Online Library

VOX-Pol Blog post.

This paper will examine how extremist organizations manage to present themselves as credible actors in the eyes of potential supporters on social media. This paper will address this question by exploring the role of authenticity in strategic narratives, which is believed to help these groups achieve this purpose. Apart from introducing this new theoretical concept, the paper will also apply it to a new case study of the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) – the first far-right organization to be designated as terrorist by the U.S. and Canada. By conducting discourse analysis of the group’s social media propaganda on the Russian network VKontakte, the paper will show how the RIM makes its strategic narratives authentic and, as a consequence, creates an image of a credible and trustworthy actor and thus manages to reach out to its target audience.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

Since the beginning of 2021, ISD Germany has been researching right-wing extremist actors on alternative platforms on the internet. Three reports were published as part of the German Federal Ministry for Justice (BMJ)-funded project “Countering radicalisation in right-wing extremist online subcultures”. The last report in 2021, “Detours and Diversions – Online Strategies for the Dissemination of Right-Wing Extremist Content”, provides a summary of the projects central findings and presents them in a comparative manner.

This report thus combines the methodological and theoretical groundwork of the report “Wegweiser” with the results of the empirical research of the reports “Fluchtwege” and “Stützpfeiler Telegram”, and puts them into context. The report presents a comparison of data from established platforms and Telegram, and thus helps to gain a better understanding of the behaviour of far-right actors on the selected platforms. It also includes a comparative analysis of the strategies and linkages of far-right and radical right actors on established and alternative platforms. This research is based on the empirical data collected by the platforms. Given, that data collection is different for each platform, and given that this project also explores alternative platforms, it also furthers the exploration of data collection options, which are described in more detail in this report.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.