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Sociodynamics
Reference:
Shchekotin E.V.
The discourse of right-wing radicals in online communities (using the example of the VK social network)
// Sociodynamics.
2023. № 12.
P. 202-209.
DOI: 10.25136/2409-7144.2023.12.54677 EDN: OFIDOG URL: https://en.nbpublish.com/library_read_article.php?id=54677
The discourse of right-wing radicals in online communities (using the example of the VK social network)
Shchekotin Evgenii Viktorovich
ORCID: 0000-0001-7377-0645
PhD in Philosophy
Associate professor, Siberian State University of Water Transport
630099, Russia, Novosibirsk region, Novosibirsk, Shchetinkina str., 33
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evgvik1978@mail.ru
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DOI: 10.25136/2409-7144.2023.12.54677
EDN: OFIDOG
Received:
09-10-2023
Published:
31-12-2023
Abstract:
The object of the study are discourses that are broadcast by supporters of right-wing radical ideology in the relevant communities in the largest Russian social network VKontakte. The study of the discourse of right-wing radicals is an urgent topic of scientific and practical research in modern socio-political conditions. The study of the discourses of right-wing radicals helps to better understand the value-ideological attitudes of representatives of this group of political extremists and to reveal the rhetorical techniques and practices that they exploit in the process of mobilizing supporters. The analysis of the discourses of right-wing radicals in social media is especially relevant, since in the conditions of a digital society, the Internet is becoming the leading source of information for a significant part of the population. Four thematic types of discourses are identified – racist, anti-Soviet, anti-Semitic and social-populist discourses. Racist discourse is characteristic of the communities of the "new" and "alternative" right, while supporters of the "old", imperial right actively exploit the theme of anti-Soviet discourse. Anti-Semitic and social-populist discourses are rather poorly represented in the communities selected for the study. With the help of PolyAnalist software, six clusters of terms have been identified based on the occurrence in texts in right-wing radical communities: news, value, anti-migrant, historical, socio-economic. The analysis of the frequency of mentioning words in negative tonality and positive tonality in the posts of right-wing communities is carried out. There are two major objects to which the negative discourse is directed: the modern political regime in the Russian Federation and the Soviet period.
Keywords:
social network, right-wing radicals, discourse, Vkontakte, thematic analysis, political communication, racism, anti-Semitism, anti - Sovietism, social populism
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The article presents the results of a study of the discourses of supporters of radical right-wing political movements. The study of the discourse of right-wing radicals is an urgent scientific and practical task. With the beginning of a special military operation in Ukraine, supporters of right-wing radical ideology began to pose a special danger to the national security of the Russian Federation. A comprehensive study of the discourses of supporters of this ideology can contribute to understanding this phenomenon and, as a result, more effective counteraction to right-wing extremism. This article develops and, in a certain sense, summarizes the results of a large-scale study of media images of right-wing radicals in the VKontakte social network, which were previously presented in the author's series of publications. The study covers the period from October 2020 to September 2021. At the initial stage, 47 right-wing communities representing various right-wing movements were selected. The list of communities is presented in [1]. At the second stage, media images used by right-wing radicals in these communities were analyzed, and manipulative techniques used by right-wing radicals were analyzed [2]; [3]. The purpose of this article is a thematic classification of discourses that stand out in the previously identified communities of right-wing radicals on the VKontakte social network, as well as an analysis of the frequency distribution of words found in these communities. The study of supporters of right-wing radical ideologies of various orientations in the online space is actively developing in modern political sociology [4]; [5]; [6]; [7]. Communities of right-wing radicals on social networks and various aspects of their behavior have become a very important object for researchers dealing with this issue [8]; [9]; [10]; [11]; [12]; [13]. One of the relevant activities of right-wing radicals in the online space is the analysis of the discourse broadcast in the communities of their supporters [14]. The communities of right-wing radicals selected for the study are well grouped according to their ideological preferences. There are several varieties of right-wing ideology, which is adhered to by one or more communities and whose discourses practically do not overlap within the same community. 1) racist discourse. This kind of right-wing radical ideology is supported by the communities of the so-called "new" and "alternative" right (the Project of the PP and the Alt-Right). They are characterized by a pronounced racist discourse, an anti-migrant orientation, therefore, images of Africans, Caucasians, etc. are used in memes of this community. Libertarian ideas are also supported, which manifests itself in the "exposure" of leftist ideology, the analysis of the "horrors of socialism" and the virtues of capitalism. The difference between the PPO Project and Alt-Right groups is that the former is dominated by domestic themes and, accordingly, critical discourse is directed at natives of Central Asia and the Caucasus, while the Cleaver acts as a positive hero. In the Alt-Right community, the emphasis is on the intra-American agenda and therefore the subject of criticism are African Americans, BLM, "leftists" (represented as supporters of the US Democratic Party), feminists, sexual minorities, etc. D. Trump's activities are positively assessed in this community. 2) anti-Soviet discourse. This form of right-wing radical ideology is exploited by adherents of the "old", imperial right (White Resistance and the RND | Russian National Movement). Their media activity is very well described by the concept of "historical war", since the critical discourse of these communities is directed exclusively at Russia's past. Anti–Soviet discourse draws its inspiration from monarchism and Nazism, "communists" (Bolsheviks, Soviet people, USSR, etc.) act as enemies. The spectrum of heroes is very heterogeneous and contradictory - these are tsars and politicians of the Russian Empire (mostly close to the Black Hundreds), participants in the White Movement, Vlasovites and collaborators, dictators extremely right-wing orientation (such as Mussolini, Pinochet), etc. The lion's share of the content consists of posts on historical subjects that extremely distort historical facts and are directed against the USSR. These communities respond very rarely to the current agenda, as a rule, the reason is cultural and historical events (the opening of monuments to tsars, actions in memory of White Guard figures, etc.) or information about cases of vandalism (as a rule, in relation to monuments to V.I. Lenin, for example, heroes of the Red Army, etc.). An interesting term is used in these communities "belosovok", which denotes that part of the nationalists who support the struggle of the White Guards against the Bolsheviks, but are critical of the Vlasov and collaborators of the Great Patriotic War. 3) anti-Semitic discourse. This discourse is marginally represented in communities with anti-Soviet discourse, but there are individual communities where this type of discourse is dominant 4) social-populist discourse. It dominates communities dedicated to acute social issues. These four types of discourse stand out well in the communities we have selected and allow us to identify communities where these discourses prevail. With the help of the PolyAnalist program, several pairs of terms related by semantic relations in the texts of posts were identified in the discourse of right-wing radicals. The most common pair of terms is "the opposing nation", which is quite obvious for right-wing radical discourse. Further, in descending order, the terms "freedom-deprivation", "police-employee", "victim-repression", "power-Bolshevik", "state-head", etc. are contrasted, which generally reflects the content of the discourse of right-wing radicals. The PolyAnalist program has identified 6 thematic clusters (presented in descending order of their size), combining individual words in the texts of posts: 1) president, choice, migrant, country, declare, vaccination, video, right, ban, politics 2) Russian, holy, church, god, people, temple, great, orthodox, monument, faith
References
1. Shchekotin, E. (2020). Праворадикальные сообщества в российских социальных сетях [Right-wing radical communities in Russian social networks]. In S. A. Ilyinykh, S. V. Rovbel and I. I. Shchemeleva (Eds.), Social practices and management: the problem field of sociology: Proceedings of the III Siberian Sociological Forum (pp. 45-50).
2. Shchekotin, E. (2021). Анализ особенностей использования медиаобразов в онлайн-сообществах правых радикалов [Analysis of the features of the use of media images in online communities of right-wing radicals]. In S. A. Ilyinykh, S. V. Rovbel and I. I. Shchemeleva (Eds.), Social practices and management: the problem field of sociology: Proceedings of the IV Siberian Sociological Forum (pp. 138-145).
3. Shchekotin, E. (2022). Медиаобразы правых радикалов в социальных сетях: манипулятивные техники и приемы [Media images of right-wing radicals in social networks: manipulative techniques and techniques]. In Proceedings of the Conference ‘Information Wars and Art: History and Modernity’ (pp. 109-119).
4. Gaudette, T., Scrivens, R., Davies, G., & Frank, R. (2020). Upvoting extremism: Collective identity formation and the extreme right on Reddit. New Media & Society, 23, 3491-3508. doi:10.1177/1461444820958123
5. Scrivens, R., Davies, G., & Frank, R. (2020). Measuring the Evolution of Radical Right-Wing Posting Behaviors Online. Deviant Behavior, 41, 216-232. doi:10.1080/01639625.2018.1556994
6. Scrivens, R. (2020). Exploring Radical Right-Wing Posting Behaviors Online. Deviant Behavior, 42, 1470-1484. doi:10.1080/01639625.2020.1756391
7. Wahlström, M., Törnberg, A., & Ekbrand, H. (2020). Dynamics of violent and dehumanizing rhetoric in far-right social media. New Media & Society, 23, 3290-3311. doi:10.1177/1461444820952795
8. Gamir-Ríos, J., & Ibáñez-Cuquerella, M. (2022). ‘Fascist Heroes’ vs. progressive policies and political correctness: Agenda and framing of the Spanish Alt-lite micro-celebrities on YouTube. Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies, 14(2), 189-206. doi:10.1386/cjcs_00068_1
9. Hiaeshutter-Rice, D., & Hawkins, I. (2022). The Language of Extremism on social media: An Examination of Posts, Comments, and Themes on Reddit. Frontiers in Political Science, 4, 805008. doi:10.3389/fpos.2022.805008
10. Hutchinson, J., Amarasingam, A., Scrivens, R., & Ballsun-Stanton, B. (2021). Mobilizing extremism online: comparing Australian and Canadian right-wing extremist groups on Facebook. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, 15, 215-245. doi:10.1080/19434472.2021.1903064
11. Hutchinson, J., & Droogan, J. (2022). Far-Right ‘Reactions’: a comparison of Australian and Canadian far-right extremist groups on Facebook. Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression. doi:10.1080/19434472.2022.2112742
12. Klein, O., & Muis, J. (2018). Online discontent: comparing Western European far-right groups on Facebook. European Societies, 21, 540-562. doi:10.1080/14616696.2018.1494293
13. Schulze, H., Hohner, J., Greipl, S., Girgnhuber, M., Desta, I., & Rieger, D. (2022). Far-right conspiracy groups on fringe platforms: a longitudinal analysis of radicalization dynamics on Telegram. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 28, 1103-1126. doi:10.1177/13548565221104977
14. Zhang, X., & Davis, M. (2022). Transnationalising reactionary conservative activism: A multimodal critical discourse analysis of far-right narratives online. Communication Research and Practice, 8, 121-135. doi:10.1080/22041451.2022.2056425
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The subject of the research in the presented article is the discourse of right-wing radicals in online communities (using the example of the VKontakte social network). Sociological research methods were used as the methodology of the subject area of the study in this article, as well as content analysis and the method of data analysis using the PolyAnalist program were chosen as the main methods. The relevance of the article is beyond doubt, since the study of the discourse of right-wing radicals is an urgent scientific and practical task, especially after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, supporters of right-wing radical ideology began to pose a strong threat to the national security of the Russian Federation. A comprehensive study of the discourses of supporters of this ideology, as presented in this study, makes it possible, firstly, to gain a deeper understanding of this phenomenon, and secondly, to search for effective mechanisms to counter right-wing extremism. The scientific novelty of the study lies in summarizing the results of a fairly large study of media images of right-wing radicals on the VKontakte social network, the time period of coverage of the study, as indicated in this article, was from October 2020 to September 2021. The article is presented in the language of scientific style. The structure is designed taking into account all the requirements for writing scientific articles, namely, it includes such basic structural elements as relevance, novelty, description of data collection materials, their processing procedure and description of the method of processing the obtained data, results, generalization and bibliography. The content of the article reflects its structure. Particularly valuable in the content of the study is the description of several varieties of right-wing ideology, which is adhered to by one or more communities and whose discourses practically do not overlap within the same community, as well as a description of the data collection procedure and a description of the method of data analysis and subsequent processing using the PolyAnalist program. For clarity, the generalized data are presented in tabular form, which reflects the 50 most frequently mentioned terms in negative and positive tones in the posts of right-wing radicals, which makes it easier to perceive the results presented in the study. The bibliography contains 14 sources, including domestic and foreign periodicals and non-periodicals, and most of the sources are foreign and fairly recent, which undoubtedly confirms the constant updating of information on the stated research topic. Despite the fact that the presented research is more analytical and practical in nature, the theoretical description of various discourses of right-wing ideology contains an appeal to scientific works and sources devoted to this scientific topic, which are reflected in the bibliography. The presented study contains brief conclusions concerning the subject area of the study, taking into account the collected materials and the results of data processing using the PolyAnalist program, namely, several pairs of terms related by semantic relations in the texts of posts on the popular social network VKontakte were identified in the discourse of right-wing radicals. The results of the conclusions of the article are reflected in a table characterizing the 50 most frequently mentioned terms in negative and positive tones in the posts of right-wing radicals. The materials of this study are intended for a wide range of readership, they can be interesting and used by scientists for scientific purposes, teaching staff in the educational process, practicing law enforcement and executive authorities in the preparation of reference materials and explanatory notes on the stated topic. As disadvantages of this study, it should be noted that its structural elements were not clearly defined and highlighted in the article, which, no doubt, are clearly visible in its content, however, they are not separately highlighted with appropriate headings, and the conclusions end in a tabular form, which would be more appropriate to embed before a textual description of brief conclusions based on the results this study, rather than completing the conclusions directly with a table. These disadvantages do not reduce the practical significance of the study, but are more of a recommendatory nature. The article is recommended for publication.
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