The mobilisation potential of anti-containment protests in Germany

Hunger, Sophia; Hutter, Swen; Kanol, Eylem

doi:10.1080/01402382.2023.2166728

Cited by 22 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 57 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In this regard, we hope that our empirical study of far-right protest mobilization paves the way to a broader research agenda expanding the proposed framework theoretically—integrating mechanisms of coverage in hybrid media environments—and empirically—expanding the scope beyond Europe and the far right (Gagnon, 2020; Weiner & Zellman, 2022). Given the growing visibility of far-right contentious action, exemplified by the 2021 storming of the US Capitol building, anti-containment protests and the 2023 Brazilian congress attack (Hunger et al, 2023), the FARPE data is set to play a major role in this research agenda.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When the Far Right Makes the News: Protest Characteristics and Media Coverage of Far-Right Mobilization in Europe

Gattinara

Froio

2023

Comparative Political Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When do the media cover far-right protests? News coverage matters for the entrenchment of the far right in contemporary democracies, but little comparative research has looked at what drives news attention to far-right mobilization. We apply a classic input–output process model of news selection bias to test the hypothesis that the visibility of far-right protests events depends on the characteristics of protest initiators, type of action, and reactions. We appraise this via logistic regressions on an original dataset of 5972 protest events retrieved from online press releases by far-right groups (input) and national quality newspapers (output) in 11 European countries (2008–2018). The analysis confirms that news media are particularly responsive to contentious action, protest around migration issues, and action–reaction chains between political opponents. Our findings shed light on the role of news organizations in the success of the far-right and on the pathways by which these movements shape public agendas.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

When the Far Right Makes the News: Protest Characteristics and Media Coverage of Far-Right Mobilization in Europe

Gattinara

Froio

2023

Comparative Political Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Also, a certain amount of loss in topic model precision caused by noisy text data and message ephemerality could not be ruled out, even though forwarded and hyperlink messages appear to be less ephemeral than organic content (Buehling, 2023). Furthermore, the observed Telegram entities' geographic locations were distributed unevenly across Germany: More group chats and channels were created in West Germany, while in East Germany, mobilization seemed to rely on pre-existing political networks (Hunger et al, 2022). Thus, future studies on how Querdenken chapters and adjacent regional legacy movements might differ in their information ecosystem embedding and utilization of Telegram's affordances can enrich the spatial analysis of online counterpublics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pandemic Protesters on Telegram: How Platform Affordances and Information Ecosystems Shape Digital Counterpublics

Buehling,

Heft

2023

Social Media + Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study analyzes how platform affordances, their appropriation by movement actors, and these actors’ leveraging of information ecosystems—in combination—helped form a digital counterpublic during the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws on public communication data sent by more than 300 Telegram channels and group chats affiliated with the Querdenken movement over a 2-year period, and combines automated and manual text classification with network analysis. The study demonstrates how Telegram afforded connective and collective action in distinct ways that reflected the movement’s organizational structure and aims, as well as the impact of individual information-sharing on the process of movement-building itself. Accounting for time-dependent dynamics, the study also found that different parts of the counterpublic latched onto and sustained distinct information ecosystems to articulate their claims and mobilize contentious action.

show abstract

“…Further, actors of the extremist right including organizations (e.g., "Identitarian Movement"), parties (e.g., "Die Rechte"), and (media) activists (e.g., Tommy Frenck, Nikolai Nerling, Anti-Spiegel) were summarized under this umbrella. Querdenken (literal translation: lateral thinking) emerged as a protest movement in response to COVID-19-related governmental regulations and radicalized throughout the pandemic (Hunger et al, 2023). Channels were identified by their names (including "quer" in the channel name) and enriched with prominent actors of the movement (e.g., Bodo Schiffmann, Markus Haintz) and supportive media activists (e.g., Samuel Eckert).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The protest movement that emerged in the context of the anti-Corona protests is characterized by a certain degree of ideological heterogeneity. Nevertheless, surveys show that skepticism about the governments' actions in the context of the pandemic goes hand in hand with populist attitudes (Hunger et al, 2023). This provides a fertile ground for protest movements to use populism in their communication to indirectly mobilize potential supporters by creating the moral foundation for the protest (Aslanidis, 2017).…”

Section: Populist Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Radical Mobilization in Times of Crisis: Use and Effects of Appeals and Populist Communication Features in Telegram Channels

Jost

Dogruel

2023

Social Media + Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social crisis situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic provide a fertile ground for radical actors and social movements to strengthen their radical mobilization—mainly using social media. In light of the deplatforming efforts of social media platforms that forced radical actors to establish new channels to continue their discourses and the recent crisis that opened a discursive opportunity structure, we investigate how radical actors use Telegram for mobilization. Based on a longitudinal manual content analysis of 13,371 messages from 188 German Telegram channels of the Querdenken movement, conspiracy, and far-right actors, we examine mobilization strategies (namely direct appeals and populist blame game) and their success (retransmission) between March 2020 and December 2021. We found that both offline and online appeals and the use of anti-elitism increased significantly over time. The use of direct and indirect mobilization attempts is related to the ideological background of the actors, with direct appeals being favored by the Querdenken movement. Furthermore, the results shed light on the mechanisms of radical mobilization on Telegram, showing that both direct appeals and the populist blame game are successful strategies for radical actors because they increase message retransmission.

show abstract

The mobilisation potential of anti-containment protests in Germany

Cited by 22 publications

References 57 publications

When the Far Right Makes the News: Protest Characteristics and Media Coverage of Far-Right Mobilization in Europe

When the Far Right Makes the News: Protest Characteristics and Media Coverage of Far-Right Mobilization in Europe

Pandemic Protesters on Telegram: How Platform Affordances and Information Ecosystems Shape Digital Counterpublics

Radical Mobilization in Times of Crisis: Use and Effects of Appeals and Populist Communication Features in Telegram Channels

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About