White supremacists anonymous: how digital media emotionally energize far-right movements
Artikel i vetenskaplig tidskrift, 2023

Digital media platforms have been implicated in the recent rise of far-right extremism. This study proposes that these platforms afford emotional processes that lie at the core of far-right movements. Drawing on Randall Collins’ interactional framework and the literature on cultural trauma, we investigate the emotional processes triggered by traumatic experiences within far-right online communities. As a case, we examine how the white supremacist community Stormfront responded to the 2008 election of Barack Obama, by analyzing the complete datasets of discussion on the forum through a combination of computational methods and qualitative analysis. Our findings suggest that the community functioned as a “emotional refuge”, where members collectively interpreted and transformed their emotional reactions, thereby shaping an emotionally energized collective with a focused target of collective action.

online hate

Far-right online

emotional processes

Stormfront

cultural trauma

interaction ritual chains

Författare

Anton Törnberg

Göteborgs universitet

Petter Törnberg

Universiteit Van Amsterdam

Chalmers, Rymd-, geo- och miljövetenskap, Fysisk resursteori

Journal of Information Technology and Politics

1933-1681 (ISSN) 1933-169X (eISSN)

Vol. In Press

Ämneskategorier

Sociologi (exklusive socialt arbete, socialpsykologi och socialantropologi)

Juridik och samhälle

DOI

10.1080/19331681.2023.2262459

Mer information

Senast uppdaterat

2023-10-19