Eva Mayerhöffer is Assistant Professor of Journalism at the Department of Communication and Arts, University of Roskilde, where she is also affiliated with the Center for News Research and the Roskilde University Digital Media Lab. She holds a PhD in political communication from Freie Universität Berlin. Her research focuses on journalism cultures, comparative media studies, media and populism, alternative media, right-wing digital news ecologies and the role of elites in political communication.
DJRG Fellow, June 2019
Title and abstract
Transnational networking and (dis-)integration among right-wing digital news ecologies in Europe and the US
The recent rise of a more networked political right-wing throughout Europe and the US has been accompanied by rapid shifts within the news media systems in which they operate and an emerging alternative digital news infrastructure through which information circulates and shared epistemologies are established. This study examines the extent to which a digital information environment on the political far-right is interconnected both within and across countries.
It further explores which actors form connection nodes integrating this news ecology on a transnational scale. To do so, we investigate intra- and transnational networking structures of right-wing alternative online news sites from six Western democracies (Austria, Germany, US, UK, Denmark, Sweden) as enabled by the Web and social media platforms. Our analysis draws on hyperlink data harvested from 70 hyperpartisan right-wing news sites initially collected via the Media Cloud database, as well as via their respective Twitter feeds (via DMI-TCAT) for a period of 3 months in 2018. We conceptualize hyperlinking between them as a strategic practice of digitally connected organizational actors with the aim to enhance reputation and legitimacy.
Through our comparative network analytical approach, we find that linguistic commonalities, geographical and cultural proximity, as well as a domestic political environment prone to ostracize right-wing ideologies are important context factors: In Germany, this seems to foster increased transnational connections, while in the Swedish context, the creation of tight domestic networks can be observed in which actors enhance each other’s visibility. Meanwhile, the US case features the largest and most integrated network, while providing right-wing sites in Germany or Sweden with important external reference points. Apart from direct connections, we also find a secondary network of social media platforms and mainstream news sites that are featured across countries, pointing towards important international focal points integrating this networked right-wing media sphere. (co-authored with Annett Heft, Curd Knüpfer, Susanne Reinhardt, Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society Berlin).
Selected publications
- Heft, A., Mayerhöffer, E., Reinhardt, S. & Knüpfer, C. (2019). Beyond Breitbart. Comparing right-wing digital news infrastructures in Western Democracies. Policy & Internet. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/poi3.219