Far-Right Digital Activism in Polarized Contexts: A Comparative Analysis of Engagement in Hashtag Wars (original) (raw)
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Twitter influences political debates. Phenomena like fake news and hate speech show that political discourse on micro-blogging can become strongly polarised by algorithmic enforcement of selective perception. Some political actors actively employ strategies to facilitate polarisation on Twitter, as past contributions show, via strategies of 'hashjacking'; the use of someone else’s hashtag in order to promote one's own social media agenda. For the example of COVID-19 related hashtags and their retweet networks, we examine the case of partisan accounts of the German far-right party Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) and their potential use of 'hashjacking' in May 2020. Our findings indicate that polarisation of political party hashtags has not changed significantly in the last two years. We see that right-wing partisans are actively and effectively polarising the discourse by 'hashjacking' COVID-19 related hashtags, like #CoronaVirusDE or #FlattenTheCurve. T...
How the Far-Right Polarises Twitter: ‘Hashjacking’ as a Disinformation Strategy in Times of COVID-19
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With a network approach, we examine the case of the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and their potential use of a "hashjacking" strategy - the use of someone else’s hashtag in order to promote one's own social media agenda. Our findings suggest that right-wing politicians (and their supporters/retweeters) actively and effectively polarise the discourse not just by using their own party hashtags, but also by "hashjacking" the political party hashtags of other established parties. The results underline the necessity to understand the success of right-wing parties, online and in elections, not entirely as a result of external effects (e.g. migration), but as a direct consequence of their digital political communication strategy.
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MedieKultur. Journal of Media and Communication Research 30 (56) - http://ojs.statsbiblioteket.dk/index.php/mediekultur/article/view/8951/15174
Published version available free at http://ojs.statsbiblioteket.dk/index.php/mediekultur/article/view/8951/15174 "As research has indicated that what is sometimes described as traditional forms of politicalparliamentary participation are dwindling in most western democracies, the role of the Internet has often been pointed to as harboring the means to hinder these developments. While empirical studies on these matters have at best provided mixed results, social media services, like Twitter, has yet again fanned the flames of the most enthusiastic debaters. This paper moves beyond the often-studied context of parliamentary elections and instead offers a structural study of everyday political discussions on Twitter. Specifically, tweets from political contexts in Sweden and Norway are collected and analyzed with a specific focus on the top users and their activities. Results indicate that while thematic Twitter discussion can indeed serve as a potential channel for citizens, the influence of established as well as political extremist actors is also clearly discerned."