Panel 2D: Masculinities
Chair: Ninian Frenguelli (Swansea University)
The “Male State” (MS)– the “manosphere” with a Russian accent Dr Anna Kruglova (University of Salford)
Abstract: While the phenomenon of incel violence has now attracted a lot of scholarly attention, it still remains largely under-researched. One of the gaps that exist in the field is the fact that the majority of studies of the phenomenon were done within the English-speaking online space. However, misogynist groups and movements exist in other countries as well and equally represent a serious threat not just to women but to LGBTQ+ people as well as non-white people. One of them is the “Male State”, an extremist organisation based in Russia. Not only do they openly call for violence against women but also actively engage in it – starting from death threats to direct physical attacks. The group has a strong presence on Telegram – with more than 60,000 members subscribed for the channel. Since the group is relatively new, there has not been any research done on the “Male State”’s online activities and the way they use Telegram. The presentation will locate this movement on the map of the global manosphere by analysing the group’s visual and textual propaganda on Telegram as well as the dynamics of their online interactions. Identifying Ideological Cross-Pollination Within and Between Alt-Right and Anti-Feminist Extremist Platforms Online Simone Long (University of Exeter) Abstract: Recent years have seen considerable growth in the number of radicalisation cases associated with an ambiguous combination of various alt-right beliefs and anti-feminist convictions. Such ideologies, often referred to as “mixed, unstable, and unclear”, have emerged as a result of technological affordances characteristic of Web 2.0, and have been at the centre of many significant extremist attacks. Despite this growing trend, there remains a lack of extensive empirical work exploring the potential cross-pollination of ideas between anti-feminist and far-right online spaces. As such, this paper will present a data-driven understanding of how such MUU ideologies emerge and evolve through dynamic interactions between these different platforms. Specifically, it will computationally investigate user posts made to a small sample of alt-right and anti-feminist platforms. Analysis, then, will focus on comparing the ideologies of these communities, as well as how users (re-) constitute notions of identity by drawing on theories of radicalisation and social identity. By utilising Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques to analyse entire corpora of text, this paper will serve as an effective demonstration of the utility of conceptualising these different extremist communities as groups operating within distinct but nevertheless overlapping “ecosystems”, especially by highlighting how patriarchal narratives intersect with popular ethno-religious supremacist discourses perpetuated by far-right groups.
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