How Right-Wing Populists Engage with Cross-Cutting News on Online Message Boards: The Case of ForoCoches and Vox in Spain

Anecdotal evidence suggests a link between online message boards and the rise of far-right movements, which have achieved growing electoral success globally. Press accounts and scholarship have suggested these message boards help to radicalize like-minded users through exposure to shared media insulated from cross-cutting viewpoints (e.g., Hine et al. 2017 ; Palmer 2019). To better understand what role online message boards might play for supporters of right-wing populist movements, we focus on the Spanish political party Vox and its supporters’ use of the message board ForoCoches, a fan site for car enthusiasts, which became an important platform for the party. Using more than 120,000 messages collected from threads mentioning the party between 2013–2019, we examine the URLs shared to show how mainstream news media events shape the conversation online and how users not only were exposed but deeply engaged with cross-cutting news sources. We argue that the use of sites such as ForoCoches should be viewed in the context of a broader increasingly hybrid political and media landscape where activity online and offline cannot be understood separate from one another. Moreover, our findings suggest that the online political discussions that take place in Vox-related threads on ForoCoches resemble normatively positive deliberative spaces—albeit in this case in support of illiberal political positions. In other words, our findings complicate conventional notions about the benefits of political talk, especially online, as a democratically desirable end in and of itself.

Hunting in a Hostile Climate?: Hegemonic Masculinity and Emphasized Femininity on a Hunting Message Board

Based on prior research about other male-dominated leisure pursuits, we might expect game hunting to present a hostile climate for its women participants. However, our qualitative analysis of 293 threads posted between 2005 and 2019 on an online hunting message board suggests that women were welcomed within the pastime. While they did not overtly exclude women from their ranks, however, posters curated the boundary between masculinity and femininity, as well as staking out the territory of emphasized femininity. In particular, they accomplished this via benevolent sexism, hostile sexism, and sexual objectification. Our findings not only shed additional light on the gendered dynamics of this pastime but also enriched our knowledge of the ways that hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity can work in tandem—within male-dominated recreational activities, and more broadly.

Mapping the messenger: Exploring the disinformation of QAnon

We analyzed message board content originating with the online persona “Q,” leader of the right-wing conspiracy community known as QAnon. We qualitatively placed all of Q’s messages into one of five qualitatively derived categories: allusion to hidden knowledge, undermining institutions and individuals, inspirational, administration and security, and call to action. Further analysis of how these categories are used by Q over time illustrates how the messaging evolved. Specifically, later Q messaging focused less on hidden knowledge and conspiratorial thinking and more on politics relative to earlier messaging. We also note what Q does not include in messages: very few direct calls to action are made to the QAnon community and no specific, direct calls for violent action. Implications and future directions of research are discussed.

Professional Development in Mathematics Education—Evaluation of a MOOC on Outdoor Mathematics

In this paper, we examine the impact of a massive open online course (MOOC) in the context of outdoor mathematics on the participating teachers’ professional development. We firstly introduce the theoretical background on outdoor mathematics, focusing on math trails with the digital tool MathCityMap and professional development to be accomplished using MOOCs. By taking into account the MOOC “Task Design for Math Trails”, with 93 finalists, we analyze the learning progress of 19 selected case studies from different nations and learning levels by taking into account their answers in a pre- and post-questionnaire and their posts on a specific communication message board, with a special focus on the MOOC’s topics’ task design for outdoor mathematics and the digital tool MathCityMap. The analysis is performed using different quantitative and qualitative approaches. The results show that the teachers studied have benefited from professional development, which is evident in the expansion/evolution of their knowledge from a content, pedagogical, and technological perspective. Finally, we formulate consequences for professional development in STEM education, and conclude the paper with limitations to be drawn and a perspective for further research.

How does qualitative data collection modality affect disclosure of sensitive information and participant experience? Findings from a quasi-experimental study

Focus groups (FGs) and individual interviews (IDIs) can be conducted in-person or in several different online contexts. We conducted a quasi-experimental study and assessed sharing of sensitive or dissenting information and participant comfort in FGs and IDIs across four modalities: (1) in-person, (2) online video-based, (3) online chat-based (synchronous), and (4) online email/message board-based (asynchronous). Participants were systematically assigned to one of the four modalities and randomized to one of 24 FGs or 48 IDIs (N = 171). The study topic was medical risk during pregnancy. All participants also completed a survey on their perceptions of the data collection process. We found no significant difference in the frequency of disclosure of sensitive information by modality. Text-based FGs (chat and message board) were more likely to contain dissenting opinions than visually-based FGs (in-person and video). Participants also reported feeling less rapport and personal comfort in sharing information in the FG video modality than other modalities. These findings provide initial data that can guide researchers in choosing among data collection modalities to maximize participant engagement and comfort.

‘This is not a case of gender inequality. This is a case of injustice’: Perceptions of online resistance to camera sexual voyeurism

In November 2018, Monica Baey, a student at the National University of Singapore (NUS) was recorded by a fellow student while showering in university accommodation. After the perpetrator was issued a formal warning and a one-semester suspension, Baey posted about the case on social media and named the perpetrator. This generated public support, news coverage and institutional reform. In this article, we explore a range of responses to the Monica Baey case through a thematic analysis of publicly available comments about the case on a popular message board forum, Hardwarezone. By contextualising our analysis within the political setting of Singapore, this research demonstrates that public responses to testimony-based resistance require close analysis, as extant tools for citizens to engage in ‘naming and shaming’, were relevant to understanding these responses to this mode of resistance and reflected what Ibrahim (2018) calls ‘everyday authoritarianism’.

RESEARCH ON THE EFFECT OF GOVERNMENT RESPONSIVENESS OF THE CHINESE E-GOVERNMENT—BASED ON THE LOCAL LEADER MESSAGE BOARD (LLMB) DATA OF RENMINWANG WEBSITE

Based on the data collected from the Chinese most authoritative website RenMinWang(人民网, a national website of China official media)’s forum Local Leaders Message Board (LLMB), using logistic regression model, the author analysis 100788 appeal texts on LLMB, covered 30 Chinese provinces. This paper use Big Data and text mining method to analysis the influencing factors of the satisfaction on the interaction between government and netizen. The empirical results show that: the efficiency of government responsiveness significantly improves netizen's satisfaction. In the government response text, the higher the policy complexity is, the lower satisfaction it will get from the netizen. The network interaction between the government and the netizen meets the expectation-value theory. The netizen’s appeal to the Chinese provincial leaders will get a lower satisfaction level of the government’s response, it maybe caused by their appeal’s complexity of solving. Also if the government response text are to long, and if there are more policy and laws, it will get a lower probability of satisfaction.