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Abstract Disrupting the emergence and evolution of potentially violent online extremist movements is a crucial challenge. Extremism research has analyzed such movements in detail, focusing on individual- and movement-level characteristics. But are there system-level commonalities in the ways these movements emerge and grow? Here we compare the growth of the Boogaloos, a new and increasingly prominent U.S. extremist movement, to the growth of online support for ISIS, a militant, terrorist organization based in the Middle East that follows a radical version of Islam. We show that the early dynamics of these two online movements follow the same mathematical order despite their stark ideological, geographical, and cultural differences. The evolution of both movements, across scales, follows a single shockwave equation that accounts for heterogeneity in online interactions. These scientific properties suggest specific policies to address online extremism and radicalization. We show how actions by social media platforms could disrupt the onset and ‘flatten the curve’ of such online extremism by nudging its collective chemistry. Our results provide a system-level understanding of the emergence of extremist movements that yields fresh insight into their evolution and possible interventions to limit their growth.
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CULTURAL EFFECTS OF SOCIAL MOVEMENTS: RACIAL FORMATION AND THE IMMIGRANT RIGHTS STRUGGLE IN THE DEEP SOUTH
This article uses a comparative analysis of immigrant rights movements in Mississippi and Alabama to examine racial formation as a cultural consequence of mobilization. Drawing on archival, media, and interview data, we demonstrate that the Mississippi movement fueled shifts in public racial discourse beyond the movement itself; however, the Alabama movement engendered no such changes, despite its efforts. These outcomes emerged despite the movements’ common origins and the states’ similar political and racial contexts. We trace these outcomes to the guiding racial orientations of each movement. While Mississippi organizers embraced an interracialist organizing approach, Alabama organizers grounded their work in an assimilationist approach. These orientations led the movements to develop different racial framings and different networks, creating pathways of broader cultural influence for the Mississippi movement and closing off pathways in Alabama. These findings speak to enduring questions about movements’ cultural impacts and about the mechanisms driving racial formation.
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- PAR ID:
- 10572471
- Publisher / Repository:
- Mobilization: An International Quarterly
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Mobilization: An International Quarterly
- Volume:
- 27
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 1086-671X
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 409 to 428
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.17813/1086-671X-27-4-409
