Political Communication in Online Spaces: Development of an Extremist Construct Schema Using Thematic Analysis of Online Discussions in the Lead-Up and Fallout of the Capitol Insurrection

This research develops the extremist construct schema proposed by De Bruyn (2020) to explain the communication behaviors of users of web forums by focusing on thedonald.win, a pro-Donald Trump web forum which played a role in the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021.Web forums have become a consi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author:	Nicholson, Brent
Format:	Dissertation
Language:	English
Published:	ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-2021
Subjects:	Communication Political science Web Studies
Online Access:	Get full text
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Summary:	This research develops the extremist construct schema proposed by De Bruyn (2020) to explain the communication behaviors of users of web forums by focusing on thedonald.win, a pro-Donald Trump web forum which played a role in the Capitol Insurrection of January 6, 2021.Web forums have become a consistent mechanism by which people communicate with each other, and extremists are no exception to this. This research concludes that users of thedonald.win engaged consistently in the conflict and role dimensions De Bruyn’s construct schema, while the religion and emotion dimensions were less consistently engaged. This suggests that the extremist construct schema, which was developed in the context of Islamic extremism, has some explanatory power in other cases, though it need refinement. The research suggests a new dimension, conspiracy, based on the conspiratorial focus of users in this data as one potential refinement of this construct.
ISBN:	9798505599655