A narrow gateway from misogyny to the far right: Empirical evidence for social media exposure effects

Author(s)
Phelia Weiß, Kevin Koban, Jörg Matthes
Abstract

Misogynist content is part of everyday social media use, exposing targets to great harm and normalizing problematic beliefs. Traditional gender hierarchies connect with far-right ideology, expressed intensely in online communities of the manosphere and the alt-right. Scholars have argued that this connection between hateful ideologies could work as a gateway from misogyny to further extremism. Building on these arguments, we provide empirical evidence for the gateway hypothesis within social media environments from a two-wave panel survey in Austria (N

W1 = 1522; N

W2 = 1033). Path analysis reveals that sexist content exposure boosts contact with far-right content over time, which is amplified for fringe environments of exposure. Further, sexist content exposure is related to behavioral measures for far-right extremism but not to attitudinal measures, whereas far-right content predicts none of the radicalization measures. Our findings suggest the relevance of individual and environmental factors for gateway mechanisms, establishing valuable insights for future research.

Organisation(s)
Department of Communication
Journal
Information, Communication & Society
ISSN
1369-118X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2445637
Publication date
12-2024
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
508007 Communication science
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Communication, Library and Information Sciences
Sustainable Development Goals
SDG 5 - Gender Equality
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/6a4797c3-c396-4a11-a314-34ba70f2818d