BREAKOUT SESSIONS 1
Panel 1A: Websites and the far-right
Chair: Connor Rees (Swansea University)
Evaluating the Affordances and Popularity of Extremist Website Infrastructure Dr Seán Looney (University of Plymouth)
Abstract: Considerable attention has been paid by researchers to social media platforms, especially the ‘big companies’, and increasingly also messaging applications, and how effectively they moderate extremist and terrorist content on their services. Much less attention has yet been paid to if and how infrastructure and service providers, further down ‘the tech stack’, deal with extremism and terrorism. While prior research has shown that extremist and terrorist websites make use of Content Delivery Networks (CDN) this research was limited in scope to relatively few websites. This presentation aims to broaden to scope of the author’s previous work to a wider range of websites and to other forms of website infrastructure as well as CDNs such as domain registrars, cloud services and website designers. This is done in order to see which providers are most popular with extremist groups and what are the particular affordances of these providers which might explain their popularity.
Digital Frontiers of Hate: Netnography’s Role in Studying Online Extremist Movements Mgr Jonathan Collins (Charles University) Mgr Kristián Földes (Charles University)
Abstract: The growing popularity of the internet for online extremist use necessitates different methodologies to study their behaviour, interactions, and content. While previous research has employed different qualitative and quantitative approaches, a substantial empirical gap exists concerning in-depth, immersive methodologies for examining these digital communities. This paper proposes a potential solution to this problem by highlighting the utility of netnography as an effective tool for gaining insights into virtual cultures and user experiences for extremist online behaviours. Netnography, as an approach, is geared towards unravelling the cultural practices embedded in and reflected through the traces, rituals, and systems of online communication platforms. The presentation outlines the method’s benefits, including the easy-to-follow methodological guidelines, the bridge between qualitative and quantitative data, the different content types, platforms, and multimethod applications, the nuanced socio-cultural findings, and more. Two distinct case studies illustrate these qualities: (1) Slovenskí Branci, a violent paramilitary group in Slovakia, on Facebook, and (2) Neo-Nazi extremists on Gab Social. The two-tiered approach provides a valuable preview and starting point for scholars looking to engage in immersive online research on extremist communities.
4
Made with FlippingBook HTML5