Digital Populism in Taiwan: Trends in Han Kuo-yu and Ko Wen-je’s Interaction with Facebook (2011–2025)

This study maps Taiwan’s digital populism by analyzing over 6,000 Facebook posts by Han Kuo-yu and Ko Wen-je from 2011 to 2025. Using temporal trend analysis, Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) profiling, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) analysis, and BERTopic modeling, the study traces how digital populism unfolds across electoral cycles and crises. The findings show that Taiwanese populist communication emphasizes optimism, affiliative rhetoric, and event-driven mobilization, rather than grievance-driven antagonism. Han adopts an episodic, emotive style, shifting from an ROC-centered approach to direct engagement after 2020, while Ko emphasizes a technocratic, metropolitan identity centered on Taipei, projecting a civic identity that transcends partisan boundaries and political polarization. Both figures use digital platforms to build visibility, activate emotions, and establish political legitimacy. These insights highlight the emergence of a hybrid form of digital political communication in Taiwan, characterized by sustained direct engagement and a desire for direct democracy.