The discourse of the US alt-right online – a case study of the Traditionalist Worker Party blog

Abstract

The use of social media by extreme right groups and the selfproclaimed formation of the 'alt-right' in recent years have been linked to the rise in US white nationalism. Against a backdrop of widespread concern regarding the growing nature of the 'altright' phenomenon, this article responds to the pressing need to understand its appeal. Specifically, we examine the discursive means by which a hitherto unexamined US 'alt-right' group, the Traditionalist Worker Party, constructs its group identity and ideology online. Corpus assisted discourse analysis of this group's blog (c. one million words) reveals that the Traditionalist Worker Party regularly mobilises five discourses (groupness, party politics, race, religion/tradition, change) in order to assert subject positions of victimhood for its (to be) members, alongside recurrent use of explicit out-grouping strategies. The out-groups are blamed for a general malaisean uncertain, chaotic reality that can and must be changed through affiliation with the Traditionalist Worker Party. The study also shows that the Traditionalist Worker Party constructs itself a highly entitative group as a means to enhancing its recruitment appeal.

Status Threat, Social Concerns, and Conservative Media: A Look at White America and the Alt-Right

“…The US has a particularly large and active right-wing digital news infrastructure, which has been associated with increasing distrust in traditional news media [114,115]. Within this broader architecture, the Alt-Right has an expansive online media environment encompassing a variety of platforms and content creators, including dedicated Alt-Right news sites, blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, memes, and social media [115][116][117][118][119][120][121]. Furthermore, Alt-Right adjacent communities on YouTube, the Alt-Light, and Intellectual Dark Web, have served as entry points to the more extremist content of the movement [120,122].…”

“…These sources are further amplified through social media, allowing the movement to continue to grow and maintain visibility. Narratives on joining the Alt-Right most often reference this media environment rather than traditional conservative news [116,118,120,123]. Furthermore, research on the Alt-Right in Europe found that members are often distrustful of traditional media and rely on social media as their primary news source [123].…”

Hate Influencers’ Mediation of Hate on Telegram: “We Declare War Against the Anti-White System”

“…We merge this traditional multimodal discourse analysis with literature around alt-right discourses. In a recent study, Lorenzo-Dus and Nouri (2021) highlight five recurrent discourses among the alt-right, including groupness, political politics, race, religion, tradition, and change. Similarly, our research team examined the dataset to independently determine three to five discourses.…”

An anatomy of the British war on woke

“…186 As Lorenzo-Dus and Nouri explain, they then use these 'insults' (accusations of extremism) to 'lend further weight to their victimised group claims'. 187 As the powerlessness of the victim is pushed in one direction, the scale and power of the elite's ability to orchestrate events is forced the opposite way. To achieve a contrast, anti-woke actors need to construct the woke as powerful, unaccountable, cunning and beyond public scrutiny.…”