Mapping Anti-Systemic Contestation and Far-Right Discourse in Digital Alternative News Environments

The paper addresses the question of how far-right rhetoric and anti-systemic contestation move from the fringes of political systems and public debates to the center (Brown et al., 2021; Katsambekis, 2023). Far-right parties and extra-parliamentary actors (e.g. social movements, hyper-partisan media, activists, pundits, and think tanks) drive what can be described as mainstreaming processes, which gradually shift what is acceptable in public discourse. The result is a change in what is deemed 'normal' or 'legitimate' as a 'new normal' threatening to distort political information ecosystems, and ultimately (democratic) political decision-making processes. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-systemic contestation has blended in with far-right discourse in digital information environments. Especially non-institutionalised actors such as (anti-democratic) social movements (e.g., the Freedom Convoy or the Querdenken movement), hyper-partisan alternative news media, and conspiracy theory networks have garnered scholarly attention. The role of these social movements in shaping anti-systemic contestation through framing and contentious politics is crucial in understanding the contemporary digital far-right. Although scholars disagree to which extent the far-right is successful in using alternative news media and social media to transform the public discourse, empirical research suggests that far-right discourses are mainstreamed through these media and platforms (Crawford et al., 2021; Zhang & Davis, 2022). What is less clear is a) how these mainstreaming processes emerge and materialize in contemporary digital information environments, and b) whether anti-systemic contestation and far-right discourse converge or diverge in these information environments. The paper provides a comprehensive empirical study on mainstreaming of far-right discourse and anti-systemic contestation in digital alternative information environments in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Sweden from 2019-2022. The study uses data collected from nine different social media platforms (X/Twitter, Telegram, TikTok, YouTube, VKontakte, Gab, Reddit, Instagram, 4chan) and more than 150,000,000 social media posts containing URL-links to alternative news media sources and related content. To detect far-right discourses and anti-systemic contestation, we use computational text analysis based on a large multilingual language model to classify posts of social media profiles (~32,000 posts annotated) belonging to right-wing communities. These posts are classified into seven far-right discourse dimensions (xenophobia, islamophobia, anti-semitism, anti-progressive, authoritarian, white supremacist, and far-right conspiracy theories) and three forms of anti-systemic contestation (anti-institutionalism, anti-globalism, and anti-mainstream news). The diffusion of far-right discourse and anti-systemic contestation in wider information networks relies on a range of a plurality of parliamentary and extra-parliamentary actors. Understanding how these form network ties is key to understanding how far-right discourse and anti-systemic contestation reach mainstream information flows: RQ1 How widespread is far-right discourse and anti-systemic contestation across platforms and countries? RQ2 Which prominent far-right and anti-systemic actors and communities drive mainstreaming processes? RQ3 How are network ties formed between far-right, anti-systemic and mainstream political communities? As scholars observed convergence between far-right and anti-systemic actors during COVID-19, we will be studying how these dimensions evolve - and potentially converge - over time: RQ4 How did far-right discourse and anti-systemic contestation in digital alternative news media environments evolve from 2019-2022?