Department of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee, United Kingdom.
Faculty of Information Technology, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
PLoS One. 2020 Mar 30;15(3):e0230302. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0230302. eCollection 2020.
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.
近年来，极右翼意识形态通过具有破坏性影响的网络社区扩大了其影响力和传播范围。在本研究中，我们考察了极右翼网络社区如何被对他们具有重要意义的社会政治事件所赋予权力。我们使用从一个全球性的白人至上主义网络社区的澳大利亚国家分论坛中提取的超过 14 年的数据，研究了社区的群体凝聚力是否受到当地种族骚乱的影响。我们的分析表明，该网络社区不仅在骚乱后变得更加团结，而且还受到在骚乱期间或之后一周内加入的高度活跃的新成员的激励。这些变化在较长时间内得以维持，突显了当地社会政治环境对这个白人至上主义社区的普遍影响。对从其他白人至上主义网络社区（南非和英国）提取的数据进行的预先注册分析显示，在一些群体凝聚力指标上也存在类似的影响，但程度较小，而且不如澳大利亚极右翼网络社区背景下的影响持久。
