Social Media Mechanisms for Right-Wing Political Violence in the 21st Century: Discursive Opportunities, Group Dynamics, and Co-Ordination

Wahlström, Mattias; Törnberg, Anton

doi:10.1080/09546553.2019.1586676

Cited by 52 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…They demonstrate geographic and temporal correlations between violent far-right incidents and anti-immigrant comments on the social media pages of the radical-right party Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD; in English, 'Alternative for Germany'). Therefore, research must acknowledge the potentially crucial role-played by social media and alternative online media as a discursive and social context for radicalright violence (Wahlström and Törnberg, 2019).…”

Section: Online Hate and Far-right Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, a peak in violent rhetoric in August 2017 coincided with a protest by Afghan youths in Stockholm against deportations to Afghanistan. This event evoked indignant and often violent discussions within the Facebook group, which became a platform for organizing a counter-demonstration on 19 August (see Wahlström and Törnberg, 2019). Table 1 below shows an overview of all 15 topics from the LDA analysis, sorted according to their overall weight in the corpus.…”

Section: Patterns In Violent and Dehumanizing Rhetoricmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dynamics of violent and dehumanizing rhetoric in far-right social media

Wahlström

Törnberg

Ekbrand

2020

New Media & Society

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This article sheds light on mechanisms by which online social interactions contribute to instigating far-right political violence. It presents an analysis of how violence against ethnic and religious minorities is motivated and legitimized in social media, as well as the situational conditions for such violent rhetoric. Online violent rhetoric in a Swedish public far-right social media discussion group was studied using a combination of machine-learning tools and qualitative analysis. The analysis shows that violent rhetoric primarily occurs in the context of narratives about criminals and crimes with (imagined) immigrant perpetrators and often particularly vulnerable victims, linked to a social problem definition of a corrupt and failing state as well as the alleged need to deport immigrants. The use of dehumanizing and infrahumanizing expressions both legitimizes political violence and spurs negative emotions that may increase motivation for violent action.

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Section: Online Hate and Far-right Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Patterns In Violent and Dehumanizing Rhetoricmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of violent and dehumanizing rhetoric in far-right social media

Wahlström

Törnberg

Ekbrand

2020

New Media & Society

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“…This was done retrospectively from 2016 to 2019, as we consider 2016 to be an important year for the popularization of the contemporary far right in the West. Flashback is one of the largest web forums in the world (Whalström and Törnberg 2019), is open to everyone, and yet is (officially) regulated against hate speech and threats (Blomberg and Stier 2019). It is particularly well-suited for this type of research because it attracts far-right and extreme discourse while at the same time being open to the mainstream (Whalström and Törnberg 2019).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Flashback is one of the largest web forums in the world (Whalström and Törnberg 2019), is open to everyone, and yet is (officially) regulated against hate speech and threats (Blomberg and Stier 2019). It is particularly well-suited for this type of research because it attracts far-right and extreme discourse while at the same time being open to the mainstream (Whalström and Törnberg 2019). Due to Flashback’s reputation, it has also attracted people with antiracist sentiments who engage in these discussions to refute the most extreme posts.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Ideology in Consumer Resistance: Analyzing Far-Right Opposition to Multicultural Marketing

Ulver¹,

Laurell²

2020

Journal of Public Policy & Marketing

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Political ideologies of the far-right are gaining ground in world politics and culture, not least by way of market forces. It has therefore become urgent to understand how these ideologies manifest themselves in the fields of marketing and consumption at a sociocultural level. The authors explore the discursive efforts in far-right consumer resistance to advance a political agenda through protests directed at brands’ multicultural advertising and analyze how these consumers conceptualize their adversaries in the marketplace. In contrast to previous framings of adversaries identified in consumer research, where resistance is typically anticapitalist and directed toward firms’ unethical conduct or the exploitation by the global market economy per se, the authors find that the following discursive themes stand out in the far-right consumer resistance: the emphasis on the state as main antagonist, the indifference to capitalism as a potential adversary, and overt contestation of liberal ethics. The article concludes with a discussion of research contributions as well as the public policy and marketing implications in light of a growing far-right consumer culture.

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“…When experience involves multiple actors, reactions from others can provide immediate feedback. Knowledge about POSs is typically gained from reactions from state actors, often channeled through mass media, while reactions from the mass media, bystanders, or online social media provide information about so-called discursive opportunities (Braun and Koopmans 2014;Koopmans and Olzak 2004;Wahlström and Törnberg 2019). This feedback informs actors about the correctness of assumptions that guided the initial engagement with the field.…”

Section: How Political Opportunity Structures Mattermentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrating political opportunities: explaining strategic adaptation in the climate movement

Moor

Wahlström

2019

Theor Soc

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This article advances theory on social movements' strategic adaptation to political opportunity structures by incorporating a narrative perspective. Our theory explains how people acquire and use knowledge about political opportunity structures through storytelling about the movement's past, present, and imagined future. The discussion applies the theory in an ethnographic case study of the climate movement's mobilization around the UN Climate Summit in Paris, 2015. This analysis demonstrates how a dominant narrative of defeat about the prior protest campaign in Copenhagen, 2009 shaped the strategizing process. While those who experienced Copenhagen as a success preferred strategic continuity, those who experienced defeat developed a BCopenhagen narrative^to advance strategic adaptation by projecting previously experienced threats and opportunities onto the Paris campaign. Yet by relying on a retrospective narrative, movement actors tended to overlook emerging political opportunities. We demonstrate that narrative analysis is a useful tool for understanding the link between structure and agency in social movements and other actors affected by (political) opportunity structures.Keywords Climate change . Narrative . Political opportunity structure . Social movements . Strategy . Structure and agency How do social movements adapt their strategies to political opportunity structures (POSs)? This is one of the most cited questions in social movement research and goes right to the heart of how movements advance social change. However, it is also one of

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Social Media Mechanisms for Right-Wing Political Violence in the 21st Century: Discursive Opportunities, Group Dynamics, and Co-Ordination

Cited by 52 publications

References 19 publications

Dynamics of violent and dehumanizing rhetoric in far-right social media

Dynamics of violent and dehumanizing rhetoric in far-right social media

Political Ideology in Consumer Resistance: Analyzing Far-Right Opposition to Multicultural Marketing

Narrating political opportunities: explaining strategic adaptation in the climate movement

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