Abstract
Alternative news media, which opposes mainstream news media, has been utilised by the far right to proliferate their ideology. This study explores how the scale of discussion, and negative framing, of different groups that are commonly targeted by the far right changes over time. Taking 7089 articles published by a prominent Australian far-right alternative news media outlet over a 7.5-year period, and a corpus of 311 keywords, a keyword frequency analysis and sentiment analysis establish the scale of discussion and negative framing of groups across four time states. Additionally, a computational word frequency analysis in tandem with a qualitative close-reading explores the context of discussions. The findings identify a range of targets of the far right, each centred around different political, racial, religious, gendered and sexual identities. A long-term shift towards extreme right ideologies is found, through increasingly hostile attitudes towards LGBTQIA + people, escalating antisemitism and direct engagement with neo-Nazism.
Introduction
Alternative news media outlets push far-right content into mainstream politics, with Australian media and politicians openly engaging with the far right (Davis, 2023; Richards et al., 2021). This includes racist, heterosexist, and ableist discourses (Richards et al., 2021). However, far-right alternative news media is underexplored in scholarship on far-right ideology and activism, which often focuses on social media platforms (Richards et al., 2021). Alternative news media position themselves against ‘mainstream’ news and has been used by political fringes (Castells, 1997; Ford and Gil, 2001). Alternativeness can be in content, sources, production, dissemination, and values. This paper focuses on how the far right in Australia use alternative news media to construct ‘targets’, such as women, Muslims, Jews, LGBTQIA + people, migrants and people of non-white descent, ‘leftists’, and the ‘mainstream media’.
The far right encompasses the radical and extreme right (Jones et al., 2024; Mudde, 2019). The radical right believes in natural and ‘necessary’ inequalities between people, and while accepting the essence of democracy, rejects fundamental elements of liberal democracy (Busbridge et al., 2020; Mudde, 2019). The extreme right, while sharing the view of inequality, rejects democracy's essence (Jones, 2023; Mudde, 2019). The far right uses alternative news media to challenge traditional media, (dis)inform audiences, cultivate anger and indignation, and foster hatred towards out-groups (Figenschou and Ihlebaek, 2019; Frischlich et al., 2020; Rone, 2022). Common targets include mainstream news media; marginalised groups such as Muslims, Jews, refugees and asylum seekers, people of Asian and African descent, LGBTQIA + people, and women; progressive, egalitarian political ideals such as feminism, globalism, immigration and multiculturalism (Davis, 2019; Dean et al., 2016; Fleming and Mondon, 2018; Nouri and Lorenzo-Dus, 2019; Peucker et al., 2019; Richards, 2019; Richards et al., 2021, 2023).
Far-right alternative news media outlets vary in size, scope, purpose and ideological alignment. Mudde (2019) notes that the international far right has numerous online and offline media organisations that claim to provide ‘real’ or ‘uncensored’ news, and often centre on topics of importance to the far right, such as crime, corruption, integration and immigration. Notable examples include Junge Freiheit in Germany, Gazeta Polska in Poland and Rebel News in Canada (Mudde, 2019). In Australia, major far-right alternative news media outlets include the Unshackled and XYZ (Davis, 2023; Richards et al., 2021, 2023), the latter being the focus of this study. XYZ presents itself as an ‘independent media organisation’ focused on classical liberalism and cultural libertarianism that seeks Western restoration, and promotes free expression, free markets, and free assembly (Davis, 2023; Richards et al., 2021). It also opposes ‘cultural authoritarians’, particularly those on the left advocating for safe spaces for marginalised groups (Davis, 2023; Richards et al., 2021). XYZ engages in various right-wing traditions – from the Conservative Revolution, to the European New Right and neo-Nazism (Richards et al., 2021).
This research aimed to: 1) identify common targets of disinformation, anger, indignation, and hatred in Australian far-right news media; and 2) explain how and why this focus changes over time. The study examined 7089 articles from XYZ over 7.5 years, divided into four 2-year time states. It determined a) which targets were discussed negatively using keyword frequency and computational sentiment analyses, and b) why they were discussed negatively through qualitative close-reading. Findings indicate that targets of far-right disinformation, anger, indignation, and hatred central to far-right ideology can change dramatically, indicating shifts towards increasingly extreme far-right political ideologies—from the radical to the extreme right.
To set the foundation for the study, the literature review outlines contemporary forms of alternative news media and explains their key characteristics, before delineating between the radical and extreme right, along with their use of alternative news media. The materials and methods are then outlined, including data collection and computational and qualitative analyses. Subsequently, the findings and analysis focus on key targets of Australian far-right alternative news media.
Literature review
Alternative news media
Definitions of alternative news media vary, often emphasising their ‘alternativeness’ compared to mainstream media. ‘Alternativeness’ can refer to content (opposing ‘mainstream’ issues, events and opinions), sources (unofficial, minority or dissident voices), production and dissemination (flyers and podcasts), and modes and values (direct action, citizen participation) (Holt et al., 2019; Rauch, 2007). Alternative news media positions itself against (and in opposition to) mainstream news media (Schwarzenegger, 2021), framing itself as a ‘corrective’ (Mayerhöffer, 2021). However, the binary of mainstream-alternative news media is problematised by research finding content overlap, with mainstream and alternative media outlets borrowing from each other (Atton, 2002b; Kim and Hamilton, 2006). For example, mainstream media outlets use citizen journalists to report on neglected issues (typical of alternative news media), while limiting nonprofessional contributors and generating revenue via advertising (typical of mainstream news media) (Kim and Hamilton, 2006). As such, many scholars do not consider these categories mutually exclusive (Atton, 2002a; Couldry and Curran, 2003). Instead, mainstream and alternative news media have been framed as existing along a spectrum, with alternative media on one side and mainstream media on the other (Harcup, 2005), and practices, people and ideas moving in both directions (Harcup, 2005). Consequently, some outlets exhibit more alternative features than others (Rauch, 2015).
Traditionally, alternative news media have published content criticising mainstream media, reported on radical culture and oppositional politics, covered neglected stories, given a platform to marginalised voices, provided sympathetic coverage of social movements, and mobilised readers (Atton, 2002a; Couldry and Curran, 2003). Given the scope of their content and grassroots nature (Rauch, 2007), alternative news media have appealed to fringe political groups and been extensively produced and disseminated within fringe politics across the political spectrum.
Scholars have examined how activist groups use new media technologies to produce alternative news media for informing and organising social movements (Castells, 1997; Ford and Gil, 2001). On the political left, alternative news media has been effective for progressive social movements (Fuchs, 2010). While traditionally associated with progressive groups, benevolent goals, and civic empowerment (Rae, 2021; Schwarzenegger, 2021), recent attention highlights its role in disinformation ecosystems, spreading conspiracy myths, and normalising populist thinking and extremism (Holt, 2019). Currently, in many Western democracies, alternative news media skews towards the political right, especially the far right (Richards et al., 2022). Furthermore, their proliferation of conspiracies, populist interpretation of current affairs, and promotion of extremist ideologies frames alternative news media as a potential threat to the individuals consuming their content and society at large (Schwarzenegger, 2021).
The far right and alternative news media
The far right includes the radical and extreme right, both ‘anti-system’ with hostile attitudes towards liberal democracy, and the extreme right against democracy itself (Jones et al., 2024; Mudde, 2019). The radical right focuses on nationalism (including ultra-nationalism and ethno-nationalism), protecting Western values, anti-immigration sentiment, marginalising non-dominant groups, anti-statist populism, and religious fundamentalism (Dean et al., 2016; Mudde, 2019; Richards et al., 2022). It opposes equality and rights for minority groups (Carter, 2018; Mudde, 2019) but believes its aims can be achieved within liberal democratic frameworks (Jones et al., 2024; Mudde, 2019). The extreme right is deeply nationalistic, xenophobic, racist, anti-democratic and authoritarian (Mudde, 1995) and sometimes embraces neo-Nazism, neo-fascism and accelerationist ideology (Busbridge et al., 2020; Jones et al., 2024; Richards et al., 2022). Both the radical and extreme right use alternative news media (Nilsson, 2021).
For this study, it is crucial to identify groups predominantly targeted by the far right. Research shows that Muslims, Jews, refugees, asylum seekers, people of Asian and African descent, gender and sexually diverse people, and women are targeted by the far right (Akbarzadeh, 2016; Busbridge et al., 2020; Davis, 2019; Dean et al., 2016; Fleming and Mondon, 2018; Nouri and Lorenzo-Dus, 2019; Peucker et al., 2019; Peucker and Smith, 2019b; Richards, 2019; Richards and Jones, 2021). The extreme right, particularly Nazism, is preoccupied with antisemitism, a common denominator transcending nations (Wodak, 2018), while recent radical right groups predominately target Muslims (Hutchinson, 2021). In Australia, extreme right groups have lost popularity in recent years in favour of the radical right, specifically those that are nationalistic, patriotic, anti-immigrant, anti-refugee and often Islamophobic (Dean et al., 2016; Fleming and Mondon, 2018; Peucker et al., 2019). The far-right shift towards anti-Islamic sentiment is international and a key feature mobilising the contemporary far right (McSwiney, 2020).
There is an association between right-wing populist attitudes and alternative news media (Frischlich et al., 2020). The far right uses alternative news media to criticise and delegitimise traditional media (Figenschou and Ihlebaek, 2019). Supporting this, Richards et al. (2021) note that XYZ is named as a reference to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) (Australia's national broadcaster), where the ‘XYZ’ is the opposite of the ‘ABC’. Beyond criticism, the far right use alternative news media to provide their audiences with information on topics of interest, such as right-wing protests (Rone, 2022). However, far-right alternative news media (dis)inform their audience, by mixing accurate (but biased) information with disinformation (Rone, 2022), to develop indignation—a moral-based anger directed at perceived enemies, such as immigrants and the political left (Frischlich et al., 2020). Alternative news media is also used by the far right to organise and mobilise, with Rone (2022) finding that European far-right media sites extended beyond (dis)informing their audience to actively petitioning and organising protests.
Far-right alternative news media often portrays mainstream media as deceitful, biased, partisan, lazy, ignorant, elitist, or failing to report the truth (Figenschou and Ihlebaek, 2019). They accuse journalists and mainstream media of being ‘politically correct’ and intentionally biased due to left-wing ideologies (Figenschou and Ihlebaek, 2019)—this distrust of the political left being a broader far-right tenet (Busbridge et al., 2020; Davis, 2019). Previous research has found that far-right alternative news media outlets often align with far-right ideology, including neo-Nazism and the European New Right (Richards et al., 2021). They also capitalise on online spaces to produce and promote content, such as websites consisting of news, commentary and/or analysis (Figenschou and Ihlebaek, 2019; Mayerhöffer, 2021; Richards et al., 2021; Rone, 2022) and social media and networking platforms, both mainstream (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook) and fringe platforms (Gab, Telegram) to expand their reach (Richards et al., 2021). There is a strong connection between fringe social media platforms (also known as alternative social media) and alternative news media, in that the former echoes the disinformation of the latter (Walther and McCoy, 2021)
While there is extensive scholarship on alternative news media, its strategic use by the far right to proliferate their ideology, particularly in framing targets and evolving anger, indignation, and hatred, is under-researched.
With this scholarly gap in mind, this research poses the following questions:
RQ1: Which common targets of the Australian far right are predominately the object of disinformation, anger, indignation and hatred over time?
RQ2: How are changes in common targets of the far right related to shifts in the extremity of far-right ideology?
Methodology
Data was sourced from the publicly available website of the large Australian far-right alternative news outlet, XYZ, identified as one of two primary far-right alternative news outlets in Australia by Richards et al. (2021). Metadata (categories, tags, titles, URLs, publication dates, excerpts, and authors) and the text content of all articles published by XYZ were collected using custom Python scrapers. A total of 7089 articles were collected from May 30, 2015, to November 28, 2022, covering 7.5 years. For the temporal analysis, publication dates were used to split the dataset into four periods: 2015–2016 (TS1), 2017–2018 (TS2), 2019–2020 (TS3), and 2021–2022 (TS4).
A mixed-methods analysis was used to understand the shifting targets of Australian far-right alternative news media. Keywords signifying different marginalised groups were created, resulting in a corpus of 311 keywords developed from the literature review, article content engagement, and refined using WordNets. The articles within the dataset were split into individual sentences (n = 182,473) and the occurrence of keywords in sentences was summed to quantify which groups were being discussed the most across time. A sentiment analysis using VADER (Valence Aware Dictionary for Sentiment Reasoning) from Python's NLTK determined how groups were framed. VADER calculates positivity, negativity, neutrality and compound sentiment. The compound sentiment score was the metric used in this research, which was calculated by summing the sentiment score of each sentiment-bearing word, and then normalising it, giving a score between −1 (most negative) and +1 (most positive) which shows the overall sentiment of the data point.
While these computational methods provided insights into the prevalence and sentiment of discussions about different groups, they did not reveal the nature of these discussions. To address this issue Maloney et al. (2024) suggest coupling computational and qualitative methods, and as such the 100 most negative sentences about each target, in each time state, were subjected to a word frequency analysis, identifying the most commonly occurring words after removing stop words. This dataset was also subjected to a qualitative close-reading, with each sentence manually read and interpreted by a trained coder. The coder determined the underlying narratives and broader social and cultural context of the most common words in the most negative sentences. For example, the word frequency analysis of the 100 most negative sentences about immigrants in TS1 showed that ‘Europe’ and ‘European’ were highly prevalent words—subsequently, the close-reading revealed the context was the European ‘refugee crisis’ and narratives surrounding demographic replacement and invasion of ‘white’ nations by non-white ‘aliens’. In tandem, the word frequency analysis and close-reading of the 100 most negative sentences about each target in each time state provided comprehensive insights into the nature of discussion and shifts over time.
Before proceeding to the findings and discussion, readers should be warned that verbatim extracts from articles include racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic language. The ethical decision to include this uncensored language was made to avoid downplaying the severity of the prejudice communicated.
Findings and discussion
Table 1 shows the findings of the keyword frequency and sentiment analysis, documenting the normalised frequency of mentions and mean compound score for each group across each time state. This highlights changes in the framing of different groups over time.
The average compound sentiment score and the normalised frequency of mentions of each target across all time states.
While Table 1 highlights the changes in the framing of groups over time, Figure 1 outlines broader trends within each time state. Figure 1 plots the mean compound sentiment score and the normalised keyword count relative to each other, showing how frequently each target was negatively discussed over the four time states.
Scatterplots plotting the average compound sentiment score and the normalised frequency of mentions of each target across all time states.
Figure 1 shows that women were typically the most discussed group, averaging 1755 mentions per time state, and were usually framed negatively, with an average compound sentiment score of −0.06. LGBTQIA + people were discussed consistently, averaging 465 mentions per time state, and negatively, with an average compound sentiment score of −0.04. The mainstream media was regularly framed negatively, averaging 912 mentions per time state, and an average compound sentiment score of −0.065. The political left was also discussed consistently, averaging 760 mentions per time state.
The ‘political left’, as defined by XYZ, encompassed a range of subgroups and ideologies. The mainstream left included centre-left politics (generally focusing on the Australian Labor Party, Australia's major centre-left political party); the progressive left encompassed political ideologies the far right associate with progressivism (sometimes termed the ‘regressive left’) such as multiculturalism, globalism, feminism, postmodernism, social justice and ‘cultural Marxism’; the far-left encompassed political ideologies the far right associate with far-left politics, such as communism and socialism as well as political activism such as antifascism. Within the political left, the mainstream left was mentioned the most, followed by the far-left and the progressive left, averaging 1322, 870, 88 mentions per time state respectively. The negativity of the discussion was skewed towards the far-left, which had an average compound sentiment score of −0.08, compared to −0.06 for the progressive left, and 0.002 for the mainstream left. It is worth noting that the negative sentiment towards the far-left in particular escalated significantly over time, with a compound sentiment score of 0.01 in TS1 compared to −0.14 in TS3 and −0.13 in TS4.
Within XYZ discourse, race was often constructed in a way that created homogenous and racist categories. For example, rhetoric surrounding ‘African’ gangs rarely specifies a specific African nation, and ‘Asians’ were often grouped together, as were ‘immigrants’ (which included references to refugees and asylum seekers). In doing so, differences between distinct peoples within these homogenous categories were erased, and once established, these categories were positioned as out-groups relative to an assumed white in-group identity. Of the constructed homogeneous non-white groups, ‘black’ people were the most negatively framed, with an average compound sentiment score of −0.09, followed by ‘immigrants’ with an average of −0.05, and ‘Asians’ with −0.04.
Muslims were the most negatively framed group by a significant margin, with an average compound sentiment score of −0.19. While the framing of Muslims became increasingly negative, discussion surrounding this group declined significantly over time, from a peak of 1538 mentions in TS1, to a low of 232 mentions in TS4. The opposite occurred with the discussion of Jews, peaking in TS4 at 1569 mentions, compared to just 138 mentions in TS1. Jews were consistently framed negatively, with an average compound sentiment score of −0.05.
Now that the quantitative findings of the keyword frequency analysis and the sentiment analysis have been outlined, the following sections will explore the nature of the discussion surrounding targets by drawing on the qualitative close-reading. The sections will be structured around targets, and will include sections on mainstream media and the political left, non-white peoples, LGBTQIA + people, Muslims and Jews.
Mainstream media and the political left
Consistent with previous research, mainstream media were frequently discussed. Terms like ‘the mainstream media’ or ‘MSM’ were used pejoratively, replete with conspiratorial narratives about ‘feminist’, ‘globalist’ and ‘transgender’ political agendas.
Figure 1 shows that ‘the media’ was discussed consistently and negatively across all time states, however, discussion frequency decreased over time (from 1233 mentions in TS1 to 591 in TS4), while negative framing increased. ‘ABC’ was consistently one of the most commonly occurring news media keywords across all time states. The ABC was framed negatively—regularly accused of having a left-wing bias, and being ‘publicly funded communist propaganda’ responsible for spreading ‘fake news and dangerous conspiracy theor[ies]’. Other news media outlets targeted included The Cable News Network (CNN, US-based), The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS, also Australian-based). Far-right alternative news media regularly delegitimise mainstream news media outlets based on a perceived left-wing bias (Figenschou and Ihlebaek, 2019)—a tactic openly employed by XYZ.
Perceived left-wing bias in mainstream media outlets is consistent with the preoccupation XYZ (and the far right (Busbridge et al., 2020; Davis, 2019)) has with the political left. Discussion of the mainstream left regularly centred on both national and international topical events. National topical events that were focused on included the racism targeted towards Australian Rules Footballer Adam Goodes; the Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey (that sought to legalise same-sex marriage); and domestic acts of political and religious terrorism. Global events were also discussed widely, such as the war in the Middle East and associated terrorist groups such as ISIS; Black Lives Matter protests; the so-called 2015 Refugee Crisis in Europe; and the 2016 US Federal Election, amongst many others. During these discussions, the mainstream political left was framed across time as corrupt, immoral and ineffective. Ideologies and activist groups within the far-left were discussed as often as the mainstream left across most time states, however, they were framed significantly more negatively, particularly in T3 and T4. One of the most discussed elements of the far-left were different antifascist groups, such as ANTIFA, which the far right see as ‘natural enemies’ (Campion, 2019a; Peucker and Smith, 2019a). Antifascists were discussed consistently across time, often framed as ‘terrorists’, comparable to ISIS, who through acts of political violence, posed an existential threat to Australian society. Communists were also framed similarly.
The ‘progressive left’ were discussed extensively, and negatively, across time. Feminism was framed very negatively, with the second most negative average compound score of −0.11, confirming existing research (Mudde, 2019). Contemporary feminism was framed as being regressive and violent, adhered to by ‘weak’, ‘anorexic’, ‘pink-haired’ women who are perpetually ‘outraged’ and ‘offended’. ‘Social justice warriors’, who have been the target of Australian alternative news media outlets in the past (Busbridge et al., 2020), were accused of ‘degeneracy, and a complete inversion of morality’, which was sometimes connected to the ‘LGBT agenda’. Globalism and globalists were discussed consistently across all time states, but negative sentiment increased with time, which was correlated with their framing as shadowy conspirators, aiding in the development of a global monoculture. Globalists were described consistently as either being part of, or having successfully infiltrated, groups of elites, such as politicians, academics and the media. Other elements of the ‘progressive left’ were targeted, including the vaguely defined ‘postmodernism’, for standing in opposition to ‘rationality’, ‘empiricism’, ‘science’, ‘clarity of mind’, ‘dialogue’ and ‘the idea of the individual’. Multiculturalism was consistently discussed, although it was not amongst the most negatively framed elements of the political left. The consistent negative framing of the political left supports existing research which has found that far-right alternative news media has a strong anti-left-wing sentiment (Busbridge et al., 2020; Davis, 2019).
Non-white peoples
Non-white peoples, including ‘immigrants’ from predominantly non-white countries, people of African and Asian descent (often described homogenously as ‘Africans’ or ‘blacks’, and ‘Asians’) were all consistently discussed, and usually in a negative way, aligning with existing scholarship on the Australian far right (Busbridge et al., 2020; Dean et al., 2016; Fleming and Mondon, 2018; Peucker et al., 2019; Richards, 2019).
‘Blacks’ or ‘Africans’ were mentioned an average of 635 times per time state, ‘Asians’ 602 times, and ‘immigrants’ 825 times. Notably, discourse surrounding these groups overlapped. Prevalent within the discussion of non-white peoples were the perceived dangers of non-white immigration. This was particularly prevalent in TS1, during which immigrants were mentioned 883 times, where global events such as the so-called European ‘refugee crisis’ dominated discourse; ‘Europe’, ‘European’ and ‘migrant’ being amongst the most prominent words in this time state. The far right internationally has likened this so-called refugee crisis to an invasion of ‘white’ nations by non-white ‘aliens’ (Mudde, 2019). These narratives referenced the white replacement (or white genocide) conspiracy theory, with claims that ‘indigenous’ white populations are being systematically replaced by non-white populations, especially black and Muslim people, due to increased cultural diversity (Greene, 2019) and racial integration (Kivisto and Rundblad, 2000), amongst other factors.
Other local events and issues were also discussed, such as alleged African gang violence in Australia, which has previously been found to be part of Australian far-right discourse (Campion, 2019b; Peucker et al., 2019). These topical issues were used to substantiate narratives around crime and violence perpetrated by non-white people, and included African gang-related petty crime (theft) and violent crime (attacking white people). Aside from being discussed relative to immigration and gang-related violence, discourse surrounding ‘black’ people also centred on the Black Lives Matter (BLM) social movement, with a total of 124 mentions. Discussion of BLM was highest in TS3 (47 mentions), when global BLM protests were at their peak. Similar to ANTIFA and other antifascists, BLM protestors were almost invariably framed as ‘terrorists’ and ‘criminals’—in fact BLM and ANTIFA were often discussed in tandem. Another topical event capitalised on by XYZ in late TS3 and throughout TS4 was the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous scholarship found that COVID-19 was exploited by the Australian far right, promoting Sinophobia and anti-Asian racism (Sengul, 2024). As outlined above, immigration, multiculturalism and left-wing political ideologies were identified as tools used by oppressive ruling elites to destroy ‘Australian identity’. Similarly, COVID-19 and its associated ‘tyranny’ were depicted as tools used by elites to dominate Australians, with vaccine mandates, lockdowns, and alleged police brutality at protests highlighted. Some discourse even framed COVID-19 as a ‘bioweapon’ used by elites to gain total control over Western nations already ‘fractured’ by immigration.
Women were consistently one of the most discussed groups, but as in need of ‘protection’ rather than as targets. This aligns with scholarship showing the far right's ambivalent sexism, combining benevolent and hostile sexism (Jones et al., 2024; Mudde, 2019). The far right projects sexist norms onto “their” women, such as motherhood and reproducing children, and racist/nativist norms, including not dating outside their culture or race (Jones et al., 2024; Mudde, 2019; Ralph-Morrow, 2022). Women also increasingly justified hostility and violence towards black people. A notable spike in negative framing of women occurred in TS4, with the keywords most frequently associated with women being ‘white’, ‘women’ and ‘black’, ‘men’. Specifically, the threat of sexual violence perpetrated by ‘black men’ against ‘white women’ and ‘white girls’ was used to justify anti-black racism: Ten Africans pack rape two teenage girls in Brisbane so we’re just gonna have to keep burning crosses.
The portrayal of women (especially white women) as the victims of the sexual depravity of non-white men is a common tactic employed by the far right (Mudde, 2019; Ralph-Morrow, 2022), so much so that Mudde (2019) defines femonationalism as the use of women and women's rights in support of nativism. Within these narratives, non-white men are framed as hypermasculine in their voracious appetite for white women and girls, and simultaneously hypomasculine through accusations of engagement in deviant sexual practices such as bestiality (Ralph-Morrow, 2022). Groups on the extreme right communicate similar narratives about non-white men, with neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) considering black men a risk because they intend to ‘rape white women’ as well as adolescent boys (Ezekiel, 2002). The above quote also documents a shift within XYZ discourse in later time states (such as TS4) towards explicit engagement with more extreme, white supremacist ideology—‘burning crosses’ being a reference to a practice of the KKK. This also reflects XYZ's adoption of elements from the international extreme right, such as the KKK, a uniquely American group. Research shows the Australian far right often draws from the international far right, with many Australian far-right organisations, both historical and recent, taking inspiration from North America and Britain (Busbridge et al., 2020; Peucker and Smith, 2019a, 2019b).
Figure 1 shows that discussions about ‘Asian people’ were most negative in TS1 due to narratives around Islamic terrorism, especially speculation about the 2015 Bangkok bombing perpetrators, and references to various Asian wars, such as the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the Chinese revolution. Notably, discussions of Asian people in early time states typically focused on negative events (war, terrorism) but did not centre Asian people in a negative way. However, this changed in later time states, especially TS3 and TS4, where negativity increased, and centred on China, with ‘China’ and ‘Chinese’ being the most commonly occurring words related to Asian people in these time states. Notably, ‘war’ still occurred frequently in later time states, often outlining crisis narratives involving escalating tensions between Australia (and other Western countries) and China, and the development of either a trade or military war. Anti-China framing is not uncommon in Australian far-right discourse, with McSwiney (2020) finding anti-China sentiment present with discourse surrounding the 2019 Australian federal election.
Discussion of Asian people in TS3 and TS4 often referenced COVID-19, mirroring Sengul (2024), who found the pandemic led to a ‘re-Othering’ of Asian Australians rooted in Australia’s white settler colonial history. Anti-China rhetoric within the Australian far right, including XYZ, blamed China for COVID-19 with references to the ‘China Virus’ (Ajala et al., 2022). Similarly, Sengul (2024) notes that the World Economic Forum's (WEF) pandemic recovery plan promoted the ‘Great Reset’ conspiracy theory within the Australian far right, which was also present within XYZ content—the WEF being blamed for ‘globally uniform’ lockdowns, vaccine mandates, ‘Chinese-style’ digital surveillance, and social credit systems. Other COVID-19 conspiracies included manipulated case numbers and the pandemic being a fabricated ‘plandemic’, consistent with previous findings in Australian far-right discourse (Jones, 2023).
In later time states, Asian men (especially those from Bangladesh and Pakistan) were also sometimes framed as sexual predators, preying on white women and children.
LGBTQIA + people
XYZ articles contained consistent, regular, and increasingly negative discussions of LGBTQIA + people. In earlier time states, in particular TS1, references to LGBTQIA + people were not necessarily favourable, but were rarely overtly negative. In TS1 and TS2, references to LGBTQIA + people often centred on same-sex marriage, with ‘same sex marriage’, ‘gay marriage’ and ‘plebiscite’ occurring frequently in these time states. Same-sex marriage was widely debated in Australia during TS1 and TS2 in the lead-up to the 2017 Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, which asked Australians whether same-sex couples should be able to get married. The attitudes towards same-sex marriage present within the discourse were largely negative, claiming that same-sex marriage would result in damage to nuclear families and children who would grow up ‘without one or both of their parents’. The discourse itself was not necessarily explicit, with one author even noting: Do you see a screed full of invective and anti-gay pejoratives here? No. Why is that? As it happens, I have had several good friends who were gay men. I’m not interested in hurting their feelings, or the feelings of anyone else. But gay marriage is a bad idea.
However, discourse surrounding LGBTQIA + people became more extreme and openly homophobic over time, with negativity peaking in TS3 and TS4. Notably, within these time periods, the keyword ‘children’ occurred more frequently, becoming the most common keyword associated with LGBTQIA + people in TS4. Increasing references to children reflects the growing prevalence of the homophobic myth that connects LGBTQIA + people with paedophilia (Robinson, 2005). Homophobic references to LGBTQIA + people, in particular gay and transgender men, being paedophiles occurred frequently in later time states, with explicit examples of this type of discourse including ‘faggots rape kids’. Homophobic discourse also made claims about broader, organised attempts by left-wing (and often Jewish) elites to indoctrinate children with their ‘gender ideology’: The people who attempt to indoctrinate children with gay propaganda or normalize perverse sexual practices with grade school kids should be arrested and imprisoned on felony charges for the sexual corruption of minors.
The quotation reflects escalating homophobia within XYZ, common in the far right. It alludes to a ‘homosexual agenda’ that allegedly threatens the nuclear family, seen as the nation's nucleus (Mudde, 2019). This agenda is viewed as global, operated by a ruling elite, often termed ‘globohomo’—a portmanteau of ‘globalist’ and ‘homosexual’ or ‘homogenous’ (Zhang and Davis, 2022). Globohomo connects to the previously outlined negative framing of globalists, as it claims a globalist plot to destroy Western civilisation and culture through a global monoculture and gender ideology opposing heterosexual masculinity (Zhang and Davis, 2022). LGBTQIA + people were also discussed in Islamophobic discourse, detailed in the following section.
Muslims
Muslims were the most negatively framed group across all time states, with an average compound sentiment score of −0.19. Figure 1 illustrates how the framing of Muslims generally became more extreme over time, in particular in TS3 and TS4, with sentiment scores of −0.25 and −0.23 respectively. However, Muslims also saw the largest decrease in discussion frequency of any group, dropping from 1538 mentions in TS1, to 232 mentions in TS4.
In earlier time states, frequently occurring words included ‘violence’, ‘terrorism’, ‘attack’, ‘terrorist’ and ‘war’. Capitalising on international Islamic terrorist groups such as ISIS and their acts of terror, as well as domestic Australian-based terrorist attacks (which has previously been found to fuel Islamophobia in Australia (Akbarzadeh, 2016)), Islam and Muslims were framed as dangerous and untrustworthy: As most Westerners know Islam is synonymous with terrorism, slavery, beheadings, stonings, honour killings, homosexual executions, torture, amputations, assassinations, Jew hatred, Christian murder, rape, child marriages, genital mutilation and floggings.
Notably, in the quotation above, LGBTQIA + and Jewish people are evoked as victims of Islam, and used to substantiate its barbarity. Indeed, this use of LGBTQIA + people was not uncommon, and in TS1 and TS2 ‘Muslim’ and ‘Islam’ were amongst the most commonly occurring terms associated with LGBTQIA + people. This framing of LGBTQIA + people as victims of Islam is typical of far-right discourse, with Mudde (2019) defining homonationalism as the use of gay people and gay rights in support of nativism, in particular Islamophobia, and that LGBTQIA + rights are framed as part of the ‘national culture’ that is being threatened by Muslim immigration.
Women were used in a similar way. ‘Women’, ‘gang’ and ‘group’ were prominent words within discourse associated with Islam and Muslims in early time states, and ‘Muslim’, ‘Islamic’, ‘violence’ and ‘victims’ were amongst the most recurring words associated within women. These words occurred in narratives that Muslim men pose a risk to white women, girls and boys by perpetrating gang rapes (mirroring similar narratives surrounding black and Asian men): Thousands of girls in single northern towns were groomed, sexually assaulted and raped by muslim gangs.
The framing of Muslims as terrorists, homophobes and sexual predators persisted in later time states, as they continued to be the most negatively framed group. However, discussion of Muslims in general declined significantly in TS3 and TS4 (see Figure 1), compared to TS1 and TS2. While discussion of Muslims declined, discussions of Jews increased, reaching a peak in TS4 as the second most discussed group.
Jews
The framing of Muslims as terrorists in early time states was directly connected to discourse surrounding Jews. In contrast, Jews as a target group underwent the largest shift in focus—from rarely being discussed in TS1 (138 mentions), to being the second most discussed group in TS4, (1569 mentions). The discussion of Jews in early time states focused on them as victims, not targets of XYZ, and had relatively neutral and even sympathetic framings—discussing Jewish victims of terror attacks committed by Muslims in modern-day Israel, as well as historic atrocities, such as the Holocaust. Discourse from earlier time states even decried narratives claiming ‘Jews are still pulling all the strings of the world's power’ as conspiracy theories and spoke of the dangers of Hitler's National Socialism, noting: Depicting Jews as rats was an effective way to quickly dehumanise the enemy and illicit intense public fear and hatred when you couldn’t find any particularly damning evidence against them that warranted persecution in the public square.
However, over time, Jews were framed in a radically different way. In TS3 and TS4, antisemitism associated with neo-Nazism became present, and common. Holocaust denial emerged through claims that the Holocaust ‘never happened’ and that only ‘a few hundred thousand Jews died during World War 2, mostly in German labour camps in the last few months of the war from disease and starvation due to lack of supplies’; Jews were increasingly referred to as parasites (something present in Nazi propaganda (Redles, 2011)); Jews were increasingly closely intertwined with Communism through references to ‘Jewish Bolsheviks’ and that in 1930s Germany ‘a high proportion of Jews were communists’—this being another trope common within Nazi propaganda (Herf, 2005).
Additionally, Jews were accused of perpetuating a genocide, by trying to ‘exterminate every last trace of white Australia’, which echoes the white replacement conspiracy theory. Other antisemitic conspiracy theories typical of neo-Nazism occurred in TS3 and TS4, most notably the Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG) conspiracy theory. The ZOG conspiracy theory claims that Jewish powers control the Western states, including the United States federal government, media and financial systems (Jones, 2023). Within the dataset ZOG was referenced, specifically: ZOG pushes degeneracy to undermine the family, mass immigration and multiculturalism to undermine ethnic bonds, debt slavery and central banks to undermine financial independence, and falsehood to undermine Christian faith.
Increasing antisemitism and the adoption of neo-Nazi narratives reflect XYZ's significant shift towards the extreme right, specifically neo-Nazism. This is evidenced by TS3 and TS4 articles that openly promote, support, and defend well-known Australian neo-Nazi groups like the National Socialist Network and their members, such as Thomas Sewell, who has contributed articles to XYZ as a guest author.
Conclusion
Using a large dataset of all articles published by XYZ, and a novel blend of qualitative and computational methods, this study has explored the shifting targets of Australian far-right alternative news media's disinformation, anger, indignation and hatred, making several notable contributions.
The results reinforce previous research that has found the primary function of alternative news media is as a ‘corrective’ to mainstream media outlets (Holt et al., 2019; Mayerhöffer, 2021). The study also provides empirical evidence supporting previous findings that alternative news media delegitimise mainstream news media outlets using claims of left-wing bias (Figenschou and Ihlebaek, 2019). The paper extends this research by contributing new empirical understandings of who is targeted by far-right alternative news media; how target groups are framed; and the evolving nature of anger, indignation and hatred aimed at these groups over four key time periods.
This research yielded large-scale quantitative findings and detailed qualitative insights into how and why groups were targeted over time. Generally, the political left was framed negatively, as is common in far-right discourses (Davis, 2019; Fleming and Mondon, 2018; Peucker et al., 2019). The far-left was targeted most, framed as a natural enemy of the far right (Campion, 2019a), but the progressive and mainstream left were also accused of corruption and ineptitude. Crisis narratives and conspiracy theories like white replacement supported racist discourses about non-white people. Femonationalism positioned white women and girls as victims of non-white men's sexual perversions—a tactic regularly employed by the far right (Mudde, 2019; Ralph-Morrow, 2022). Framing of LGBTQIA + people shifted from homonationalist narratives justifying Islamophobia to openly homophobic and transphobic conspiracy theories, including associations of gay and transgender men with paedophilia (Robinson, 2005) and a ‘globohomo regime’ (Zhang and Davis, 2022).
Over time, a dramatic shift occurred when targeting religious groups, from a primary focus on the dangers of Muslims and non-white immigration, to conspiratorial narratives surrounding Jews and their perceived omnipotent power, and nefarious intent. This change suggests an ideological shift from the radical to extreme right—a finding reinforced by increasing support, promotion and collaboration with neo-Nazi groups. This finding is of particular note given that scholars have documented a decrease in antisemitism and the extreme right within the Australian far-right landscape in recent years, and a rise in anti-immigrant and Islamophobic sentiment associated with the radical right (Dean et al., 2016; Fleming and Mondon, 2018; Peucker et al., 2019). The findings of this research suggest that this may no longer be the case, at least for major Australian far-right alternative news media outlets. Notably, these findings add to recent scholarship that suggests there could be a resurgence in more extreme far-right political ideologies in Australia. For example, Jones et al. (2024) found that there has been a recent resurgence in public visibility of neo-Nazi organisations within Australia, which appears bound up in the COVID-19 pandemic.
The increasing focus of XYZ on extreme right discourse is concerning, as research indicates that alternative news media outlets can proliferate conspiracies, offer populist interpretations of current affairs, and promote extremist ideologies—posing a threat to individuals and society at large (Schwarzenegger, 2021). Furthering this concern is existing research that has found that XYZ is uniquely situated to facilitate the entry of far-right discourse into more mainstream political venues (Richards et al., 2021). This occurs through engagement with mainstream news, Australian politicians, and far-right leaders, as well as XYZ's propagandised coverage of political events (Richards et al., 2021).
The findings suggest that XYZ is well-placed to mainstream and normalise the far right in Australia, especially through propagandised coverage of political events, capitalising on social and political issues to further ideological agendas (Richards, 2019). Many of these events were international, such as the European ‘refugee crisis’, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the BLM movement, which XYZ localised to the Australian context. For example, COVID-19 discussions included Australian responses to the pandemic, and BLM discussions engaged with protests in Australia. Similar patterns have been documented within the Australian far right, such as the Australianising of the Pepe the Frog meme with a Ned Kelly mask and adapting Trump's ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan to ‘Make Australia Grouse Again’ (Davis, 2019). Uniquely Australian issues were also centred, such as discussion surrounding Australian Rules Footballer Adam Goodes, domestic Islamic terrorism and alleged African gang violence. The propagandising of these topical international and national events regularly centred on various racial identities, reflecting ‘racism's shameless, chameleon-like capacity to morph and adapt whenever it sets its gaze on a new object of resentment’ (Abdel-Fattah, 2021: 2). This highlights the diversity and fluidity of racial prejudices in Australian far-right discourse, which combines contemporary social fears and Australia's white settler colonial history (Sengul, 2024).
Future research should continue to monitor the macroscopic ideological shifts of far-right alternative news media outlets, and consider mapping them relative to other forms of far-right political organisation, such as political parties and social movement organisations (Mudde, 2019), to establish coordination, collaboration and cross-membership.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
