Far-right groups increasingly use social media to interact with other groups and reach their foll... more Far-right groups increasingly use social media to interact with other groups and reach their followers. Social media also enable ‘ordinary’ people to participate in online discussions and shape political discourse. This study compares the networks and discourses of Facebook pages of Western European far-right parties, movements and communities. Network analyses of pages indicate that the form of far-right mobilization is shaped by political opportunities. The absence of a strong far-right party offline seems to be reflected in an online network in which non-institutionalized groups are the most prominent actors, rather than political parties. In its turn, the discourse is shaped by the type of actor. Content analyses of comments of followers show that parties address the political establishment more often than immigration and Islam, compared to non-institutionalized groups. Furthermore, parties apply less extreme discursive practices towards ‘the other’ than non-institutionalized groups.
This study investigates how visual manipulation is employed on the Facebook page of a far-right p... more This study investigates how visual manipulation is employed on the Facebook page of a far-right party; and whether manipulation evokes different forms of engagement from Facebook users. The study takes as a case the Facebook page of the British National Party (BNP), which has recently been censored from the social media platform. It therefore provides a rare insight in the visual practices of the party's online political communication. A manual coding of 342 images into factual , funny, fallacious or fabricated content finds that completely fabricated information in images is rare. However, most images do contain information that is presented in a fallacious or misleading manner. The results show how deliberate manipulated images evoke more engagement in the form of comments and more negative emotional responses than images that present information in a factual or funny manner.
Twitter, the Public Sphere, and the Chaos of Online Deliberation, 2020
Dog whistling, a form of symbolic communication through seemingly innocuous terms is a common pra... more Dog whistling, a form of symbolic communication through seemingly innocuous terms is a common practice for members of far-right movements. This chapter examines how dog whistling was used on Twitter during the 2016 presidential election through a virtual ethnographic approach. Dog whistling serves to circumvent censorship by automated moderation, and adapts historical markers of the far-right as well as symbols used in other media to work within Twitter’s affordances. Thus, Twitter is employed as a channel to spread hate and signal belonging among far-right communities. In doing so, creative use is made of the platform’s technology, in the face of the site’s moderation techniques, to convey white supremacist ideas to a broader audience while staying under the radar of detection.
Op 10 augustus 2014 wilde de nationalistische groepering ‘Pro Patria’ een mars door de Haagse Sch... more Op 10 augustus 2014 wilde de nationalistische groepering ‘Pro Patria’ een mars door de Haagse Schilderswijk houden om te demonstreren tegen de vermeende islamisering van deze buurt en tegen Nederlandse jihadisten die de terroristische organisatie IS ondersteunen. Dankzij politieoptreden kon een gewelddadige confrontatie tussen aanhangers van Pro Patria en bewoners van de Schilderswijk onder wie enkele radicale islamisten worden voorkomen. De bijna-confrontatie in de Schilderswijk valt samen met oplopende spanningen elders in Europa, zich uitend in verijdelde aanslagen in Duitsland en het Verenigd Koninkrijk. Dit alles vormt de aanleiding voor de Nationale Coordinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV) om vanuit het WODC (Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Documentatiecentrum) wetenschappelijk onderzoek te initieren naar de interactie tussen de anti-islambewegingen en radicale moslims. De onderzoekers hebben hierbij de focus verlegd van bewegingen en organisaties naar velden. De ...
Far-right groups increasingly use social media to interact with other groups and reach their foll... more Far-right groups increasingly use social media to interact with other groups and reach their followers. Social media also enable ‘ordinary’ people to participate in online discussions and shape political discourse. This study compares the networks and discourses of Facebook pages of Western European far-right parties, movements and communities. Network analyses of pages indicate that the form of far-right mobilization is shaped by political opportunities. The absence of a strong far-right party offline seems to be reflected in an online network in which non-institutionalized groups are the most prominent actors, rather than political parties. In its turn, the discourse is shaped by the type of actor. Content analyses of comments of followers show that parties address the political establishment more often than immigration and Islam, compared to non-institutionalized groups. Furthermore, parties apply less extreme discursive practices towards ‘the other’ than non-institutionalized groups.
Far-right groups increasingly use social media to interact with other groups and reach their foll... more Far-right groups increasingly use social media to interact with other groups and reach their followers. Social media also enable ‘ordinary’ people to participate in online discussions and shape political discourse. This study compares the networks and discourses of Facebook pages of Western European far-right parties, movements and communities. Network analyses of pages indicate that the form of far-right mobilization is shaped by political opportunities. The absence of a strong far-right party offline seems to be reflected in an online network in which non-institutionalized groups are the most prominent actors, rather than political parties. In its turn, the discourse is shaped by the type of actor. Content analyses of comments of followers show that parties address the political establishment more often than immigration and Islam, compared to non-institutionalized groups. Furthermore, parties apply less extreme discursive practices towards ‘the other’ than non-institutionalized groups.
This study investigates how visual manipulation is employed on the Facebook page of a far-right p... more This study investigates how visual manipulation is employed on the Facebook page of a far-right party; and whether manipulation evokes different forms of engagement from Facebook users. The study takes as a case the Facebook page of the British National Party (BNP), which has recently been censored from the social media platform. It therefore provides a rare insight in the visual practices of the party's online political communication. A manual coding of 342 images into factual , funny, fallacious or fabricated content finds that completely fabricated information in images is rare. However, most images do contain information that is presented in a fallacious or misleading manner. The results show how deliberate manipulated images evoke more engagement in the form of comments and more negative emotional responses than images that present information in a factual or funny manner.
Twitter, the Public Sphere, and the Chaos of Online Deliberation, 2020
Dog whistling, a form of symbolic communication through seemingly innocuous terms is a common pra... more Dog whistling, a form of symbolic communication through seemingly innocuous terms is a common practice for members of far-right movements. This chapter examines how dog whistling was used on Twitter during the 2016 presidential election through a virtual ethnographic approach. Dog whistling serves to circumvent censorship by automated moderation, and adapts historical markers of the far-right as well as symbols used in other media to work within Twitter’s affordances. Thus, Twitter is employed as a channel to spread hate and signal belonging among far-right communities. In doing so, creative use is made of the platform’s technology, in the face of the site’s moderation techniques, to convey white supremacist ideas to a broader audience while staying under the radar of detection.
Op 10 augustus 2014 wilde de nationalistische groepering ‘Pro Patria’ een mars door de Haagse Sch... more Op 10 augustus 2014 wilde de nationalistische groepering ‘Pro Patria’ een mars door de Haagse Schilderswijk houden om te demonstreren tegen de vermeende islamisering van deze buurt en tegen Nederlandse jihadisten die de terroristische organisatie IS ondersteunen. Dankzij politieoptreden kon een gewelddadige confrontatie tussen aanhangers van Pro Patria en bewoners van de Schilderswijk onder wie enkele radicale islamisten worden voorkomen. De bijna-confrontatie in de Schilderswijk valt samen met oplopende spanningen elders in Europa, zich uitend in verijdelde aanslagen in Duitsland en het Verenigd Koninkrijk. Dit alles vormt de aanleiding voor de Nationale Coordinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (NCTV) om vanuit het WODC (Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Documentatiecentrum) wetenschappelijk onderzoek te initieren naar de interactie tussen de anti-islambewegingen en radicale moslims. De onderzoekers hebben hierbij de focus verlegd van bewegingen en organisaties naar velden. De ...
Far-right groups increasingly use social media to interact with other groups and reach their foll... more Far-right groups increasingly use social media to interact with other groups and reach their followers. Social media also enable ‘ordinary’ people to participate in online discussions and shape political discourse. This study compares the networks and discourses of Facebook pages of Western European far-right parties, movements and communities. Network analyses of pages indicate that the form of far-right mobilization is shaped by political opportunities. The absence of a strong far-right party offline seems to be reflected in an online network in which non-institutionalized groups are the most prominent actors, rather than political parties. In its turn, the discourse is shaped by the type of actor. Content analyses of comments of followers show that parties address the political establishment more often than immigration and Islam, compared to non-institutionalized groups. Furthermore, parties apply less extreme discursive practices towards ‘the other’ than non-institutionalized groups.
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