How the far-right polarises Twitter: ‘hashjacking’ as a disinformation strategy in times of COVID-19
Twitter influences political debates. Phenomena like fake news and hate speech show that political discourses on social platforms can become strongly polarised by algorithmic enforcement of selective perception. Some political actors actively employ strategies to facilitate polarisation on Twitter,...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Conference item |
| Language: | English |
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Springer
2022
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| _version_ | 1797108609339883520 |
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| author | Darius, P Stephany, F |
| author_facet | Darius, P Stephany, F |
| author_sort | Darius, P |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Twitter influences political debates. Phenomena like fake news and hate speech show that political discourses on social platforms can become strongly polarised by algorithmic enforcement of selective perception. Some political actors actively employ strategies to facilitate polarisation on Twitter, as past contributions show, via strategies of ‘hashjacking’(The use of someone else’s hashtag in order to promote one’s own social media agenda.). For the example of COVID-19 related hashtags and their retweet networks, we examine the case of partisan accounts of the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and their potential use of ‘hashjacking’ in May 2020. Our findings indicate that polarisation of political party hashtags has not changed significantly in the last two years. We see that right-wing partisans are actively and effectively polarising the discourse by ‘hashjacking’ COVID-19 related hashtags, like #CoronaVirusDE or #FlattenTheCurve. This polarisation strategy is dominated by the activity of a limited set of heavy users. The results underline the necessity to understand the dynamics of discourse polarisation, as an active political communication strategy of the far-right, by only a handful of very active accounts. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:29:44Z |
| format | Conference item |
| id | oxford-uuid:fed029e5-7e86-44cf-b95a-ad5cb77d4dad |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T07:29:44Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Springer |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:fed029e5-7e86-44cf-b95a-ad5cb77d4dad2023-01-04T11:56:02ZHow the far-right polarises Twitter: ‘hashjacking’ as a disinformation strategy in times of COVID-19Conference itemhttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_5794uuid:fed029e5-7e86-44cf-b95a-ad5cb77d4dadEnglishSymplectic ElementsSpringer2022Darius, PStephany, FTwitter influences political debates. Phenomena like fake news and hate speech show that political discourses on social platforms can become strongly polarised by algorithmic enforcement of selective perception. Some political actors actively employ strategies to facilitate polarisation on Twitter, as past contributions show, via strategies of ‘hashjacking’(The use of someone else’s hashtag in order to promote one’s own social media agenda.). For the example of COVID-19 related hashtags and their retweet networks, we examine the case of partisan accounts of the German far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and their potential use of ‘hashjacking’ in May 2020. Our findings indicate that polarisation of political party hashtags has not changed significantly in the last two years. We see that right-wing partisans are actively and effectively polarising the discourse by ‘hashjacking’ COVID-19 related hashtags, like #CoronaVirusDE or #FlattenTheCurve. This polarisation strategy is dominated by the activity of a limited set of heavy users. The results underline the necessity to understand the dynamics of discourse polarisation, as an active political communication strategy of the far-right, by only a handful of very active accounts. |
| spellingShingle | Darius, P Stephany, F How the far-right polarises Twitter: ‘hashjacking’ as a disinformation strategy in times of COVID-19 |
| title | How the far-right polarises Twitter: ‘hashjacking’ as a disinformation strategy in times of COVID-19 |
| title_full | How the far-right polarises Twitter: ‘hashjacking’ as a disinformation strategy in times of COVID-19 |
| title_fullStr | How the far-right polarises Twitter: ‘hashjacking’ as a disinformation strategy in times of COVID-19 |
| title_full_unstemmed | How the far-right polarises Twitter: ‘hashjacking’ as a disinformation strategy in times of COVID-19 |
| title_short | How the far-right polarises Twitter: ‘hashjacking’ as a disinformation strategy in times of COVID-19 |
| title_sort | how the far right polarises twitter hashjacking as a disinformation strategy in times of covid 19 |
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