Link to join the webinar: https://uio.zoom.us/j/62797446430
The far-right’s use of online spaces to promote narratives, recruit members, and consolidate in-group dynamics has been analysed by researchers for decades, but understanding where to start can be difficult. The webinar looks to frame that research journey by introducing the paper titled Far-right narratives of online groups: A systematic review of recent cross-disciplinary research. Specifically, how the findings and gaps in the literature regarding the far-right’s use of online spaces has led to research meant to address those gaps.
The webinar will discuss approaches to conducting systematic reviews on the far-right in online spaces, including pitfalls to avoid. This will be followed by how researchers can build upon the findings when reviewing literature on highly politicized identities, including potential novel pathways of analysis. The far-right represent an existential threat to continued democratic standards and norms, and with increasing mainstreaming of narratives espoused by far-right groups, it is imperative to understand how to analyse and combat these narratives in the spaces they originate in.
Dr Daniel Barnett is a post-doctoral Research Tutor at the University of East London. An avid proponent of Social Identity Theory, his research focus has been analysing far-right online groups in their own spaces, and the psychological group dynamics that drive them. Other research has analysed the dynamics of digital populism, as well as expanding upon intellectual humility frameworks in psychology.
Dr Ana-Maria Bliuc is a social and political psychologist who joined Psychology at the University of Dundee in 2019. She has a PhD in Psychology from the Australian National University. Her research examines how people’s social identities influence their behaviour in a range of contexts including health, environmental (climate change), and socio-political (collective action and social change). More recently, she has focused on research on online communities looking at how collective identities and behaviours are shaped through online interactions. This research has been conducted in online political communities (mostly far-right and white supremacist) and online health communities (recovery from addiction).
The webinar series on Researching the Far Right: Methods and Ethics is co-organized by C-REX and the Canadian Network for Research on Security, Extremism and Society (CANSES). The series aims to facilitate a much needed discussion about the methodological, ethical, political, practical and professional challenges that arise when researching the far right.
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