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Sweden has increasingly come into international far right focus, and digital media sites in the United States have proven especially active in spreading mis- and disinformative narratives about the country. Using social network analysis and descriptive statistics, we trace 776 links over a 27 year-period to understand how U.S. far-right media sites construct the idea of Sweden as ‘the rape capital’ of the world. The article makes several contributions as it pertains both to the technological and ideological functions of citing for digital far-right media. We highlight the (lack of) timeliness of sourcing, the role of mainstream sources for repurposing and amplification, and practices of exaggeration and pseudo-legitimisation. Against the backdrop of our findings, we suggest the need for approaching digital far-right media information practices as more complex and subtle than they have previously been conceived, and highlight the necessity to problematise misinformation as a label for misrepresentation in digital far-right media.

This article analyses the ‘free speech’ online forum Flashback, which adheres to a strict non-interference policy when it comes to user-generated content, but beyond this also forbids users from deleting their own content or accounts. Through a qualitative content analysis, this article sought to understand the relationship between the platform and its users with respect to this unconventional approach to moderation and content removal. This article discusses both the position(s) taken by Flashback as it pertains to its policy of minimal moderation, and the expectations as expressed by users navigating Flashbacks rules and their practical implementations. The article shows a discrepancy between how Flashback (incoherently) justifies minimal moderation and how users had imagined the platform operating. The article also discusses how Flashback maintains these policies through its community’s active encouragement via supportive posting and silencing of non-conformers, and the consequences that Flashback’s inaction has in terms of residual hate.

In several countries, research shows that mainstream news media have increasingly become a target of political attacks, and a recurring accusation is that the news media are biased politically. Since social media play an important role in circulating accusations of media bias, in this paper we analyze 167,527 Swedish tweets about media bias over a ten-year period using the mixed-methods CADS approach, which incorporates computational processes with discourse analysis. Specifically, we explore the prevalence of bias accusations over time and which news outlets constitute the main targets; from what political perspectives these bias accusations have originated over time; and how discourses accusing the news media of political bias are constructed. Among other things, the results show that accusations of left-wing bias are much more common than accusations of right-wing bias. A key reason is that actors on the political right engage much more frequently in accusations of media bias than their center-left counterparts, and that discourses of media bias are heavily dominated by right-wing populist tropes in which mainstream media are part of the "corrupt", lying elite who spread "politically correct" disinformation.

The 2022 Swedish election saw a radical-right populist party—the Sweden Democrats—gain direct government influence in the country for the first time. This contrasted with the international image of Sweden as a progressive county yet resonated with the country's growing ideological use by foreign far-right actors. This article analyzes the framing of Sweden's image in traditional and far-right online media from the United States, Germany, India, and China during this election. It explores to what extent and when Sweden gained online media attention and how the election was framed across these countries and media types.

This paper analyses how immigrants are understood by Swedish alternative media and the role that Islamophobia plays, if at all, in these representations. What is remarkable is that although all articles were sampled explicitly to discuss Ukraine, the analysis showed that Muslim immigrants figured with unexpected frequency throughout. The value of these two immigrant groups were antagonistically contrasted through arguments of alleged differences in culture and geographical origin, perceived legitimacy as asylum seekers, and in terms gratitude and supposed level of threat to Swedish society. With this, the unity that is formed around Islamophobia trumps any nationalist views of the Swedish nation state as particularly superior or white and the social and economic consequences which are usually believed to be at risk due to immigration. By extension, the war in Ukraine is articulated as a matter of whiteness and works to exploit war for strengthening the transnational far right.

This paper analyses how Sweden has come to be imagined and represented on the websites of US far right organisations since the start of the so-called 'migration crisis' of 2015. It focused specifically on when Sweden is discussed by the US far right and in relation to what events, and what values and associations are attributed to Sweden. The analysis showed that news events were not reported on by US far-right organisations as they took place in Sweden but instead appropriated and accentuated when they could be used to make certain points directed at the audiences of these organisations. Furthermore, the findings showed that the texts tended to focus on scaremongering about Muslim immigrants and Islam in ways that highly resembled those of the European far right. The paper discusses how such framing helps the international far right form a coherent narrative and all-applicable template for the problems of Muslims facing the Western world. Finally, the analysis showed how Sweden is positioned in a complex juxtaposition: as something both good and bad; superior while also inferior; a great nationalist role model but also a warning example, and how Swedish whiteness plays a central role in these depictions.

In this paper, we explore how highly visible users in the context of #BlackLivesMatter on TikTok shape the narrative around Black victims of police brutality, the understanding of these narratives by others, and the potential consequences of these portrayals for the movement at large. To examine these dimensions, we analysed the 100 most circulated TikTok videos and associated comments depicting victims of police brutality using the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag through multimodal critical discourse analysis. We identified how users attempted to increase visibility of their content, and how this was supported or criticised by commenters depending on the perceived motives of these efforts. Furthermore, we showcased how influencers raised awareness of the movement with little personal effort or risk, sometimes appearing to leverage the movement for self-exposure. Our analysis showed that many of the most liked videos were made by white content creators who, in their videos, seemed to be addressing an imagined white audience. While these efforts portrayed the movement favourably, the content creators remain outsiders who have not themselves been in harm's way of police brutality. While there were exceptions that promoted the perspectives of marginalised communities, and while the white narratives were consistently supportive of the movement, they also work to displace focus on racial (in)justice away from those directly affected by it, that is, away from Black people’s own experiences of police brutality. We discuss these findings in relation to questions about digital representations of Black victimhood, digital visibility and practices of whiteness, on TikTok and beyond.

This paper uses the Swedish, once neo-Nazi expression culture enricher (Swedish: kulturberikare) as a case study to explore how covert and coded far-right discourse is mainstreamed, over time and across websites. A sample of 2,336 uses of the expression between 1999 and 2020 were analysed using critical discourse analysis. The findings illustrate how the expression works like a ‘dog whistle’ by enabling users to discretely self-identify with an imagined in-group of discontent white ‘Swedes’, while simultaneously showing opposition to the priorities of a generalised ‘establishment’. It shows how the expression is circulated in settings ranging from mainstream to far-right, and particularly, it highlights the potential role of semi-radical settings to act as gateways between mainstream and far-right ideas. Finally, the analysis shows evolving, ever more covertly hateful uses of the expression over time, illustrating the adaptability of far-right language online more generally, as a means to evade unwanted exposure by the far-right.

Background: This thesis explores the far right online beyond the study of political parties and extremist far-right sites and content. Specifically, it focuses on the proliferation of far-right discourse among ‘ordinary’ internet users in mainstream digital settings. In doing so, it aims to bring the study of far-right discourse and the enabling roles of digital platforms and influential users into dialogue. It does so by analysing what is communicated and how; where it is communicated and therein the roles of different socio-technical features associated with various online settings; and finally, by whom, focusing on particularly influential users.

Methods: The thesis uses material from four different datasets of digital, user-generated content, collected at different times through different methods. These datasets have been analysed using mixedmethods approaches wherein interpretative methods, primarily in the form of critical discourse analysis (CDA), have been combined with various data processing techniques, descriptive statistics, visualisations, and computational data analysis methods.

Results: The thesis provides a number of findings in relation to farright discourse, digital platforms, and online influence, respectively. In doing so it builds on the findings of previous research, illustrates unexpected and contradictory results in relation to what was previously known, and makes a number of interesting new discoveries. Overall, it begins to unravel the complex interconnectedness of far-right discourse, platforms, and influential users, and illustrates that to understand the far-right’s efforts online it is imperative to take several dimensions into account simultaneously.

Conclusion: The thesis makes several contributions. First, the thesis makes a conceptual contribution by focusing on the interconnectedness of far-right efforts online. Second, it makes an empirical contribution by exploring the multifaceted grassroots or ‘non-party’ dimensions of farright mobilisation, Finally, the thesis makes a methodological contribution through its mix of methods which illustrates how different aspects of the far right, over varying time periods, diversely sized and shaped datasets, and user constellations, can be approached to reveal broader overarching patterns as well as intricate details.

Tillgången till stora datamängder online har inneburit möjligheter att utforska nya studieobjekt och forskningsfrågor, och givit upphov till nya storskaliga digitala analysmetoder. Men innan sådana analyser kan påbörjas behöver data först samlas in. Automatiserade datainsamlingsmetoder kan utnyttja de stora mängder data som finns tillgängliga online och extrahera material som hade varit alltför omfattande och tidskrävande att samla in på manuellt vis. Detta kapitel berör de generella möjligheter och förutsättningar som finns att samla in olika typer av digitala material från internet med hjälp av automatiserade datainsamlingsmetoder. I kapitlet ges en överblick av dessa metodtyper. Här problematiseras också frågor om urval, avgränsningar, tekniska färdigheter och etik samt betydelsen olika val kan ha för analys och tolkning. Den avslutande delen av kapitlet ger exempel på hur automatiserad datainsamling kan gå till och hur insamlade datamaterial sedan kan förberedas för analys.