Abstract

There is a rich body of research on the interaction of social media and political movements across the world—examples include student protests, the Arab Spring, and the Occupy movement (Bruns et al. 2013; Castells 2012; Dahlgren 2013). Most of these studies focus on the radical Left and popular movements, the emancipative potential of social media, and activists’ social media strategies and tactics. However, nationalist and right-wing movements on social media are usually discussed as a separate entity or subcategory of alternative discourse on the Web (Atton 2006; Cammaerts 2009; Wojcieszak 2010), not taking into account the similarities of their tactics. Although some argue the necessity of including groups with nationalist and racist values in the study of alternative media and counterpublics (Atton 2004; Brouwer 2006; Warner 2002), there have been few attempts to understand how this might be done.