The challenges of studying 4chan and the Alt-Right: ‘Come on in the water’s fine

In 2019, the authors led a workshop at King’s College London examining how to study 4chan and assess their association with the Alt-Right. Unbeknownst to the authors, a participant was a 4chan user and started a mid-workshop thread on its notorious /pol/ (politically incorrect) board. It gained sign...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNew media & society Vol. 24; no. 1; pp. 5 - 30
Main Authors Colley, Thomas, Moore, Martin
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.01.2022
Subjects
extremism
meme
radicalisation
Alt-Right
ideology
pol
4chan
social media
discourse
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Summary:In 2019, the authors led a workshop at King’s College London examining how to study 4chan and assess their association with the Alt-Right. Unbeknownst to the authors, a participant was a 4chan user and started a mid-workshop thread on its notorious /pol/ (politically incorrect) board. It gained significant attention. Reviewing it later, the authors realised that this parallel thread illustrates perfectly the challenges researching 4chan – and similar – communities. We conducted discourse analysis on this unique dataset, providing an alternative perspective to predominant anthropological and informatic approaches. Our analysis enhances understanding of ‘free-extremist’ communities such as 4chan in several ways. It assesses how the /pol/ community responds to observation and provides new insights into roles influencers might have in radicalising others. It illustrates the value of discourse analysis in evaluating users’ associations with the Alt-Right. Finally, it proposes ways researchers can overcome the challenges faced when analysing such communities.
ISSN:1461-4448
1461-7315
DOI:10.1177/1461444820948803