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Right-wing extremists and Islamist extremists try to recruit new followers by addressing their national (for instance, German) or religious (Muslim) social identity via online propaganda videos. Two studies examined whether capitalizing on a shared group-membership affects the emotional and cognitive response towards extremist propaganda. In both studies, Germans/non-migrants, Muslim migrants and control participants (N = 235) were confronted with right-wing extremist and Islamist extremist videos. Emotional and cognitive effects of students (Study 1) and apprentices (Study 2) were assessed. Results showed a general negative evaluation of extremist videos. More relevant, in-group propaganda led to more emotional costs in both studies. Yet, the responses varied depending on educational level: students reported more negative emotions and cognitions after in-group directed videos, while apprentices reported more positive emotions and cognitions after in-group directed propaganda. Results are discussed considering negative social identities.

The amount of uploaded extremist propaganda on the internet is increasing. In particular, right-wing extremist as well as Islamic extremist groups take advantage of the opportunities presented by the internet to spread their ideas to worldwide masses. Both tackle in-group specific topics and address their audiences in their respective political, national or religious identities. Several factors, such as higher levels of authoritarian value orientations and threatening life situations (such as existential threats or psychological uncertainty) have been found to shape people’s reactions towards radical groups as well as to propaganda. The current study investigated whether the response to extremist propaganda videos (namely, aversion felt for the video and the perceived persuasiveness of the video) is shaped by an individual’s authoritarian attitudes and psychological uncertainty and whether this is a global process or in-group specific. Further, it considered the effects of exposure to extremist propaganda on the identification with one’s in-group. In a laboratory experiment, German students were confronted with a right-wing extremist and an Islamic extremist video after manipulating their level of uncertainty (high vs. low levels of psychological uncertainty).  The results confirmed that the interaction between authoritarianism and psychological uncertainty affected the evaluation of right-wing extremist videos addressing participants’ national in-group. Under conditions of uncertainty, authoritarianism predicted less aversion and a higher persuasiveness of these videos. Further, psychological uncertainty increased the identification with participants’ German nationality, irrespective of authoritarian attitudes. Notably, the effect was in-group bound: The same effect was not found for Islamic extremist propaganda referring to a religious out-group. The results are discussed regarding the potential of propaganda to foster behavioral intentions and engagement in extremist groups in specific threatening situations.

Recent right-wing extremist terrorists were active in online fringe communities connected to the alt-right movement. Although these are commonly considered as distinctly hateful, racist, and misogynistic, the prevalence of hate speech in these communities has not been comprehensively investigated yet, particularly regarding more implicit and covert forms of hate. This study exploratively investigates the extent, nature, and clusters of different forms of hate speech in political fringe communities on Reddit, 4chan, and 8chan. To do so, a manual quantitative content analysis of user comments (N=6,000) was combined with an automated topic modeling approach. The findings of the study not only show that hate is prevalent in all three communities (24% of comments contained explicit or implicit hate speech), but also provide insights into common types of hate speech expression, targets, and differences between the studied communities.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.

To accentuate which platform characteristics particularly foster radicalization and extremist dynamics, this contribution investigates the affordances of social media as delineated in contemporary literature, conducting a platform comparison encompassing Telegram, WhatsApp, and X (formerly Twitter). Based on a scoping review, 17 affordances identified from studies researching radicalization dynamics on social media were extracted and categorized. The most frequently mentioned affordances—anonymity, visibility, and collectivity—were then further analyzed concerning their contribution to radicalization and the radicalization potential of these specific platforms. The platform-comparative affordance discussion shows that, although, in principle each of the three compared platforms can foster an environment conducive to radicalization depending on user intention and usage context, the specific characteristics of each platform necessitate a nuanced consideration. On one hand, it is imperative to discern affordances differentially along various dimensions when assessing their implications (e.g., internal vs. external visibility). On the other hand, it is beneficial to consider which affordances emerge from the actualization of other affordances. For instance, collectivity can result from the interplay of several affordances, such as interactivity and anonymity, and can be referred to as a meta-affordance. Furthermore, the analysis shows that platform branding and self-presentation not only affect platform architecture and affordances but also shape users’ perceptions of the platform, thereby influencing the actualization of affordances. This was particularly noted in the literature for Telegram and increasingly for X. Specific assertions, nevertheless, are hindered by the conceptual diffusion of the affordance approach and a lack of empirical analyses directly and systematically examining platform affordances in conjunction with radicalization dynamics.

VOX-Pol Blog post.