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H2020Individual fellowship2020–2023

RADICALISATION · ‘We’re not neo-Nazis anymore’: Radicalisation strategies in online far-right propaganda and disinformation campaigns

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2020-04-15 → 2023-04-14
EU contribution
€235,191
Participants
3
Scheme
MSCA-IF

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Results in brief

‘We’re not neo-Nazis anymore’: Radicalisation strategies in online far-right propaganda and disinformation campaigns

The European Union (EU) faces a high-level security threat by the uncontrolled spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories, which has led to a significant increase in political extremism, anti-expert discourses, and increasing authoritarianism. This project explores disinformation campaigns in relation to (1) far- and extreme right radicalization strategies, (2) disinformation related to climate change, specifically ecofascism and (3) information warfare. Drawing on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), corpus linguistics, forensic linguistics, Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and open-source intelligence (OSINT), this project employs both quantitative and qualitative methods in a multidisciplinary approach to explore the linguistic construction of disinformation tactics, focusing specifically on dis/alignment, attitudes, values, emotions, moral judgements and criminogenic intent in radicalisation strategies and disinformation campaigns. Tactics within strategic narratives of disinformation campaigns were found to rely on the linguistic resources of attitude, persuasion, amplification and obligation. Specifically, linguistic markers of ecofascist rhetoric include branding non-white populations as ‘invading foreigners’ and ‘parasites’ and local minorities as ‘foreign species’. Disinformation tactics in information warfare were studied in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its links to far- and extreme right radicalization. Findings reveal that such tactics are deployed in order to lay the groundwork for military intervention: in Syria, to justify Russian presence by claiming to fight ‘international terrorism’, and in Ukraine, to fight ‘Nazis’ and ‘extremists’. Despite the threat disinformation poses, government and law enforcement agencies continue to approach this problem from a reactive information operations and cybersecurity perspective rather than a proactive educational perspective. Therefore, there is an urgent need to counter the effect of disinformation by integrating critical digital literacy and multimodal discourse studies into educational curricula.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

The European Union (EU) is facing a high-level security threat by the re-emergence of the far right, indicated by a recent significant increase in far-right violence, often underreported to the police and by the media. The timeliness of this project is indicated by the alarming rate of radicalisation in the EU: the use of the internet for the fast-paced dissemination of far-right ideology and mobilisation of radicalised individuals from white supremacist movements pose an enhanced security threat to the EU and an ‘existential threat’ to fundamental European values such as ‘non-discrimination, tolerance, and equality’ as per Article 2 of the Treaty of EU. The primary goal of this project is to identify radicalisation strategies in online far-right propaganda, in order to gain a deep understanding of its linguistic repertoire and contribute to its prevention. Specifically, the main research question of is how radicalisation strategies of European far-right narratives deploy a wide range of nuanced semiotic, linguistic and visual meaning-making resources in order to recruit potential new members. Understanding the appeal of the European far right is therefore an urgent priority: the increasing normalisation of populist radical rhetoric is evidenced by 1) these voices gaining traction in recent elections and referenda and 2) increased incidents of hate speech and hate crime. By investigating extremist online propaganda, the ultimate goal of this interdisciplinary project is twofold: 1) to contribute new knowledge relevant to a range of disciplines, and 2) to lay the foundations for the creation of educational and deradicalisation programmes. This focus on far-right radicalisation strategies is consistent with the policy objective of ‘develop[ing] joint programmes on countering violent extremism and radicalisation’, set out in the European Commission’s document 'A Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy'.

Original text from CORDIS.

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Data: CORDIS, © European Union