The Far Right in the Online Sphere: Nativism, Narratives and Networks

Abstract

The online sphere contributes to the rise and success of the radical right. This panel brings together papers that address how the radical right strategically employs their social media pages and websites. It specifically looks at radical right narratives around nativism, anger, and victimhood, and their employment of networks to introduce, amplify, and spread their claims. Increasingly, studies account for the role of emotional language in the successful mobilization by the radical right. Together with the use of repetition, exaggeration and emotional appeals, radical right activists rely on a variety of rhetorical tools, such as metaphors, hyperboles, and dog whistles, to bring over a convincing message to their audience. Metaphors play a role in the creation of reality. Frames, narratives and storytelling also aid this construction, by helping to evoke emotions and making politics less abstract. Ideas of dystopian futures and glorified pasts are commonly used in radical right discourse to transport emotions and fuel discontent. Not only is it important to look at how such language shapes discourse, but also how these discourses are introduced and amplified through (trans)national discursive and informational networks. As prior research has demonstrated, the far-right actors use these various communicative links and connections to share information and news, mobilize for upcoming events, and to organize collaborative endeavors, while at the same time co-developing particular views of the world. The panel aims to answer the following questions empirically: How is language used to construct identities and to convey emotions? How does the far-right strategically use rhetorical tools to manipulate political messages? How does rhetoric, specifically emotional appeals, help to mobilize support on the radical right? Finally, the panel addresses how discursive opportunities influence whether the radical right is able to make their voice heard and shape public contestation both offline and online. The papers in this panel bring together a variety of methods, from network and sentiment analyses, to computational- and linguistic-stylistic methods, which are applied to explore single-case and comparative case studies across different online platforms. The papers focus on the internet usage of diverse radical right actors, including influencers, party leaders, blog writers, alternative news providers, and movement activists. These in-depth case-studies of the Scandinavian, German, Dutch, Flemish, Italian, French, British, and American radical right on social media platforms, websites and forums highlight how some narratives are nationally determined, whereas others cross borders and cultures. The insights of the communicative practices of different radical right actors online and their usage of various social media platforms forms an important aspect for our understanding of the current ecosystem in which far-right mobilization takes place.

Title	Details
A Swedish Dystopia: US far-right framings of Sweden online	View Paper Details
“It is not us who throw rocks and burn cars”: The Danish Far Right’s Positions on Rasmus Paludan	View Paper Details
War with words: A linguistic stylistic analysis of radical right rhetoric on migration	View Paper Details
Fear, Anger and Loathing in Scandinavia: How Emotions Mobilize the Far-Right Online	View Paper Details
Discourse Networks and Discursive Opportunities of the Far-Right	View Paper Details