Search Results (7)

This article examines how social media and digital channels are related to information behavior and voting among young voters (aged 18–30) during the 2025 German federal election. Based on an online survey (n = 673) conducted after the election among participants from southwest Germany and three diverse educational backgrounds, our exploratory study found no overarching generational effect in social media use or political socialization. Instagram emerged as the most important platform for political information. TikTok played a limited role overall; however, the Left Party was the only party able to gain visible support from it. In contrast, voters of the radical right Alternative for Germany (AfD) often reported receiving political content via private messenger groups, highlighting the role of non-public channels in political communication. Concerning vote choice, we find that it depends on the platform to what extent a party can benefit from digital campaigning, e.g., the Left Party benefits from frequent TikTok usage, while YouTube correlates with voting for the Greens, and messenger usage with voting for the AfD. The findings, therefore, suggest a more professionalized and targeted approach to digital campaigning, with specific parties reaching distinct voter groups through tailored platform strategies. Full article

The article focuses on flat earthism, one of the most well-known contemporary conspiracy theories in popular culture. According to proponents of this theory, which has found a growing international following in recent years, political institutions such as the U.S. government and scientific institutions such as NASA would operate to deceive humanity about the real shape of our planet and the universe in which we live. In countering the data acquired by modern science and common sense knowledge, flat earthism stands as a heterodox theory and a radical critique of the authority of socially legitimized epistemic institutions. This article consists of two parts. The first part will offer a genealogical reconstruction of the flat-earth conspiracy, tracing its history from the 19th century to the exponents of the current movement. The second part will delve into the discourse of the proponents of flat earthism with specific reference to the Italian context, through documentary analysis of recent publications and online material available on YouTube and Telegram, which constitute some of the main channels for the discussion and dissemination of flat earthism in Italy today. On the basis of the data collected and analyzed, it will be shown how flat earthism represents a paradigmatic case of superconspiracy, that is, of a far-reaching theory capable of linking and including within itself a set of other, more circumscribed theories. To this end, flat earthism elaborates on a discourse that ambivalently combines two registers, scientific and religious language, proposing itself as a dissident narrative that if on the one hand rejects the knowledge of institutionalized and organized science and religion, on the other hand accredits an alternative and anti-intellectualist path of knowledge, accessible to the “common man” that aims to create a space of autonomy and opposition to the processes of secularization and globalization in which the flat earthers see the project of building a dystopian New World Order. Full article

In January 2017, millions of people occupied various public places across the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, protesting the Supreme Court’s ban on Jallikattu, a bull-wrangling contest considered central to Tamil identity. Social media was thought to have triggered this ‘leaderless’ protest. Seven days in, a police crackdown splintered the protest’s seemingly unified front. Academic commentators have argued that social media present radical possibilities, ‘short-circuiting’ older forms of broadcast media, which had already been colonized by the state. Taking as discursive sites two videos, one of them posted by a popular Facebook group and another by a YouTube channel centred around Dalit issues, I argue that an a priori claim of new media having a lesser or greater potential to resist colonization is largely untenable. The possibility of such resistance is contingent on the micropolitics of contestation within concrete, localized sites. I analyse narratives of loss and rage on two different social media spaces, elicited from a fishing community near one of the protest sites, after their homes were attacked and their local market had been burnt down by the police. By focusing on tactics of interviewing, I demonstrate that, in the span of a week, the same technological platform credited with sparking the protests that brought the Tamils together as one, now constitutes the limits of the formation of radical subjectivity, as Tamil society finds itself fractured once again. Full article

What do god posters circulating online tell us about the practice of popular Hinduism in the age of digital mediatization? The article seeks to address the question by exploring images and god posters dedicated to the planetary deity Shani on Web 2.0. The article tracks Shani’s presence on a range of online platforms—from the religion and culture pages of newspapers to YouTube videos and social media platforms. Using Shani’s presence on the Web as a case study, the article argues that content drawn from popular Hinduism, dealing with astrology, ritual, religious vows and observances, form a significant and substantial aspect of online Hinduism. The article draws attention to the specific affordances of Web 2.0 to radically rethink what engaging with the sacred object in a virtual realm may entail. In doing so, it indicates what the future of Hindu religiosity may look like. Full article

Far-right movements, activists, and political parties are on the rise worldwide. Several scholars connect this rise of the far-right at least partially to the affordances of digital media and to a new digital metapolitical battle. A lot has been written about the far-right’s adoption of trolling, harassment, and meme-culture in their metapolitical strategy, but researchers have focused less on how far-right vloggers are using the practices of influencer culture for metapolitical goals. This paper tries to fill this gap and bring new theoretical insights based on a digital ethnographic case study. By analyzing political YouTuber and #pizzagate propagator Brittany Pettibone, this paper contributes to our understanding of radicalization processes in relation to the use of digital media. Full article

In 1989, Sir Tim Berners-Lee proposed the development of ‘a large hypertext database with typed links’, which eventually became The World Wide Web. It was rightly heralded at the time as a significant development and a boon for one-and-all as the digital age flourished both in terms of universal accessibility and affordability. The general anticipation was that this could herald an era of universal friendship and knowledge-sharing, ushering in global cooperation and mutual regard. In November 2019, marking 30 years of the Web, Berners-Lee lamented that its initial promise was being largely undermined, and that we were in danger of heading towards a ‘digital dystopia’: What happened? Full article

With the emergence of Web 2.0 (Blog, Wiki, RSS, YouTube, Flickr, Podcast, Social Networks, and Mashups), new ways of communicating, interacting and being on the Web have arisen. These new communication tools and strategies can radically change some specific work processes in communities, such as the work processes of an autarchy. Some authors emphasize the advantages of using Web 2.0 tools in autarchies; thus, we were interested in exploring the possibilities and constraints of implementing these tools in our region of Portugal, the Minho. Using a case study methodology, we aimed to find out about the possibilities of implementing Web 2.0 tools in autarchies through exploring the interest and motivation of autarchic collaborators in their use (our unit of analysis in autarchies). Information was gathered with the help of a questionnaire, the design of which was based on previous exploratory interviews and applied to four autarchic units in the Minho region. In each unit, three different target-groups were surveyed (Councilors, Information Systems (IS) Technicians, and General Staff), so that we could triangulate the data. Data analysis and results emphasized the interest and motivation of the autarchies in using Web 2.0 tools, as well as the main constraints that would be faced during Web 2.0 implementation. It also allowed us to establish some guidelines for adequate Web 2.0 implementation, including an “ideal” profile of the person responsible for the implementation process. Full article