A narrow gateway from misogyny to the far right: Empirical evidence for social media exposure effects
- Autor(en)
- Phelia Weiß, Kevin Koban, Jörg Matthes
- Abstrakt
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(en)
- Institut für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
- Journal
- Information, Communication & Society
- ISSN
- 1369-118X
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2445637
- Publikationsdatum
- 12-2024
- Peer-reviewed
- Ja
- ÖFOS 2012
- 508007 Kommunikationswissenschaft
- Schlagwörter
- ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
- Communication, Library and Information Sciences
- Sustainable Development Goals
- SDG 5 – Geschlechtergleichheit
- Link zum Portal
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/6a4797c3-c396-4a11-a314-34ba70f2818d