The effects of local socio-political events on group cohesion in online far-right communities
Open accessAbstract
In recent years, the reach and influence of far-right ideologies have been extended through online communities with devastating effects in the real world. In this research, we examine how far-right online communities can be empowered by socio-political events that are significant to them. Using over 14 years of data extracted from an Australian national sub-forum of a global online white supremacist community, we investigate whether the group cohesion of the community is affected by local race riots. Our analysis shows that the online community, not only became more cohesive after the riots, but was also reinvigorated by highly active new members who joined during the week of the riots or soon after. These changes were maintained over the longer-term, highlighting pervasive ramifications of the local socio-political context for this white supremacist community. Pre-registered analyses of data extracted from other white supremacist online communities (in South Africa and the United Kingdom) show similar effects on some of the indicators of group cohesion, but of reduced magnitude, and not as enduring as the effects found in the context of the Australian far-right online community.
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There is evidence for an association between increased social media use and online right-wing radicalization in Austria, Sweden and Australia.
“There is also evidence for an association between increased social media use and online right-wing radicalization in Austria, Sweden and Australia135–137.”
From A systematic review of worldwide causal and correlational evidence on digital media and democracy (2022) · cites this paper as [136]
The Introduction describes online far-right communities as sources of support for extremists, and the Discussion and conclusion says an Australian attacker was at least partly radicalised online. The study also finds increased activity in an Australian far-right forum after the Cronulla Riots. It does not establish an association between increased social media use and individual radicalization; its other study locations are South Africa and the UK, not Austria or Sweden. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Bliuc, A.-M., Betts, J. M., Faulkner, N., Vergani, M., Chow, R. J., Iqbal, M., & Best, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Dundee (GB)
- Monash University (AU)
- Deakin University (AU)
- Victoria University (AU)
- University of Derby (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Bliuc, Ana-Maria
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2020-03-30
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- e0230302
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC7105128
- OpenAlex
- W3013282742
- Semantic Scholar
- fde9b20309f03ac04929187bc9d3188fe8da5c3d
- Cited by
- 27
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 13.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Discovery Research Portal (University of Dundee) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Victoria University Research Repository (Victoria University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Monash University Research Portal (Monash University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- University of Derby Online Research Archive. (University of Derby) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Australian Research Council (LP120200115)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Populism, Right-Wing Movements
- Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Keywords
- white supremacy, group cohesion, socio-political events, race riots, new member recruitment, far-right ideology
- MeSH terms
- Australia, Group Processes, Humans, Mass Behavior, Politics, Social Media, Racism
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