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

Contentious Politics
Media
Social Movements
Political Sociology
Social Media
Protests
Frederik Henriksen
Roskilde University
Frederik Henriksen
Roskilde University
Jakob Kristensen
Roskilde University
Eva Mayerhöffer

Abstract

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?