Cognitive radicalization of right-wing radicals: the experience of thematic analysis

The cognitive radicalization of supporters of right-wing radical ideology is one of the stages on the way to real radicalism, up to involvement in terrorist activities. One of the elements of cognitive radicalization is media consumption, in particular, the study of content in communities of appropriate orientation on social networks. The purpose of this study is to study the thematic features of the content of supporters of right-wing radical ideology in the communities of the VKontakte social network. The study includes an analysis of the content of the most popular posts in these communities. The hypothesis of the study is that the topics of such posts make a significant contribution to the cognitive radicalization of users of social networks. The relevance of posts was determined in accordance with online message metrics (number of likes, reposts, comments). Then, through discourse analysis, the topics of the messages were determined. This allowed us to determine which topics in right-wing communities are most in demand and cause the greatest response from users. The results obtained indicate that the most popular messages are those in which certain enemies of the right are represented, primarily "external enemies" (a broad category that included migrants, supporters of leftist ideas, officials of various levels, patriotic bloggers, etc.). The second most popular thematic block can be conditionally described as "their ownThis includes messages describing the image and behavior of a supporter of right-wing ideology, as well as those expressing approval of the actions of certain persons who do not belong to this subculture. Among other thematic blocks, such as ideology, humor, approved actions of politicians, events, actions, etc., are also distinguished.