Description

Antifeminism is central to right-wing populist actors in Germany and beyond: They coopt feminist issues for racist purposes in a strategy termed femonationalism (Farris, 2017), while simultaneously mobilizing against feminism and gender equity. While mainstream political forces are quick to condemn the far-right for its racist and nationalist agenda, with regard to feminist issues they have a record of holding positions similar to the far-right, e.g. concerning abortion and gay rights (Kemper, 2014). I hypothesize that the commonalities in far-right and mainstream antifeminism share at least one of the following access points: They rely on gender stereotypes and patriarchal gender relations, as well as on heteronormativity and latent homophobia. Right-wing populism, if understood as a thin-centered ideology (Mudde, 2004), can attach itself to these patriarchal and heteronormative attitudes, and employ the categories of gender and sexuality to create the ‘in-group’ and ‘the other’. Existing research on gender and the far-right so far focuses on the category of gender and its intersections with populism and nationalism, but has neglected how antifeminism is able to create convergence between the far-right and the mainstream and helps spreading far-right views into wider society. This study aims to contribute to fill this gap by analyzing the framing of feminism and gender equity between a variety of actors ranging from the far-right to the alternative left. It asks: Which commonalities in the framing of feminism and gender equity can be observed between the far-right and the political mainstream, and can these be described as discourse coalitions between actors with otherwise adversarial agendas? Discourse coalitions are defined as groups of actors that share a similar positioning and framing regarding feminism and gender equity, and thus result in similar narratives with respect to these issues (Hajer, 2008). The analysis focuses on digital spaces because they host both hegemonic public spheres and subaltern counterpublics (Fraser, 1996). Moreover, digital spaces enable a synchrony of progressive feminist discourses and antifeminist backlash that remains invisible in legacy media (Drüeke & Klaus, 2014). My findings rest on a quantitative content analysis of actor-frame-sequences in news coverage over a one-year period from a diverse set of 18 German online media. The random sample of 1.000 articles includes genuine online media such as right-wing and left-wing, religious and religious-fundamentalist, masculinist and feminist news sites, but also the digital outlets of mainstream legacy media. Preliminary findings aim to analyze the framing of feminism and gender equity in terms of the general legitimacy given to these issues, as well as the suggested treatment recommendations and causal effects. While some of the actors in the analysis such as the manosphere and religious fundamentalists might be prone to ideological closeness with the far-right, I also expect to find discourse coalitions between the far-right and mainstream actors with otherwise adversarial agendas. These are expected to bridge their ideological gaps with socially shared knowledge about gender roles, male supremacy and heteronormativity. The second part of the project will analyze the structures of opposition and support that evolve between the aforementioned actors in the context of (anti-)feminist discourse. Digitally created counter-public spaces are issue-specific, oppose a hegemonic opinion or belief and exist in relation to the mainstream public sphere, which they are trying to alter in their favor (Kaiser & Puschmann 2017). From an agenda building perspective, challengers can use online communication to push their issues on the media agenda, to build alliances with other actors and to mobilize their adherents. The analysis of online issue networks allows to evaluate the strength of connectivity between various actors active within an issue and allows for conclusions about their agenda-building and mobilization capacities in the context of the broader given political opportunity structure (Pfetsch, Adam, & Bennett, 2013; Pfetsch, Maier, Miltner, & Waldherr, 2016). This study thus asks: Which structures of opposition and support become visible in (anti-)feminist, digital counterpublic spheres, and how do these structures vary across issues and actors? Do the networks reveal unlikely coalitions between actors that are otherwise not ideologically close to each other? Which network communities do these actors build and are these separated along the lines of ideology or along issues? Actors strategically use hyperlinks to direct their adherents to the resources of like-minded actors to show their support or use their content as witness for their claims and as resources (Downey & Fenton, 2003). In this way, strategic alliances can become visible within hyperlink structures. To map out the structures of opposition and support in (anti-)feminist digital counterpublic spheres, the hyperlinks in the articles analyzed in the first part of the project are extracted and subject to network analysis as well as to content analysis. These hyperlinks will then be coded for their function in the text, i.e. supporting or opposing another content or actor, but also for partisanship and actor type. I expect to find differing patterns within these networks, firstly depending on the issue at hand and the level of polarization in the debate about the respective issue, and second according to the actor types involved into the specific debate.

Project Details

Project Type

Dissertation

Subject Group

Law, Economics and Social Sciences

Subject Classification

Media and Communication Studies

Start

2018

End

2022

Organization

Faculty/Central Institute

Political and Social Sciences

Institute/Seminar

Institute for Media and Communication Studies

Project Team

Director

Susanne Reinhardt

Keywords

antifeminism, counterpublic spheres, right-wing populism, social network analysis

Researchers

• Susanne Reinhardt

  Current