The challenges of studying 4chan and the Alt-Right: 'Come on in the water's fine'
The challenges of studying 4chan and the Alt-Right: 'Come on in the water's fine'
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DOI：
10.1177/1461444820948803
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发表时间：
2020-09-20
影响因子：
5
通讯作者：
Moore, Martin
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Colley, Thomas;Moore, Martin
2019 年，作者在伦敦国王学院主持了一次研讨会，探讨如何研究 4chan 并评估其与另类右翼的关系。作者不知道的是，一名参与者是 4chan 用户，并在其臭名昭著的 /pol/（政治不正确）板上发起了研讨会中期讨论。它获得了极大的关注。后来回顾它，作者意识到这个并行线程完美地说明了研究 4chan 和类似社区的挑战。我们对这个独特的数据集进行了话语分析，为主要的人类学和信息学方法提供了替代视角。我们的分析通过多种方式增强了对 4chan 等“自由极端主义”社区的理解。它评估了/pol/社区对观察的反应，并提供了关于影响者在激进化他人方面可能扮演的角色的新见解。它说明了话语分析在评估用户与另类右翼的关联方面的价值。最后，它提出了研究人员在分析此类社区时克服所面临挑战的方法。
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.