A multimodal semiotic analysis of online "prepper" communities through visual grounded theory methodology, combined with a quantitative hierarchal clu

自2014年以来，右翼恐怖袭击增加了250%，是英国社会安全的第二大威胁，自2017年以来，三分之一被挫败的恐怖袭击阴谋归因于极右翼极端分子（经济与和平研究所，2020年）。社交媒体被用作右翼极端主义的招募工具，在宣传意识形态的网络交流中，表情包、视频和分享文章等多模式文本非常普遍。此外，冠状病毒大流行的出现突显了“末日准备者”等先前边缘群体的存在，并使其耸人听闻。该研究旨在通过对在线生存主义社区的多模态文本进行符号学分析，并对用户对文本的反应进行定量分层聚类分析，弥合对极右翼叙事的理解与社交媒体上“准备者”意识形态的扩散之间的差距。该研究将探索推动右翼意识形态在民粹主义边缘社区传播的潜在社会和个人机制，并将利用社交媒体平台上的多模式交流形式，并从致力于“准备”讨论的社区中提取文本。此外，批判现实主义认识论的使用将通过探索已有的理论概念来提出作为趋势的貌似合理的因果机制来加强研究。通过社会和计算机科学分析的跨学科贡献，研究结果将寻求确定叙事中的机制，并将导致激进化的用户反应联系起来，进一步支持一个新兴的研究机构，为减少极右翼极端分子构成的恐怖主义威胁的战略提供信息。

Right-wing terrorist attacks have increased by 250% since 2014 and are the second most severe threatto social security in the United Kingdom, with a third of foiled terrorist plots attributed to far-rightextremists since 2017 (Institute for Economics & Peace, 2020). Social media is used as a recruiting toolfor right-wing extremism, with multimodal texts such as memes, videos, and shared articles prevalent inonline communications promoting ideologies. Additionally, the emergence of the coronavirus pandemichas highlighted and sensationalised the existence of previously fringe groups, such as "doomsdaypreppers." The study aims to bridge the gap between the understanding of far-right narratives and theproliferation of "prepper" ideology on social media by combining a semiotic analysis of multimodal textsfrom online survivalist communities with a quantitative hierarchical cluster analysis of user responses tothe texts.The research will explore the underlying societal and individual mechanisms driving the spread of rightwingideology within populist fringe communities and will utilise forms of multimodal communication onsocial media platforms, with texts being extracted from communities dedicated to discussions on"prepping". Additionally, the use of critical realist epistemology will enhance the research by exploringpre-existing theoretical concepts to propose plausible causal mechanisms acting as tendencies. Throughthe interdisciplinary contributions of social and computer scientific analysis, the results will seek toidentify mechanisms within narratives and correlate user responses that contribute to radicalisation,further supporting an emerging body of research with the potential to inform strategies reducing threatsof terrorism posed by far-right extremists.