TY - JOUR
T1 - Collective identity changes in far-right online communities
T2 - The role of offline intergroup conflict
AU - Bliuc, Ana-Maria
AU - Betts, John
AU - Vergani, Matteo
AU - Iqbal, Muhammad
AU - Dunn, Kevin
N1 - The authors are grateful to the Australian Research Council (LP120200319), Australian Human Rights Commission and the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation for funding this project.
PY - 2019/8/1
Y1 - 2019/8/1
N2 - Despite the increasing citizen engagement with socio-political online communities, little is known about how such communities are affected by significant offline events. Thus, we investigate here the ways in which the collective identity of a far-right online community is affected by offline intergroup conflict. We examine over 14 years of online communication between members of Stormfront Downunder, the Australian sub-forum of the global white supremacist community Stormfront.org. We analyse members’ language use and discourse before and after significant intergroup conflict in 2015, culminating in local racist riots in Sydney, Australia. We found that the riots were associated with significant changes in the collective beliefs of the community (as captured by members’ most salient concerns and group norms), emotions and consensus within the community. Overall, the effects of the local riots were manifest in a reinvigorated sense of purpose for the far-right community with a stronger anti-Muslim agenda.
AB - Despite the increasing citizen engagement with socio-political online communities, little is known about how such communities are affected by significant offline events. Thus, we investigate here the ways in which the collective identity of a far-right online community is affected by offline intergroup conflict. We examine over 14 years of online communication between members of Stormfront Downunder, the Australian sub-forum of the global white supremacist community Stormfront.org. We analyse members’ language use and discourse before and after significant intergroup conflict in 2015, culminating in local racist riots in Sydney, Australia. We found that the riots were associated with significant changes in the collective beliefs of the community (as captured by members’ most salient concerns and group norms), emotions and consensus within the community. Overall, the effects of the local riots were manifest in a reinvigorated sense of purpose for the far-right community with a stronger anti-Muslim agenda.
KW - Collective identity
KW - far-right groups
KW - offline intergroup conflict
KW - online communities
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85062459561&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1461444819831779
DO - 10.1177/1461444819831779
M3 - Article
SN - 1461-4448
VL - 21
SP - 1770
EP - 1786
JO - New Media and Society
JF - New Media and Society
IS - 8
ER -
