Education impacts belief gaps, but the effects are not evenly felt across issues or political affiliations
In this article for the International Journal of Public Opinion Research, Shannon McGregor and her co-authors Magdalena Saldaña and Tom Johnson explore the relationships among political identity, education, and the prevalence of false beliefs about topics that have become politically polarized. To more fully understand the belief gap hypothesis, this study examines the effect of political identity, education, and partisan media consumption on the formation of attitudes and false beliefs. Using a two-wave, nationally representative online survey of the U.S., the authors assess people’s attitudes and beliefs toward climate change, on the one hand, and Syrian refugees, on the other. Building on previous studies, they demonstrate that the effect of one’s political identity on attitudes and false beliefs is contingent upon education, which appears to widen the belief gap in consort with political identity.
For incels, being a man at the bottom of a masculine hierarchy is still better than being a woman
Can negative evaluations of a broad outgroup paired with positive evaluations of a broad ingroup, sustain willing affiliation with even intensely self-derogating online communities? Synthesizing concepts from masculinities scholarship, social identity theory, and self-verification theory, this study compares language from two distinctive misogynist communities active on Reddit.com—Men Going Their Own Way, male separatists who positively frame members as superior to other men and men as superior to women, and Involuntary Celibates (incels), who openly derogate incel community members—to understand what sustains misogynist incels’ willing affiliation with the self-derogating incel community. Using thematic qualitative analysis, I find that while male separatists favor both their own narrower online community and the broader ingroup of men, misogynist incels engage in a patriarchal bargain, using relatively benevolent depictions of some men alongside negative depictions of all women to perpetuate broader gender inequality.
Radicalization is gradual - and not confined to marginalized members of global societies
This literature review examines cross-disciplinary work on radicalization to situate, historicize, frame, and better understand the present concerns around online radicalization and far-right extremist and fringe movements. We find that research on radicalization is inextricably linked to the post-9/11 context in which it emerged, and as a result is overly focused on studying the other. Applying this research to the spread of far-right ideas online does not account for the ways in which the far-right’s endorsement of white supremacy and racism holds historical, normative precedent in the United States. Further, radicalization research is rife with uncertainties, ranging from definitional ambiguity to an inability to identify any simplistic, causal models capable of fully explaining the conditions under which radicalization occurs. Instead, there are multiple possible pathways to radicalization, and while the internet does not cause individuals to adopt far-right extremist or fringe beliefs, some technological affordances may aid adoption of these beliefs through gradual processes of socialization. We conclude that the term “radicalization” does not serve as a useful analytical frame for studying the spread of far-right and fringe ideas online. Instead, potential analytical frameworks better suited to studying these phenomena include theories prominent in the study of online communities, conversion, mainstreaming, and sociotechnical theories of media effects.
A summary of key take-aways includes:
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The adoption of extremist, far-right, and fringe beliefs is often referred to as “radicalization,” a term formulated post-9/11 to understand jihadi terrorism, a very different context from the far-right.
- Radicalization research is full of uncertainty.
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No specific type of person is vulnerable to radicalization, and most people who commit political violence are not mentally ill or alienated from society.
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Radicalization is not caused by poverty, oppression, or marginalization.
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There is no one way in which people are “radicalized.”
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Viewing extremist media does not necessarily lead to adopting extremist beliefs or committing political violence.
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In contrast to the “red pill” model, radicalization is gradual. Recruits slowly adopt the identities, emotions, and interpretations shared by a community. They conceptualize their problems as injustices caused by others, and justify using political violence against them.
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The internet does not cause radicalization, but it helps spread extremist ideas, enables people interested in these ideas to form communities, and mainstreams conspiracy theories and distrust in institutions.
"Radicalization” is not a useful frame for understanding the spread of far-right and fringe ideas online.
- It is analytically imprecise and morally judgmentalIt doesn’t help us understand the role of media and digital technologies.
- It is inextricably tied to a global security infrastructure targeting Islam.
- It doesn’t account for the fact that fringe or far-right beliefs may change what people think is “true” and “false,” making it hard to find common ground.
- The focus on violence ignores other worrying effects of mainstreaming far-right and fringe ideas.