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严重威胁，自2017年以来，三分之一的恐怖阴谋被归因于极右翼恐怖分子（经济与和平研究所，2020）。社交媒体被用作右翼极端主义的招募工具，多模式文本，如模因，视频和在线交流中流行的共享文章，以促进意识形态。此外，冠状病毒大流行的出现突出了以前边缘群体的存在，如“末日准备者”。“这项研究旨在弥合对极右翼叙事的理解与“准备者”的扩散之间的差距通过结合在线生存主义社区多模态文本的符号学分析和用户对文本反应的定量层次聚类分析，研究社会媒体上的意识形态。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，从专门讨论“准备”问题的社区中摘录文本。此外，使用批判现实主义认识论将通过探索预先存在的理论概念来提出合理的因果机制作为趋势来加强研究。在社会和计算机科学分析的跨学科贡献中，结果将寻求确定叙述中的机制，并将有助于激进化的用户反应相关联，进一步支持新兴的研究机构，有可能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.