referring to the gap between ‘‘good people” and a ‘‘bad elite”, and the confrontation between the native ‘‘in-group” and the foreign ‘‘out-group” (Brubaker, 2020), while populist style refers to the rhetorical devices used to underscore this gap, typically including such strategies as dramatization, emotional tone, colloquial language, and absolutism (Bos & Brants, 2014;

Engesser et al., 2017; Wettstein et al., 2019). The present study contributes to this line of research by focusing on the role of political myth in populist persuasion.

Although the research on populist radical right rhetoric is grow- ing (e.g., Sakki & Martikainen, 2020; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016;

Wodak, 2015), there appears to be a lack of studies elaborating how myths are used in populist persuasion. While the previous

studies of populist rhetoric show how nostalgic memories centered on an idealized past (Mols & Jetten, 2014; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016), also referred to as the nationalist rhetorical triad (Levinger

& Franklin Lytle, 2001), are invoked in populist rhetoric, little is known of the ways through which it mobilizes the nationalist myth and makes it attractive. To our knowledge, no previous study has examined populist rhetoric in referring to the imagery of myths, the Bible, and Romanticism. This paper aims to address this gap in the literature by examining, both theoretically and empiri- cally, how ancient myths, Bible stories, and Romantic visual imagery are used as discursive devices to construct a palingenetic myth in populist communication. We use the populist Finns Party, currently among the largest parties in Finland, and their 2019 election campaign video, as the paradigmatic case (Flyvbjerg, 2006) for the analysis of myth, Bible stories, and Romantic visual imagery. In their recent paper,Sakki and Martikainen (2020) examined the same election campaign video exploring both its multimodal production and reception among Youtube users. Whereas that study focused on humour as a means of mobilizing collective hatred, the present study scrutinizes how mythical, religious and art historical traditions communicated through multimodal resources are used as ingredients of political persuasion. In addition, the present study examines how emotionally appealing political communication – using the aforementioned ingredients – is constructed intersemiotically and intertextually at the level of ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100466

2211-6958/Ó2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

⇑Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: jari.martikainen@uef.fi (J. Martikainen), inari.sakki@uef.fi (I. Sakki).

Contents lists available atScienceDirect

Discourse, Context & Media

j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w . e l s e v i e r . c o m / l o c a t e / d c m

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Taking a multimodal discursive approach (e.g. Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; O’Halloran, 2008, 2011), the present study will examine how ancient myths, Bible stories, and Romantic visual imagery are used as discursive devices in the populist communication of the 2019 Finns Party election video. Our focus on the election video therefore responds to the call to broaden the analysis of political communication in the field of multimodality (Hameleers et al., 2020). This paper aims to show that the shift from the analysis of verbal and textual communication toward the multimodal analysis of narration, images, sounds, voice, light, and speed enables the grasping of the complex interplay between different modes of communication in the persuasiveness of the populist message. By combining research into political communication, religion, and arts, this study offers a novel approach to the study of populist communication.

2. Background 2.1. Myth

Myths are archetypal narratives using particular—and in the culture familiar—patterns, characters, and subject matters (Lule, 2001). They have both universal and local features; the universally recurrent storylines and themes often provide frames in which local gods and heroes act in circumstances and environments typical to a particular cultural context (Doherty, 2001). Myths deal with matters that preoccupy people’s minds. On one hand, they deal with basic and everyday human thoughts, emotions, actions, and relations between people. On the other, they deal with cosmol- ogy and matters related to the creation of the world and human- kind, the end of the world, birth and death, the afterlife, good and evil, success and misfortune, and deception and revenge, to name but a few (Grandjean et al., 2008; Midgley, 2011). By providing explanations and patterns,Bell (2003) and Lule (2001)claim that myths not only help people to orient their lives but to structure their experiences, thoughts, and actions. For example, in his paper on The Social Psychology of Adam and Eve, JackKatz (1996, 582)claims that the widely known biblical story of the Fall may influence how people structure and perceive social situations of

‘‘fall”, and how they respond and relate to it.

Barthes (1972)regards myths as culture-bound knowledge that is so deeply rooted in a society that it becomes naturalized and taken for granted. Myths are thoroughly social creations, which gives them the potential to connect people (Kelsey, 2016;

Yabanci, 2020). According to Lynggaard (2017, 5), myths are

‘‘shared ideas supplying citizens with a sense of origin, continuity, historical memories, collective remembrance, common heritage and tradition, as well as a common destiny.” In addition, myths capture the norms, moral systems, and values of societies (Kunkeler, 2018; Lule, 2001). Hence, as widely shared narrative reservoirs clustering social meanings, patterns, values, and norms, myths contribute to the feeling of communality and togetherness for a particular group of people (Kelsey, 2016; Kunkeler, 2018;

Yabanci, 2020) and importantly contribute to the construction of social identities (Bottici, 2007; Lule, 2001).

Bottici and Kühner (2012)regard three elements as definitive of myth: narrative; significance; and process. Myths employ narrative patterns and operate—instead of fixed meanings—with significances changing over time and clustering ‘‘what is consciously said about the world and unconsciously felt about it” (Bottici & Kühner, 2012, 97). Thus, the narrative core of the myth produces different variants of the same mythical pattern in different contexts and circumstances, and for different needs. Myths function as an emplot- ment creating meaningful wholes by causally connecting events. In Bottici’s and Kühner’s (2012) view, myths are in their essence

evolving processes, in which contextually relevant significances are constructed using historical and socially constructed resources.

Myths appeal to emotions, cultural beliefs, values, and norms (Konstan, 2015; Lynggaard, 2017). Through their appeal, familiar mythical narratives influence people and are deliberately used by politicians to connect with the audience (Goopman & Lull, 2018).

Several studies have suggested an interplay between radical right populism and mythical resources (e.g.,Kunkeler, 2018; Rydgren, 2007; Vasilopoulou & Halikiopoulou, 2015), but none has explored in detail how mythical resources are used in populist multimodal rhetoric. This is the focus of the present study.

2.2. Political myth

Myths have always been used in politics, but according to Ekman (2014) and Kunkeler (2018), they have acquired new significance in the era of mass politics brought on by technological modernity. Despite the overlaps, some rough distinctions can be made between myth and political myth: whereas myths are commonly defined as models and patterns created in primitive and ancient civilizations to make the world comprehensible (Bell, 2003; Lule, 2001; Midgley, 2011), political myths relate to political actions, using mythical resources for political and ideological pur- poses (Bottici, 2007; Lynggaard, 2017). Hence, in his bookPolitical Myth(1996, p. 44), Flood defines political myth as ‘‘an ideologically marked narrative which purports to give a true account of a set of past, present, or predicted political events and which is accepted as valid in its essentials by a social group.”

Lynggaard (2017) distinguishes two functions of political myth—myth as code, and myth as conduct. Myth as code focuses on the discursive and structural features of a myth, such as subject matter, structural firmness, and level of institutionalization. He divides political myth into foundational and functional myth:

whereas the former may be institutionalized by law and concern large groups of people such as the nation, the latter is more infor- mally authorized and concerns smaller groups or restricted events and issues (Lynggaard, 2017, 2019).

Myth as conduct, in turn, refers to agency—how myth is used in politics (Lynggaard, 2017, 2019). ForLynggaard (2017), the crite- rion for distinguishing the two functions of myth—myth as code and conduct—is the level of consciousness when using it. Whereas myth as code refers to the use of institutionalized and naturalized myth with less conscious reflection and purpose, myth as conduct refers to the purposeful and strategic use of myth to achieve cer- tain goals. In his study of the production of European myth, Lynggaard (2017) claims that decision makers are often most aware of the emotional appeal of myths related to national identity and state sovereignty, and therefore use them deliberately.

According toLynggaard (2017), myth in general, and political myth in particular, has strong emotional appeal. It can appeal to both internalized behavior beyond conscious reflection—for example, habits and prejudices, as well as strategic behavior—for example, by warning of threat. In addition to their emotional appeal, the power of political myth is based on the fact that it not only provides a collective understanding of the past but simultaneously projects the past onto the future (Lynggaard, 2019). With this potential, it serves as a powerful means of constructing political positions and mobilizing people to support them (Bottici, 2007;

Lynggaard, 2019).

According toBottici and Kühner (2012), a political myth is ‘‘the work on a common narrative, which grants significance to the political conditions and experiences of a social group.” A political myth must be able to satisfy people’s demand for significance, and the significance itself must be shared by a group a people, because it must address their political conditions. Since political myth appeals to conscious conceptualizations and unconscious

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feelings, it is a powerful tool for engaging and mobilizing people.

Political myth condensates its significance in symbolic forms—an image or a couple of words—that can recall the whole myth.

Through its emotional and collective appeal, political myth is a powerful means of constructing personal, social, cultural, and political identities (Bottici, 2007).

2.3. Palingenetic myth

One myth that has been extensively used in politics is palingenetic myth (Wydra, 2015). According toPreuss (2007), the origin of the term ‘‘palingenesis” can be traced to the Stoic philosophers, who used it in the sense of the recreation of the world after a period of disaster and conflict. The term also appears in the New Tes- tament in the sense of the spiritual regeneration associated with apocalyptic visions of the end of time, when ‘‘a new heaven and a new earth will replace present creation” (McCalla, 1998, 292).

Since RogerGriffin’s (1991)influential book,The Nature of Fascism, which proclaimed the palingenetic form of populist ultra- nationalism as the core myth of fascism, it has gained much attention in studies of fascism (Gentile and Mallet, 2000; Griffin, 1991, 2004, 2016; Kunkeler, 2018). As a myth of ‘‘purifying, cathartic national rebirth”,Griffin (1991, ix) argues, palingenetic myth (in its ultra-nationalist form) was the key tenet of fascism as an ideology of social, political, and cultural rebirth. Hitler appeared as a prophet who could solve the crisis of the nation and overcome the degeneration of Western civilization (Griffin, 2016). Fascism used palingenetic myth to attract and mobilize people who had lost their faith in politics by promising them a better future (Griffin, 1991). However, it is worth emphasizing that palingenesis is not restricted to fascism—only its ultra-national form is.

Palingenetic myth follows a three-phase pattern, in which 1) the nation’s earlier virtue, peace, and well-being are 2) threatened or destroyed by decay, crisis, and an outside threat, and 3) finally, the nation is saved (usually by a charismatic leader) (Griffin, 1991).

Palingenetic myth thus echoes with a triadic narrative structure (Levinger & Franklin Lytle, 2001), in which a remote golden age depicting a nation in its historic splendor is followed by a period of decadence and loss—for example, in terms of loss of cultural integrity and racial purity—which calls for an imagined future in which the nation recovers its past glory. This structure resembles the narrative template of fall and rebirth, traditionally employed in Western literature and constituting a master narrative (Wertsch, 2002), which can be used in different contexts for mobilizing collectives—for example, to vote for a populist party.

The new beginning of the nation is often referred to as ‘‘rebirth”

(Griffin, 1991), ‘‘regeneration”, (Griffin, 2017) or ‘‘redemption”

(Griffin, 2008). As the prefix ‘‘re-” implies, the new beginning does not mean an entirely new creation. Rather, the palingenetic idea of rebirth entails a nostalgic conception of a better and more harmonious past—‘‘a paradise on earth”—that will be returned by the new political order (Griffin, 2016, 275). Griffin (2016, 2017) regards contemporary radical right populist parties as representatives of a palingenetic ultra-nationalism, based on nostalgia for a bygone harmonious era, agitation arising from feelings of crisis, and fear caused by an external threat such as refugees. Populist parties pro- claim themselves as saviors leading the nation out of its plight and rescuing it from dystopia (see also Rydgren, 2007; Sakki &

Pettersson, 2016; Vasilopoulou & Halikiopoulou, 2015). Saving the nation from dystopia becomes a moral duty, legitimizing terror against the threat (Griffin, 2016; Wydra, 2015). By proclaiming the notion of a new start as a national rebirth from a situation bur- dened by conflict and decline, the palingenetic myth acquires apocalyptic overtones (Berlet, 2005; Berlet & Lyons, 2000; Glynos

& Mondon, 2016).

The formula of palingenetic myth concerning the disorder caused by environmental, social, political, and/or cultural upheavals and the reconstruction of more virtuous societies is fundamental for ancient societies’ creation myths. The story of humanity’s fall and recreation is known in the Christian tradition—for example, in the story of Noah’s ark and the Last Judgment (Wydra, 2015). Typically of historic and contemporary political movements, palingenetic myth is often combined with the religious and apocalyptic overtones of the struggle between good and evil (Berlet, 2005; Wydra, 2015; Yabanci, 2020), contributing to the sacralization of politics (Berlet, 2004; Gentile & Mallet, 2000).Berlet (2005)suggests heroic and evil antagonists incorporate the dualism between good and evil in a plotline that teaches a moral. Apocalyptic narratives commonly utilize two strategies, scapegoating and conspiracy, by which the divide between the virtuous Us and evil Them is constructed (Berlet, 2005; Berlet &

Lyons, 2000). Palingenetic myth, combined with religious and apocalyptic elements, is thus a powerful means of constructing identities and mobilizing fear (Berlet, 2005). We seek here to dig more deeply into this relationship between palingenetic myth and religious resources.

In fascism, artists were harnessed to promote ideology, often entailing imagery combining national and religious resources (Billiani & Pennacchietti, 2019; Connolly, 2017). Palingenetic myth played a central role in fascist art (Antliff, 2002, 2007; Griffin, 1995; Ranta, 2016, 2017). The task was to visually communicate its ideas and sentiment in ‘‘nostalgic scenes from an imagined history that ideologically parallel an imagined future, mixing past, present, and future together paradoxically in a utopian space – the nation – that is timeless, monolithic, and unchanging”

(Connolly, 2017, 202). Hence, politics was estheticized; esthetics was politicized (Gentile, 2003, 43).

In his studies of the use of images in fascism,Ranta (2016, 2017) has shown the power of images to construct collective identities and segregate groups. AsRanta (2010, 2017)has shown, national socialist imagery constructed threat by juxtaposing scenes of an idyllic past in art that functioned as inspiration for the future with stereotypical images of Bolsheviks and Jews in journals, posters, and schoolbooks. This formed the palingenetic setting in which society was confronted with threat and decadence. National social- ism was presented as the agent of a new birth that would save society from the fall. An important dimension of the myth was that it emphasized the nation as victim. This was used to justify (violent) actions against enemies (Ranta, 2016). This study aims to fur- ther elaborate how the visual imagery typical of Romantic art has been employed as a rhetorical means to construct a plotline reminiscent of palingenetic myth in populist communication.

2.4. Mythical Romanticism

The themes of palingenetic myth also formed a central element of Romanticism. The era of European Romanticism from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries is often understood as a watershed between the old and modern eras. With the period’s crises and upheavals, such a ‘‘watershed” sentiment became associated with palingenetic myth at the beginning of a new era (e.g., Colbert, 2017). Indeed, many scholars have emphasized that Euro- pean Romanticism was neither a mere artistic style nor a coherent set of ideals, principles, and stylistic features, but a cluster of responses in different fields of life to the drastic changes in the era following the French Revolution (Honour & Fleming, 2009;

Ibañez, 2017). The social, political, economic, scientific, spiritual, and philosophical conflicts and reforms at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries shattered the Enlightenment’s faith in optimism, human perfectibility, and the sovereignty of reason. The sense of continuity and control was replaced by disorien-

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tation and bewilderment (Honour & Fleming, 2009). In nineteenth century philosophy, for example, the revolutionary era was extensively explained through palingenesis in terms of the destruction of the old order and the birth of a new one (Colbert, 2017;

McCalla, 1998).

Openness to the unknown and unexpected was a key character- istic of the Romantic imagination. Christian religion, mysticism, and local spirits of nature provided dozens of artists with a means of exploring their existence in the world; others were captivated by an exploration of the forces of unreason, madness, and terror (Greve, 2009;Palmer, 2019). Finally, several artists sought to re- establish the sense of security by focusing on national roots, heritage, and culture, aiming to foster national togetherness and strengthen national sentiment (Honour & Fleming, 2009;

Leerssen, 2013; Palmer, 2019). Despite Romanticism’s different orientations, the conception of the Romantic artist as an individual genius and visionary, capable of breaking the shackles of reason through imagination, brings the different branches of the Romantic movement together (Honour & Fleming, 2009; Ibañez, 2017).

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in various parts of Europe, philosophers and statesmen, as well as representatives of science, the church, culture, and the arts, were engaged in a national project that aimed to construct a concept of a coherent nation, consisting of people who shared the same language, history, religion, and culture (Heywood, 2017). National awakening brought an interest in nations’ history and culture. This found a fer- tile seedbed in Romantic art concerned with both the national past, historic events, folklore, folktales, and myths and expressing these themes in images utilizing the familiar imagery of nature (Honour, 2019; Palmer, 2019).

Romanticism therefore did not form a single coherent style but several individual styles with associated cultural overtones. For example, French Romanticism drew more from classical antiquity and Neoclassicism, but German Romanticism was more influenced by Immanuel Kant’s (1724–1804) philosophy, breaking with rationalist traditions, and Johann Gottfried Herder’s (1744–1803) concepts of nationalism and Christian religion (Honour &

Fleming, 2009). One branch of Romantic painting was the nation- ally oriented ‘‘Heimatkunst” in Munich, Germany, in which painters were dedicated to the depiction of picturesque scenes from the local region or province (Lenman, 1997). One such painter was Carl Spitzweg, known as one of Hitler’s favorite artists (Longerich, 2019; Ranta, 2010). In general, fascism drew from Romanticism’s nationalist tendencies (Passmore, 2014) and was inspired by Romantic art (Antliff, 2002, 2007; Ranta, 2010).

Romanticism’s interest in myth (Palmer, 2019) had a range of motivations. Romantic approaches understood myth as a means of divine revelation (Bottici, 2007), which became visible, for example, in depictions of the gods of classical antiquity and spirits of nature. Yet the interest in myth was based on a nationalist awakening in exploring the nation’s roots (Greve, 2009; Palmer, 2019) and constructing collective identities (Goopman & Lull, 2018). A special dimension of Romanticism connected with the interest in myth was fascination with monsters (Ahmed, 2020;

Palmer 2019). According toAhmed (2020), the lure of the monstrous is rooted in Romanticism’s general interest in the emotional, irrational, ambiguous, rebellious, dark, and evil. This fascination can be seen in monstrous figures such as Shelley’s (1818/2005) Frankenstein in literature and Goya’s nightmarish monsters in art (The Colossus, 1808–12 and Saturn Devouring his Son, 1819–23).

The themes of palingenetic myth—although not directly addressed by the artists themselves—formed a central element of Romantic art. A plethora of Romantic artists depicted their escapist longing for lost eras of peace and happiness through idyllic images in golden toned dusks and dawns. Similarly, several artists painted scenes of natural disaster or shipwrecks, the names of which

referred to biblical stories of wrath. These references to the Bible and ancient mythology confirm that the exaggerated visual expressions of natural forces were not realistic representations but metaphorical depictions of the turning point from degeneration to humanity’s regeneration.

3. Method

Having been a small fringe party only a decade ago, the Finns Party has become one of Finland’s largest parties in voter support (2011 and 2019), entering national government in 2015. The party’s success owes much to its efficient use of social media in reaching out to the electorate with its strong anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalism, and anti-EU views (e.g., Hatakka, 2017;

Horsti & Nikunen, 2013). In 2017, the Finns Party elected Jussi Halla-aho, a famous blogger and front for the Finnish anti- immigration movement, as its long-serving leader Timo Soini’s successor. The Finns Party enjoyed success in the April 2019 parliamentary elections, achieving the second-largest vote share at 17.5 percent. In the spring of 2020, polls showed support for the FP con- tinuing to grow, and the party was the largest in Finland (see HS 19/02/2020).

The Finns Party election video ‘‘KETUTUS—A story of being seri- ously pissed off” (‘‘V niin kuin Ketutus”) constitutes the material of this study (link to the video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=

dzCK4tTu2nE). The video was published on YouTube on March 20, 2019, a month before the parliamentary elections on April 14, 2019. The six-minute (6:40) video is in short film format, including moving and still images, a cartoon, and animation. The video gained significant media publicity because of its controversial content. It received hundreds of thousands of YouTube views. By February 2020, it had been viewed 481,419 times. It received ten times the number of views of the video of the Social Democrats, who won the 2019 elections. The video was later subtitled in different languages and translated into English. The English version was released on YouTube on March 27, 2019, receiving as many as 85,319 views (link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=Nuj9OE_ykHY). We focus here on the Finnish version.

To examine the video in detail, multimodal discourse analysis was undertaken. We based our multimodal discourse analysis on the systemic functional approach, whichO’Halloran (2008, 443) conceptualizes as the ‘‘theory and practice of analyzing meaning arising from the use of multiple semiotic resources in discourse.”

Systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis builds upon Michael Halliday’s (1978,1994) systemic functional theory.

According to this theory, different symbolic means of expression are regarded as semiotic resources that jointly create meaning (O’Halloran, 2008), and their organization reflects their social functions (O’Halloran & Lim, 2014). Systemic functional theory is a social semiotic theory in which the meaning of the multimodal text is understood as context dependent in terms of situational, social, and cultural contexts (O’Halloran, 2008; O’Halloran et al., 2019).

The central tenet of systemic functional theory, the metafunc- tional principle, provides an integrating theoretical basis and a common set of principles for studying how different semiotic resources interact in a multimodal entity to create meaning based on the ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions (Halli- day, 1978; O’Halloran, 2008). Whereas ideational metafunction focuses on the construction of meaning—the content—of the multimodal text, interpersonal metafunction deals with social relations in terms of the interaction between either the creator of the multimodal text and its recipient or between the participants in the multimodal text and the audience. Textual metafunction, in turn, concentrates on the organization of the multimodal resources in a discourse (O’Halloran, 2008; Royce, 2007). Together,

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the three metafunctions provide analytical tools to explore the ways in which semiotic resources construct meaning and social relations and how semiotic choices are used to fulfill diverse objectives, such as knowledge construction, persuasion, and agitation (O’Halloran, 2008).

Liu and O’Halloran (2009)introduce the concept of intersemiotic texture, which emphasizes that different semiotic resources are not only linked in a multimodal discourse but integrated in the sense that multimodal semiosis cannot be understood as a mere combination of separate semiotic resources but rather ‘‘is multiplicative in terms of semantic expansion of meaning”

(O’Halloran, 2008, 452). Several studies have shown how pictures and language can complement each other in a multimodal discourse (e.g., Liu & O’Halloran, 2009; O’Halloran, 2005, 2008).

Royce (2007)conceptualizes the integration of different semiotic resources as intersemiotic complementarity and suggests several strategies that can function intersemiotically, for instance, repeti- tion, hyponymy, meronymy, synonymy, and antinomy. According toRoyce (2007) and O’Halloran (2008), these intersemiotic mech- anisms enable semantic expansion in terms of co- contextualization (congruent meanings and parallelism) and re- contextualization (incongruent meanings and dissonance). The fluctuation between the different semiotic resources and their semantic orientations contributes to the expansion of meaning (O’Halloran, 2008).

The video was first transcribed scene by scene across different modes: narration; action; visual; and sound (see supplementary material). This transcription enabled us to take the simultaneous interplay between the different modes in the construction of meaning into account. We approached our material from a data- driven perspective, watched the video and read the transcription multiple times in order to identify how different semiotic resources work together and draw from the concept of intersemiotic texture (Liu & O’Halloran, 2009), paying attention to co- contextualization (congruent meanings) and re-contextualization (incongruent meanings). Furthermore, we examined meaning construction at the level of ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunction. In addition to analyzing the verbal, visual, and sonic modalities of the video, we drew from the theoretical background discussed above to examine how myth, religion, and Romanticism are used as rhetorical resources to communicate the political message.

4. Results

The election video’s storyline is composed of three parts—the beginning, middle, and end. The beginning of the video presents a peaceful, religious, law-observing, and virtuous Finnish nation that cherishes the traditions and values of its ancestors (00:32–

01:06). In the video’s middle section, corrupt leaders betray the nation, while refugees, who threaten its citizens with violence and financial burden, vandalize it and destroy its harmony (01:07–03:31). Finally, a monster is born from the depth of the earth to punish the deceitful leaders and protect the nation (03:32–06:11). (see Appendix,Images 1–6) This storyline is framed by introductory and concluding vignettes. At the beginning, a man in a black suit (his face is not shown) goes to the library and picks up a comic from the bookshelf. He sits down by the table and opens the first page, which turns into a real-life image of the city of Hel- sinki. This is where the actual story begins (00:00–00:31). In the final vignette, the man closes the comic. At this point, it becomes clear the man reading the comic is Jussi Halla-aho, the leader of the Finns Party (06:12–06:40). Hence, the vignettes at the beginning and end frame the video as a populist political message.

The aforementioned stages form a narrative of the fall and salvation of the Finnish nation, proceeding from harmonious coexistence to decline, revenge, and finally, to a new beginning. The storyline closely follows the pattern of palingenetic myth (Griffin, 1991), which can be understood as the narrative basis of the video.

The storyline also resembles the structure of several non-Western and Western mythologies of the degeneration of humanity, in which the paradisiacal ages inhabited by virtuous people are grad- ually replaced by ages of decay because of the moral decay of depraved people. In Greek mythology,Hesiod (2008)depicted this decline in five Ages—Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron. In turn, the Roman poetOvid (1998)distinguished four Ages in his Meta- morphoses: Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Iron. Whereas the Golden Age in both traditions represents a paradisiacal era, in which people enjoy ample offerings of nature and a harmonious and peaceful coexistence, the Iron Age represents an era of decay and rigor, in which decadent people fight each other and exploit nature. A similar trajectory congruent with the palingenetic myth can be recognized in the election video’s storyline.

4.1. The virtuous Golden Age (Appendix,image 1)

The video starts with a phrase familiar from fairytales—‘‘There was once. . .”—which frames the video as a fairytale or fictional story. The intertextual reference functions as a phrase that engrosses the spectator in following the election video’s plot, which begins in the past.

The first part of the video can be related to the paradisiacal Golden Age, typifying the idea of palingenetic myth (e.g.,Griffin, 1991). This is visually expressed by the harmonious cityscape of Helsinki at dusk (00:32–00:47). The sun is setting on the horizon, and black silhouettes of birds are shown flying against a sky warmly tinged with yellow and orange hues. Nothing seems to dis- turb the tranquility. In addition to the bird’s-eye view of the city of Helsinki, we see the white tower of Helsinki Cathedral with its golden cross (00:42–00:47). This view is followed by the shadowy image of Parliament in the dusk, with its columns inspired by antiquity, reminiscent of ancient Greek temples (00:48–00:51).

The statue of Finland’s first president, K. J. Ståhlberg, holding the constitution, stands in front of Parliament. The warm and gold- hued color scheme, the twilit moment, the expansive scenery, and buildings associated with religion and the past are highly congruent visual elements that seem to reinforce each other’s meanings (Liu & O’Halloran, 2009; O’Halloran, 2008), constructing a sentimental image of the harmonious existence of the Finnish nation prior to its fall. In addition, the meanings of the idyllic and harmony are fostered by intervisual references to the visual vocabulary typical of nineteenth-century Romanticism (Honour, 2019). In Romantic paintings, such color schemes and imagery were frequently used to express nostalgia for the Golden Age, drawing on Western and non-Western mythology (Palmer, 2019). According toNivala (2017), Romantic philosophers like Sch- legel regarded the era of ancient Greece as the Golden Age. The content, visuals, and sounds at the beginning of the video therefore seem to capture both the sentiment and esthetics of European nineteenth-century Romanticism.

In terms of verbal narration, expressions like ‘‘small nation inhabited by content and happy people” and ‘‘citizens enjoyed their homeland” semantically converge with the harmonious image constructed through visual means. Similarly, the calm soundscape consisting of the male narrator’s deep voice and a few piano chords played in intervals communicate sentimental tranquility (van Leeuwen, 2012) congruent with the meanings communicated through the verbal and visual means. The male narrator’s deep, tranquil, and clearly articulated voice ties the words together in a continuous chain, which makes the narration sound

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like a priest’s chant, which can be understood as an intertextual reference to the Bible and myths utilized in the video. In addition to the slow tempo of the speech, the thoughtful and moderate use of intonation furnishes the recitation with pathos and solem- nity. The voice suggests the narrator is an elderly man, which adds to the impression of an all-experienced prophet-like narrator capable of teaching a moral lesson to younger generations.

The start of the video refers to the passage of time through a soundscape featuring only the steady tick of a clock. Visually, the camera simultaneously focuses on the tower of Helsinki Cathedral.

The hands of the clock show ten past six in the evening (00:32–

00:47). Dusk represents the transition from light to darkness, from day to night. Metaphorically, the dusk may be understood to refer to decay, the end of time, or humanity’s twilight (Olderr, 2012). As the sun sets, light fades and darkness prevails, which is symbolic of the forces of darkness. Together, the convergent sonic and visual means refer to the passage of time and the end of the Golden Age, which is not mentioned in the verbal narration. Hence, the visual and sonic resources function as intersemiotic additives (Liu & O’Halloran, 2009), adding new information to the verbal component.

Verbal, visual, and sonic resources with congruent semantic orientations complement and reinforce one another’s ideational meanings. They construct a cohesive intersemiotic texture (Liu &

O’Halloran, 2009), where parallel choices co-contextualize each other, resulting in an expansion of the meaning that makes the image of the Finnish nation’s paradisiacal past more vivid and graspable. In terms of interpersonal metafunction, the vocabulary and use of intonation in verbal narration do not directly address the viewer; similarly, the video does not yet depict any people who directly address the viewer through gaze or gestures. As Royce (2007)suggests, the interpersonal metafunction in this kind of narration can be understood as the delivery of information. However, the intersemiotic choices construct a harmonious and idyllic mood in the first part of the video, which can be understood as a form of interpersonal meaning capable of appealing to viewers and gener- ating an emotional response among them (O’Halloran, 2008;

Royce, 2007). In terms of textual metafunction, the slow transition of images, tranquil tempo of speech, and minimal clauses with plain structures form a calm and rhythmically congruent pattern across different semiotic resources. The aforementioned intersemiotic choices and their intertextual references construct the air of harmony and the idyllic typical of myths of the Golden Age as well as the first phase of the palingenetic myth (virtue, peace, and well- being). Similar to fascist art (Ranta, 2016), the election video constructs a threat by juxtaposing the idyllic past with the present crisis. The crisis forms the core of the second part of the video.

4.2. Decay and threat (Appendix,images 2–4)

In the second part of the video, the harmonious story of the uni- fied nation gives way to the villains of the story, the political elite and refugees. This transition is carried out through verbal, visual, and sonic means. First, the storyteller characterizes the political elite in terms of decay. They are told to betray the fatherland’s culture, traditions, and values and act against them (01:19–01:31).

Decay is a typical theme for both mythical and religious traditions, as well as Romanticism (Sachs, 2018). Similarly, it is a central stage in palingenetic myth in the degeneration or danger threatening the nation’s well-being (Griffin, 1991). Decay is often related to the people’s moral decline. In the election video, the decline is incorpo- rated in the form of three deceitful leaders who are told to publicly pretend to serve the nation but in reality promote their own inter- ests and break the promises they have made to the citizens.

Although the three leaders can be identified as the leaders of the government parties at the time of the video’s release, their number

(three) may have religious connotations. More specifically, the video’s frequent intertextual and -visual references to the Evangel- ical Lutheran means the three corrupt leaders may be unfavorably associated with the Trinity, furnishing the deceit with fundamental but antithetical religious values, thereby making the image of deceit even more powerful.

The verbally narrated corruption and deceit of the decision makers are visualized in the video by half-masks in silver that cover the men’s eyes. This intersemiotic complementarity (Royce, 2007) at the level of ideational meaning is emphasized at the level of interpersonal meaning through a closeup in which the masked leader looks straight at the viewer (00:54–00:55). The use of a half-mask as a sign of deceit can also be linked to Romanticism.

According toBakhtin (1984), masks were commonly used symbols in the Romantic era: On one hand, they were related to parody, car- icature, and the comic; on the other, they were used to express metamorphosis, as well as to hide something, keep a secret, and deceive. It is precisely these latter functions of metamorphosis and deceit that the half-masks serve in the campaign video.

Another visual element the video uses to visualize deception and hypocrisy is the halo. The decision makers are depicted with haloes above their heads when they are welcoming refugees to Finland (01:36–01:39) and sitting in the cathedral’s front pews (02:04–

02:07). In religious and Romantic art, haloes were frequently used to signify holy people or spiritual experience, for example, in the paintings of William Blake, the German Nazarene movement, and the English Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. By juxtaposing the image of the semantically incongruent halo with the language of deceit, the video creates a dissonant relation between the linguistic and visual resources. Due to this re-contextualization (Liu &

O’Halloran, 2009), the halo becomes an ironical expression of the decision makers’ pretense.

The scenes in which corrupt leaders meet each other and their allies occur mostly in the dark (e.g., 02:20–02:29). This choice may be intervisually associated with the tradition of Romantic art, in which twilight and darkness often communicated meanings of mystery, excitement, fear, and evil. According to Prager (2007), the shift between light and darkness in Romantic art can be inter- preted as metaphorically depicting the human’s inner conflict or more generally, the struggle between good and evil. In this election video, the half-masks, haloes, emblems of bribery and the darkness, on the one hand, and verbal expressions referring to deceit, on the other hand, construct intersemiotic cohesion (Royce, 2007) where visual and linguistic resources reinforce each other’s semantic potentials and construct an image of corrupt leaders who no longer struggle between good and evil, but instead attempt to hide their evil behind a facade.

The other villain of the video is the refugees, who are depicted as a threat. Reminiscent of fascist ideology, the nation is portrayed as a victim of an evil outside group that threatens its wellbeing (Griffin, 1991). Violence, terror, poverty, and unemployment are the threats associated with them through verbal, visual, and sonic means. Whereas the depictions of the corrupt leaders’ decay make use of the visual vocabulary typical of Romanticism’s dark imagery, the depictions of threat draw entirely on another stylistic tradition.

Instead of live video images, the threat refugees and their violent acts pose is mainly visualized in animated form (e.g., 01:39–

01:57 and 02:44–02:48), genres associated with pop art’s stylistic features. While Romanticism was concerned with national identity, history, and heritage, drawing on familiar mythical and religious resources (Honour, 2019; Palmer, 2019), pop art was in its essence an international and eclectic style, championing cross- national influences and supranational consumerism (Frey &

Baetens, 2019; Walker, 2018). With its international and supranational premises, the intervisual references to pop art thus succeed in capturing the ‘‘alien” out-group threat to the nation in both its

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content and visual esthetics. The threat caused by refugees is expressed through verbal, visual, and sonic means. However, the verbal expression of the threat caused by refugees is expressed indirectly (without mentioning the word ‘‘refugee”): ‘‘Country that once was safe for women and children to walk freely was now a thing of the past.” The visuals (e.g., dark-skinned men detonating explosives and kidnapping a teenage girl as well as a black silhou- ette with a knife) and sonic resources (e.g., shouts, explosions, and breaking glass) concretize the meaning of the threat and anchor it to the refugees. Hence, visual and sonic resources function as intersemiotic additives (Liu & O’Halloran, 2009) adding new information to the verbal component.

In terms of interpersonal metafunction, the verbal narration does not directly address the viewers and, thus, positions them as recipients of information (Royce, 2007). The villains are identified and the aspects of deceit and threat emphasized visually through close-ups; for instance, both the corrupt leader with the silver mask (00:53–00:55) and the dark-skinned refugee detonating explosives (02:46–02:47) look straight at the viewer. Since atti- tude is understood as an aspect of interpersonal meaning (Wignell et al., 2018), the video constructs negative attitudes towards corrupt leaders (distrust) and refugees (fear). Compared to the first part of the video, the choices at the level of textual metafunction are different. For example, each semiotic resource (verbal, visual, and sonic) is used more diversely than in the first part. In addition, the rhythmical pattern is more rapid and complex because the transition from one shot to another is faster and the soundscape is louder and more diverse, including both music and sound effects expressing terror. Hence, intersemiotic choices at all three meta- functional levels construct an air of deceit, threat, and restlessness congruent with the stage of decay, crisis, and threat in the narrative structure of the paligenetic myth.

4.3. Revenge and punishment (Appendix,images 5–9)

The last part of the election video is dedicated to the depiction of the monster’s revenge on the deceitful leaders for their mis- chievous deeds. The episodes include ample intertextual references that draw on various mythological and religious resources that can be associated with the mythical storyline of divine retribution known in different world religious traditions (e.g., Dowden, 2005;Mitchell, 2004; Ovid, 1998; Spence, 2005). Retribution can take the form of a natural catastrophe—a deluge, for example—in which the deprived are destroyed for the sake of a better and more virtuous humanity (Freund, 2014; Grandjean et al., 2008). Another form of retribution in mythical and religious traditions is provided by the ultimate wrath in which people’s good and bad deeds are weighed, based on which the virtuous win eternal life, and the evil are eternally doomed (Freund, 2014; Grandjean et al., 2008). The judges range from Nemesis in Greek mythology to the resurrected Christ in the biblical Last Judgment. Romantic art also frequently depicts all these themes (Palmer, 2019).

The monster is the personification of the video’s revenge and punishment. Since ancient times, monstrous creatures have been used to concretize collective fear to incorporate and personify the evil, dangerous, and threatening (Asma, 2011; Berry, 2019;

Clasen, 2014;Mittman & Dendle, 2013). The video’s monster’s gro- tesque appearance repeats fearful images of monsters from all over the world (e.g.,Asma, 2011; Halberstam, 1995). However, in devi- ating from the tradition of embodying evil or an external threat (Asma, 2011; Berry, 2019), this monster is the protector of the virtuous common people. Born of their unanimous anger, the sky, and Mother Earth, the monster appears as the embodiment of the wrath of mythological gods. According to Asma (2011, 13), the word ‘‘monster” is derived from the Latin word ‘‘monere” (to warn), and hence, ‘‘sometimes the monster is a display of God’s wrath, a

portent of the future, a symbol of moral virtue or vice.” The fascination with monsters in the moral imagination saw a revival in visual arts, poetry, and literature of Romanticism (Gilmore, 2003). Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) in literature and Fran- cisco Goya’s Saturn (1819–23) and Colossus (1808–12) in art are famous examples. Romanticism also frequently personifies abstract ‘‘entities” in the form of fictitious creatures (Palmer, 2019). Bearing in mind the video’s recurrent intertextual references to art and themes of Romanticism, it seems obvious that the monster of the video stems from the same source of inspiration.

In the video, the monster’s origin is told to be the nation’s anger against its deceitful leaders. Visually, the anger is represented as grey and black smoke rising from the cityscape to the sky and cov- ering it completely (03:49–03:55). The narrator explains this is why Mother Earth felt sick and gave birth to the monster. (see Appendix,Images 7–9) The video thus harnesses the main principles of the mythological cosmos—earth and sky—to give birth to the monster, whose mission is to punish the traitors and protect the Finnish nation. A rich mythological tradition personifies earth and sky as divinities: for example, Gaia and Uranus in Greek mythology (Hesiod, 2008). The video thus introduces a trinity of the Finnish nation’s anger, Mother Earth, and the sky, while the monster appears as a Finnish equivalent of Greek mythology’s Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution and revenge (Ovid, 1998). However, the ‘‘Finnish nationalist” Nemesis is not deter- mined to punish those who succumb to hubris before the gods (Ovid, 1998), but the deceitful political leaders who succumb to hubris before the Finnish nation.

The monster is born from the depths of Mother Earth’s flaming black crater. The image ‘‘flames” and ‘‘flickers”, referencing the powers of nature and visualizing the narrator’s line, ‘‘the earth trembles” (03:55–04:13). These images of turmoil and tumultuous natural forces—often related to the representations of apocalypse, wrath, and the Last Judgment (Nur & Burgess, 2008)—can also be recognized in dozens of Romantic paintings, such as John Martin’s The Great Day of His Wrath(1851–1853) and Francis Danby’sThe Deluge(1840). The visual narration is strengthened by sounds of fire and storm, as well as the monster’s roar. The monster climbs the mountain (04:06–04:12), which recalls the depictions of Gol- gotha in Romantic paintings (e.g., Caspar David Friedrich’sCross in the Mountains, 1808). Behind the monster, a luminous oval aure- ola can be associated with the depictions of Christ against an almond-shaped luminous zone (i.e., mandorla) in the depictions of his transfiguration. These episodes cluster powerful intertextual and intervisual references to myths, the Bible, and the art of Romanticism. In addition, the verbal, visual, and sonic means of expression seem to reinforce each other’s semantic potentials, contributing to the expansion of meaning (seeLiu & O’Halloran, 2009), where the different semiotic resources merge to communicate the miraculous birth of the savior of the nation. The highly evocative content constructed at the level of ideational metafunction, on the one hand, and the simultaneous use of strong visual and sonic stimuli at the level of textual metafunction, on the other hand, create a multimodal message capable of addressing viewers both intellectually and emotionally at the level of interpersonal metafunction.

The last part of the video includes several visually powerful but unrealistic scenes. For example, a scene depicts grey and black smoke rising into the sky from the cityscape, and the monster is born from the depths of the earth. The viewer cannot make sense of the scenes based on visual cues alone, which creates an eager- ness to hear their verbally narrated meaning. Hence, the verbal component functions as an intersemiotic additive (Liu &

O’Halloran, 2009) that adds necessary information to the visual message. For these unrealistic images, the meaning remains

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‘‘open,” intensifying the intersemiotic process. In this particular video, the unrealistic images also highlight the role of the mythical, since they shift the narration beyond everyday logic.

In the video’s climax, the monster finds the corrupt leaders and threatens them. The scene occurs in the dark. Flames and sparks dart and hover in the air. Amidst the inferno, one of the leaders is depicted kneeling before the monster and praying for mercy (05:35–06:00) (see Appendix,Images 5-6) . The images tremble, and the camera shots change drastically, focusing sequentially on the leader’s agony and the monster’s verdict. The fire’s crackle and the narrator’s word choices such as ‘‘pray for mercy” and ‘‘retribution” link the scene strongly with the Last Judgment. The visuals of the flames and sparks in the darkness, the shaking image, and the drastically changing camera shots; the sounds of fire and wind, the monster’s growl, and the anguished voice of the corrupt leader;

and the narration, with phrases such as ‘‘the earth began to tremble,” ‘‘the moment of reckoning,” ‘‘the leader cried out,” ‘‘pray for mercy,” and ‘‘retribution,” all converge. The different semiotic resources complement each other and intensify each other’s meanings, contributing to expanding that meaning (Liu & O’Halloran, 2009; O’Halloran, 2008; Royce, 2007) by making the corrupt leader’s agony and monster’s verdict more graspable and emotionally appealing. This heightened intersemiosis is constructed not only at the level of ideational metafunction but also at the level of textual metafunction in terms of juxtaposing a range of rapidly changing visual and sonic means of expression with the action-loaded verbal narration, which makes the last part of the video the most dynamic.

When the corrupt leader finally promises to go into exile, the monster’s chest is lit by a flash of light, and it suddenly disappears into the air (06:01–06:05). Visually, the transformation can be associated with films of extraterrestrial creatures leaving the earth or the disappearance of the genie in Aladdin’s lamp having com- pleted his mission.

The video’s final scene depicts a tranquil bird’s-eye view of Hel- sinki in the dark (06:08–06:11). The turmoil is over, which is sig- naled through slowly moving camera shots, an absence of music and sound effects, and sparse verbal comments. However, the darkness seems to recall the nation’s narrow escape from destruction, resonating with the narrator’s declaration, ‘‘Should the corruption rear its head, the savior of the nation will return.” Such a

‘‘conditional victory” implies the human inclination to evil, echoing both biblical and mythological warnings, according to which future decay will not go unpunished (Kim & Hellberg, 2016). The mythical intertextual references weave the Finns Party agenda as the protector of the nation is into the age-old universal narratives of vice and virtue, glory and decay, sin and salvation. Simultaneously, it bears resemblance to fascist propaganda, where fascism was presented as the agent of the new birth of the nation, saving it from the fall (Ranta, 2016).

In the final vignette of the video (06:12–06:40), Jussi Halla-aho, the leader of the Finns Party, closes the comic. Wearing a black suit, he sits behind a table facing the viewer, hands crossed on the table.

He directs his words to the viewer: ‘‘As you know, there is no pissed off monster. And it is not going to come and save anyone.

The old parties are not going to change their objectives. If you want change, you have to vote for change. Use your power.” Differing from the actual ‘‘short film,” this final vignette directly addresses the viewers both verbally and visually. The verbally expressed request to vote is fostered visually through Halla-aho’s frontal pose and gaze directed straight at the viewer. The use of the second sin- gular pronoun ‘‘you” together with the eye-level angle communicate equality (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) and make the verbal address intimate, even though the formal suit and positioning behind the table visually communicate officiality. The final vign-

ette emphasizes interpersonal metafunction with the aim of per- suading and mobilizing the viewers to vote for the Finns Party.

5. Discussion and conclusions

This paper aims to contribute to the theoretical and empirical discussion of the role of myths, religion, and the arts in populist persuasion. The study shows that the Finns Party election video combines myths of classical antiquity and Biblical stories into a storyline based on a palingenetic mythical theme. These resources are used as discursive devices to frame Finland’s current social and political issues in terms of the threat created by corrupt decision makers on one hand and refugees on the other (Sakki &

Pettersson, 2016). Violence, terror, poverty, and unemployment are depicted as menaces endangering the Finnish nation’s well- being. Typical of palingenetic myth (Berlet 2004, 2005), strategies of conspiracy and scapegoating are used to blame the deceitful decision makers and refugees for the decay/crisis the nation experiences. In this web of mythical, religious, social, and political resources, the monster incorporating the nation’s anger – a meta- phor for the Finns Party – appears as the messianic savior of the Finnish nation, with a promise to retrieve the paradisiacal era of peace and harmony. Thus, ancient myths are used to create political myths in which the ancient mythical core gains a new significance and power in a contemporary context (Bottici, 2007;

Bottici & Kühner, 2012).

The populist myths the video identifies—a homogenous and sovereign nation, a deceitful political elite, virtuous common people, the menace created by refugees, the promise of national rebirth, shared national values, the populist leader as (national) hero—have also been recognized in previous studies and in other cultural contexts (e.g.,Kelsey, 2016 Yabanci, 2020). According to Hellström and Hervik (2014), national myths gain increasing importance in times of insecurity. Myths are part of our culture and, hence, their implicit and explicit presence in political adver- tising is no surprise. However, the use of the palingenetic myth as the narrative basis of this video as well as its ample intertextual and -visual references to mythical resources appear as deliberate rhetorical strategies counting on the power of myths to structure people’s experiences, thoughts, and actions and to appeal to audi- ences through their familiarity (Goopman & Lull, 2018; Lule, 2001).

Although the video’s storyline and visual execution seem very thoughtful, we do not claim all the links to mythology, religion, and Romanticism we have identified were employed deliberately and consciously by its makers. However, the mythological and religious resources this study presents are widely known and shared in Western culture and repeated in countless forms in media, movies, and art. Some of their influences may therefore have been unconscious. Likewise, the video’s viewers may experience its mythological and religious references as familiar, because they are frequently adapted to diverse secular forms of contemporary media and popular (visual) culture. AsGoopman and Lull (2018)state, people do not need to be familiar with the original myths themselves, but their diverse versions circulating in the culture mean people learn to recognize mythical storylines and structures. Myths can ‘‘res- onate with the audience’s overall sense of the culture” (p. 321).

Mythical patterns and themes are thus deeply rooted in human experience and may be felt unconsciously (Bottici, 2007; Bottici &

Kühner, 2012). Their appeal to common cultural experiences and emotions means mythical resources may strongly contribute to the formation of collective identities (Bottici, 2007) and provide powerful means of political persuasion (Lynggaard, 2017).

In addition to myths, the election video can be associated with deeply rooted religious stories and images like Golgotha, prayer for

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mercy, the Last Judgment, and the Resurrection. The video’s references not only furnish the agenda of the Finns Party with religious values and morals; its strong apocalyptic connotations make the suppression of enemies a moral obligation of vital importance.

According toYabanci (2020), the use of such sacralized politics in attributing secular entities with a religious connotation is a powerful populist strategy, in which a shared cultural heritage is used to construct collective identities. Yet such an ‘‘apocalyptic demoniza- tion” (Berlet, 2005, 121) may strengthen the divide between the in- and out-groups, furnishing the out-group with connotations of evil and legitimizing discrimination against it (see Lynggaard, 2017;

Yabanci, 2020).

As in several previous studies (e.g.,Griffin, 2017; Vasilopoulou

& Halikiopoulou, 2015; Yabanci, 2020), this study’s findings show that contemporary radical right populist parties use palingenetic myth as a powerful narrative plotline in political persuasion.

According to Griffin (2017), this poses a serious threat, because palingenetic myth provides them with a means of disguising their fascist ideology and constructing a collective identity in opposition to an external threat, which may be used to legitimize xenophobia and even violence against particular groups (Griffin, 2017).

Griffin (1991, xi) describes the core idea of palingenetic myth as a ‘‘purifying, cathartic national rebirth.” Aristotle understood catharsis as a function of tragedy, whereby the audience identified itself with a play’s tragic events by experiencing emotions of fear and pity, and finally, relief and purification (Briassoulis, 2019;

Nanay, 2018). In addition to its theme, the palingenetic myth plotline arising from harmonious coexistence with threat and its ultimate defeat is compatible with the idea of catharsis. Previously, Azmanova (2018)has related radical right populism to catharsis in terms of populist movements providing a ‘‘release of suppressed grievances,” Häusler (2019)in terms of the upspring against an enemy threatening the nation, and Scott and Makres (2019) in terms of releasing pent-up anti-immigrant feelings. The cathartic dimension inherent in palingenetic myth in terms of enabling experiences of relief and purification may therefore provide an explanation for the public appeal of radical right populism.

Art historical styles may also be perceived as serving another rhetorical purpose in the election video—namely, that of constructing a divide between different groups. Romanticism’s harmonious and tranquil warm sunset imagery is used to depict the paradisiacal and harmonious life of the Finnish nation before the menace created by corrupt decision makers and refugees. In turn, the deceitful decision makers are depicted in either Romantic- inspired scenes that occur in the darkness or cartoon-like images in the style of pop art. The refugees are depicted using pop art’s stylistic features. The use of an art historical style thus distinguishes three groups: the virtuous Finnish nation (depicted in the style of Romanticism—the ‘‘in-group”); deceitful leaders (whose fluctuation between the ‘‘in-” and ‘‘out-groups” is depicted through the stylistic fluctuation between Romanticism and pop art); and refugees (depicted in the style of pop art—the ‘‘out- group”). Thus, the video uses different (art historical) stylistic features as a discursive means of constructing the threat and divide between different groups: the Finnish nation; corrupt leaders;

and refugees.

Previous studies have shown that fascism employed artists to depict nationalist imagery using mythological and religious resources—also palingenesis (e.g., Billiani & Pennacchietti, 2019;

Connolly, 2017). In this study, we have shown how the Finns Party election video utilizes similar resources to communicate its agenda. The power of images to condense myths (Bottici &

Kühner, 2012) combined with their general capacity to appeal to the emotions (Brader, 2005; Huddy, & Gunnthorsdottir, 2000) makes them a powerful means of communication and persuasion.

The election video is made in the format of popular fiction—a

‘‘short movie”—which applies moving and animated images. It may be assumed such a format makes ‘‘populist appeal” even more powerful (see e.g.,Ekman, 2014).

The dense intersemiotic texture in the election video is mainly based on intersemiotic cohesion in terms of co-contextualizing relations between the different semiotic resources (Liu &

O’Halloran, 2009), where verbal, visual, and sonic modalities reinforce/multiply each other’s semantic potentials and expand the meaning beyond the scope of any single modality. This kind of intensified intersemiosis at the level of textual metafunction constructs powerful messages capable of addressing viewers rationally and emotionally at the level of interpersonal metafunction. In addition, ample intertextual and intervisual references to myths, the Bible, and the art of Romanticism connect the election video to the universal narrative resources that importantly contribute to its meaning and appeal. By applying the storyline of the palingenetic myth to the context of the Finns Party, the video re- semiotizes (O’Halloran & Lim, 2014) the palingenetic myth. Simul- taneously, at the level of ideational metafunction, the video weaves the narrative of the Finns Party as the savior of the Finnish nation into the web of universal mythical resources, which can create an understanding that the Finns Party’s agenda is not only needed in Finland but also justified in more universal terms. Hence, the emotional appeal and persuasiveness of the video is discursively constructed (using mythical, biblical, art historical and multimodal resources) at the level of ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunctions.

Far from being mere ahistorical decoration, esthetics can be understood as a ‘‘pedagogical, political and historical model” that aims to achieve particular goals and promote particular meanings, views, and ideologies (Redfield, 2003, 12). Esthetics is thus a discursive or rhetorical form, constructing norms of social order (Redfield, 2003). The election video politicizes (visual) esthetics to convey its populist message. Drawing on Romantic imagery, myths, and religion known for their strong emotional appeal as cultural resources, the video addresses its audience at both the conscious and unconscious levels (see e.g., Bottici and Kühner, 2012). It may therefore function as ideological propaganda, because it is most effective in stirring people’s emotions, thoughts, and actions without their being aware of it, and coaxing unnoticed its xenophopic and discriminatory content.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The manuscript is original and is not under consideration for publication in another journal. The research has been carried out following the guidelines of Discourse, Context & Media.There are no conflicts of interest that would affect the decision to publish the manuscript.

The research was funded by Kone Foundation (2020-2024) and the Academy of Finland (Grant Number 295923, 2016-2022).

Appendix A. Supplementary material

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2021.100466.

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