'You truly are the worst kind of racist!': Argumentation and polarization in online discussions around gender and radical-right populism.

Abstract

The role of women in populist and radical right-wing parties is a topic that has gained increased scholarly attention. The aim of this article is to add to this literature by analysing how a female right-wing populist leader becomes positioned in online interactions in the hybrid media system. In doing so, the study seeks to make a twofold contribution to research on populist and radical right discourse online: to explore the ways in which notions related to gender and radical-right populism are constructed in such discourse and to shed light on their argumentative character. The study applies a critical discursive psychological approach to study these discursive patterns in two interrelated social media datasets, comprising discussion threads from Facebook and Twitter. The study shows how, through argumentation and dialogue, the commenters' position both each other and the female populist leader as fit or unfit, racist or non-racist, patriotic or non-patriotic and as a victim or culprit of hate-speech and misogyny. The implications of these findings for social psychological research on radical-right populism, political polarization and online hate-speech are discussed.