The Aryan Spring: Twitter and the resurgence of racially-based far right extremist belief systems in the United States of America

This research engages secondary archival data, occurring at the time of affirming and confronting events which would activate a salient identity in those who possess a racially based far right extremist identity. Anchored in the United States of America, and with a focus on the social media platform Twitter, the research develops a novel method to establish relevant, unique and replicable data sets from a positivist approach, including the development of original source code. It further extends this novel method through the creation of behavioral typologies within Twitter, as a means to measure engagement by individuals who have been identified within the data sets as expressing racially based far right extremist sentiment.

The research draws on a rich foundation of social identity theory and the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE) in order to analyze how Twitter assists in the performance of social identity during times of salient social identity affirmation and salient social identity threat. Whilst it was hypothesized that the findings would replicate those of opinion-based groups with a hierarchical structure and face-to-face contact, (i.e., that those with greater influence would extend direction and influence to ingroup members), in contrast the data contradicted these hypotheses. Indeed, the research identified greater deindividuation in times of group threat, with an increased mobilization of in-group members classified as possessing a lower overall degree of engagement. These individuals indeed were more active in creating messaging and directing behaviors in an online community.

These findings extend existing applications of SIDE to computer-mediated communicates based research, as well as opening opportunities for future research into online mobilization of extremist groups.