Characteristics of the online ecosystem of the Polish far-right
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24917/20811861.22.44Keywords:
far-right, extreme right, online ecosystem, nationalist media, political communication, social network analysisAbstract
The article focuses on the characterization of the Polish extreme right-wing online ecosystem. The research was conducted using social network analysis, examining 637 websites comprising the core (302 sites) and the ecosystem's environment (335 sites). Key research questions addressed the identification of central and peripheral nodes within the ecosystem, the roles these nodes play, pinpointing opinion leaders, information brokers, and connectors between various communities, the functions of different types of websites, and the associations of extreme right-wing sites with other environmental websites. Results indicate that a centralized, segmented structure with denser connections within several sub-networks and sparser links between these sub-networks characterizes the extreme right-wing online ecosystem. Nationalist media play a significant role in disseminating nationalist ideology, while organizational sites remain weakly connected. Furthermore, the ecosystem's surrounding environment is dominated by ultra-catholic, conservative, alternative media sites, which share certain premises and values with the extreme right and sites promoting conspiracy theories.
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