scholarly journals How Right-Wing Populists Engage with Cross-Cutting News on Online Message Boards: The Case of ForoCoches and Vox in Spain

2022 ◽  
pp. 194016122110726
Author(s):  
Clara Juarez Miro ◽  
Benjamin Toff
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Message Board ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Message Boards ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
News Sources ◽  
Online Message Boards ◽  
Political Talk

Anecdotal evidence suggests a link between online message boards and the rise of far-right movements, which have achieved growing electoral success globally. Press accounts and scholarship have suggested these message boards help to radicalize like-minded users through exposure to shared media insulated from cross-cutting viewpoints (e.g., Hine et al. 2017 ; Palmer 2019). To better understand what role online message boards might play for supporters of right-wing populist movements, we focus on the Spanish political party Vox and its supporters’ use of the message board ForoCoches, a fan site for car enthusiasts, which became an important platform for the party. Using more than 120,000 messages collected from threads mentioning the party between 2013–2019, we examine the URLs shared to show how mainstream news media events shape the conversation online and how users not only were exposed but deeply engaged with cross-cutting news sources. We argue that the use of sites such as ForoCoches should be viewed in the context of a broader increasingly hybrid political and media landscape where activity online and offline cannot be understood separate from one another. Moreover, our findings suggest that the online political discussions that take place in Vox-related threads on ForoCoches resemble normatively positive deliberative spaces—albeit in this case in support of illiberal political positions. In other words, our findings complicate conventional notions about the benefits of political talk, especially online, as a democratically desirable end in and of itself.

Big Business and the Failure of Right-Wing Catalan Nationalism, 1901–1923

1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-918 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Big Business ◽  
Electoral Success

The rise of modern Catalan nationalist sentiments dates from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In essence, these sentiments reflected a growing political, intellectual and, to a lesser extent economic resentment within the region of Catalonia against the Restoration regime which was imposed upon Spain in 1875. The breakthrough of Catalan nationalism, or regionalism as it is sometimes called, to become a significant force in Spanish politics followed the victory of four Catalanist candidates in the elections to the Cortes of 1901. Shortly afterwards the groups responsible for that electoral success came together to establish what was, with the possible exception of the Socialists (P.S.O.E.), the first modern political party of Spain, the Lliga Regionalista. Significantly, the foundation of the Lliga marked a turning point in the nature of Catalan nationalism, or at least its dominant strain. Of the four candidates elected in 1901, all for Barcelona seats, three represented economic interests. Indeed, much more than that, they were, or had been, presidents of three of the most powerful big business organisations of the region.

scholarly journals Digital Media and the Entrenchment of Right-Wing Populist Agendas

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 205630511988532 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Schroeder
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
News Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Manipulation ◽  
Political Divide

Since Brexit and the election of President Donald Trump, news media around the world have given extensive coverage to the issue of disinformation and polarization. This article argues that while the negative effects of social media have dominated the discussion, these effects do not address how right-wing populists have been able to successfully and legitimately use digital media to circumvent traditional media. The article uses the United States and Sweden as case studies about how digital media have helped to achieve electoral success and shift the political direction in both countries—though in quite different ways. It also argues that the sources of right-wing populism go beyond the hitherto dominant left–right political divide, capturing anti-elite sentiment, and promoting exclusionary nationalism. The dominance of the issue of media manipulation has obscured the shift whereby the relation between the media and politics has become more fluid and antagonistic, which fits the populist agenda. This shift requires a rethinking of political communication that includes both the social forces that give rise to populism and the alternative digital channels that entrench them, with implications for the prospects of the role of media in politics in the two countries and beyond.

Parties versus democracy: Addressing today’s political party threats to democratic rule

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 509-538
Author(s):  
Tom Gerald Daly ◽  
Brian Christopher Jones
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
External Control ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Bharatiya Janata Party ◽  
Democratic Parties ◽  
Political Spectrum

Abstract The growing threat to liberal democracy worldwide is, in many ways, a political party threat. Recent years have witnessed the rise of a range of authoritarian populist, illiberal, far-right, nativist, and extremist parties. Some have entered government in countries including Hungary, Poland, Austria, and Italy. Germany’s Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) is now the main parliamentary opposition. Beyond Europe we see democratic structures threatened or incrementally dismantled through the subversion of an established democratic party by an outsider (e.g. Donald Trump in the United States or Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines) or ascendance of the extremist wing of a right-wing party (e.g. India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)). Parties and party leaders occupying an ill-defined space on the political spectrum—a form of “far-right lite”—today generally present a much greater threat to democratic governance than overtly antidemocratic fringe outfits, such as Germany’s National Democratic Party (NPD). The ambiguity of such parties, their growing size, their entry into government, the subversion of “good” democratic parties by a “bad” leadership, and the rise of the “shadow party” and intensifying external control mean that contemporary political party threats seriously frustrate the possibility of remedial action afforded by existing public law and policy mechanisms. They also require us to reflect anew on crafting novel remedies and to revisit our deep assumptions about parties as creatures of central constitutional importance.

Agendamelding and out-group derogation

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-144
Author(s):  
Jeffrey K. Riley ◽  
Holly S. Cowart
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Qualitative Content Analysis ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
News Article ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
News Sources ◽  
The Social ◽  
Media Platform ◽  
The Media

Abstract This study is a mixed-method quantitative and qualitative content analysis that examined the overlapping presence of agendamelding theory and in-group out-group formation on the social media platform Reddit. The study looked at the top 10 posts for one month (n = 310) on the pro-Donald Trump subreddit /r/The_Donald. The results show that media choice was used to prove membership to the in-group, often by derogating the media used by the out-group. Specific patterns emerged within the derogative language as well. Links to left-wing and neutral news media sites were often commented on and criticized, while the content of the linked news article was ignored or changed. Right-wing news media sites, which were used as news sources rather than commentary, were typically posted without changes, unlike neutral news media sites, which were often posted in a mocking manner. As agendamelding suggests, participants sought to avoid dissonance by posting media to fit within the community.

scholarly journals Urban conditions for the rise of the far right in the global city of Frankfurt: From austerity urbanism, post-democracy and gentrification to regressive collectivity

Urban Studies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Mullis
Keyword(s):  
Driving Forces ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Frankfurt Am Main ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
First Results ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Urban Conditions

In Germany, the electoral success of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party is one of the most obvious signs of the rise of the far right. In public debates this tends to be associated with Eastern Germany and rural regions. What is neglected is the fact that the party was also remarkably successful in less privileged urban districts across Germany. In this paper I focus on the urban conditions for the rise of the far right. I do so by presenting first results of ethnographic research in two neighbourhoods of Frankfurt am Main. Both – Riederwald and Nied – are marginalised and the AfD gained considerable support there in the 2017 general elections. In the accounts given in 14 expert interviews I identify three crucial urban processes: austerity urbanism, post-democracy and gentrification. Relating them to findings of long-term studies on right-wing attitudes as well as to the concept of ‘downward mobility’, I argue that these processes increase the competition for resources and strengthen feelings of being left behind as well as experiences of being abandoned by political representatives – which are driving forces for the rise of the far right. And yet these experiences alone do not provide sufficient reason to explain the rise of the far right. They are general processes in the neighbourhoods. However, it seems that intersections with existing group-focused enmities drive a shift from social to regressive collectivity, which raises the potential for far-right political subjectification.

scholarly journals Nordic dog whistles. Analyzing discriminatory discourses in the parlance of the Scandinavian radical right parties

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-40
Author(s):  
Luiza-Maria Filimon
Keyword(s):  
Radical Right ◽  
The Political ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Refugee Crisis ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
People's Party ◽  
Radical Right Parties ◽  
Case Basis

The Nordic states had an active radical right presence long before the economic and refugee crises that swept the shores of the European Union (EU) left in their wake a reinvigorated right-wing contingent. The radical right parties (RRPs) have not only registered various degrees of electoral success, but have also made inroads into the political mainstream. The three defining characteristics that set these parties apart from the more traditional far-right ones are: 1) the repudiation of hardcore extremism; 2) the search for political viability; and 3) the acquisition of mainstream recognition. The present article argues that as these parties compete for legitimacy, they are forced to alter their discriminatory rhetoric by switching tonal registers. One of the political strategies that enables them to put the outright “overt” in the “covert” is the recourse to dog whistle politics. How well can they overcome the stigma associated with their more extreme reflexes depends on a case by case basis. This article examines whether the four most prominent examples of Nordic radicalism (the Danish People’s Party, Finns Party, Sweden Democrats, and Norway’s Progress Party) have integrated dog whistles in their political messaging and tracks how these coded appeals change from one country to another. In analyzing the response to the 2015 refugee crisis, the study finds that to a certain extent, the rhetoric utilized falls into the coded register or at the very least purposefully attempts to veer away from the radical excesses which are marginalizing and self-exclusionary.

Inside, Outside, Upside Down: Power, Positionality, and Limits of Ethnic Identity in the Ethnographies of the Far-Right

2021 ◽  
pp. 089124162110606
Author(s):  
Bhakti Deodhar
Keyword(s):  
Political Party ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Alternative Für Deutschland ◽  
Political Implications ◽  
Minority Ethnic Community ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Minority Ethnic ◽  
Gain Access

Methodological literature on ethnographies of the far-right has largely centered around the ethical and political implications of such studies. Discussions on researcher’s positionality with regard to his/her insider–outsider positioning, ethnic-racial characteristics and concomitant power relations in the field remain relatively undertheorized. What occurs, for example, when the researcher studying anti-minority, ethnic nationalist right-wing groups is from a minority ethnic community? To what extent s(he) can gain access and develop rapport with the respondents? In this article, I seek to answer these questions by providing insights from my fieldwork experiences. I reflect upon my own position as a non-White, minority ethnic, and female ethnographer who conducted extensive fieldwork among grassroot activists of “Alternative für Deutschland,” a German right-wing political party. The article demonstrates that even in face of an apparent noncongruence between an immigrant ethnographer and right-wing, pro-majority respondents, researcher’s position is not static but fluid, intersectional and deeply situational. Ethnographer’s long term sustained proximity to the respondents, exposure to the everyday contexts of their lives create zones of congruence for an apparent outsider and can at times undermine the dominant category of ethnicity as primary social signifier.

scholarly journals The ideology of media. Measuring the political leaning of Spanish news media through Twitter users’ interactions

2022 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-43
Author(s):  
Frederic Guerrero-Solé
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Political Organizations ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Critical Question ◽  
Media Organizations ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Relationship

The news media have a strong influence on people’s perception of reality. But despite claims to objectivity, media organizations are, in general, politically biased (Patterson & Donsbach, 1996; Gaebler, 2017). The link between news media outlets and political organizations has been a critical question in political science and communication studies. To assess the closeness between the news media and particular political organizations, scholars have used different methods such as content analysis, undertaking surveys or adopting a political economy view. With the advent of social networks, new sources of data are now available to measure the relationship between media organizations and parties. Assuming that users coherently retweet political and news information (Wong, Tan, Sen & Chiang, 2016), and drawing on the retweet overlap network (RON) method (Guerrero-Solé, 2017), this research uses people’s perceived ideology of Spanish political parties (CIS, 2020) to propose a measure of the ideology of news media in Spain. Results show that scores align with the result of previous research on the ideology of the news media (Ceia, 2020). We also find that media outlets are, in general, politically polarized with two groups or clusters of news media being close to the left-wing parties UP and PSOE, and the other to the right-wing and far-right parties Cs, PP, and Vox. This research also underlines the media’s ideological stability over time.

scholarly journals Demographic polarization and the rise of the far right: Brazil’s 2018 presidential election

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205316802199020
Author(s):  
Matthew L. Layton ◽  
Amy Erica Smith ◽  
Mason W. Moseley ◽  
Mollie J. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Economic Status ◽  
Vote Choice ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Identity Based ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Race And Religion ◽  
Presidential Election Campaign

Does the recent electoral success of far-right populists represent a mere rejection of the political and economic status quo, or has it revealed deeper cultural divides? Historically, demographic cleavages have been poor predictors of vote choice and partisanship in Latin America. However, during Brazil’s 2018 presidential election campaign, right-wing candidate Jair Bolsonaro fomented conflict across lines of gender, race, and religion. We argue that his candidacy activated latent, previously unexploited grievances in the electorate. Using survey data from an original five-wave online panel conducted between July 2018 and January 2019, we examine the effect of demographic cleavages on presidential vote choice. In stark contrast to prior elections, we find clear evidence of demographic divides in 2018, partially mediated by issue positions. Bolsonaro’s campaign and subsequent election thus appear to have created new identity-based alignments in Brazil’s electorate. Our findings shed further light on the global resurgence of the far right, suggesting that far-right candidates can attract new bases of support through demographic polarization, exploiting differences in values and issue preferences by gender, race, ethnicity, and religion.

A Cross-cultural Comparison of American and Overseas Chinese Prenatal and Postnatal Women's Online Social Support Behavior in Two Online Message Boards

2010 ◽  
pp. 331-353
Author(s):  
Yuping Mao ◽  
Yuxia Qian ◽  
William Starosta
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Overseas Chinese ◽  
Message Board ◽  
Message Boards ◽  
Online Social Support ◽  
Cross Cultural Comparison ◽  
Social Support Seeking ◽  
Online Message Boards ◽  
Postnatal Women ◽  
Culture Centered

Taking a culture-centered approach within the uses and gratifications theoretical framework, a quantitative content analysis was conducted to analyze the support messages of two online message boards: the Dear Baby message board created and moderated mainly by overseas Chinese prenatal and postnatal women, and the BabyCenter message board created and moderated mainly by USAmerican prenatal and postnatal women. Both similarities and differences of the two message boards were identified in message type (seek or give support), content, support type and support behavior. Constructed narratives were produced to qualitatively analyze the voices within the context of both USAmerican and overseas Chinese online communities. The results can help researchers and practitioners to better understand how cultural characteristics of Chinese and USAmerican groups influence the patterns of women’s online social support seeking/giving behaviors, enabling them to customize specific communication programs and services to meet the needs of members of those two cultural groups.

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