This paper critically interrogates the role of news media in mainstreaming, normalizing and amplifying contemporary far-right political actors, parties, and movements in the twenty-first century. Through a critical interdisciplinary literature review and two qualitative case studies of high-profile media interviews with former Trump administration strategist Steve Bannon and leading Trump-supporting politician Marjorie Taylor Greene, this paper explores both the limitations and ethics of long-standing journalistic dogmas such as objectivity and neutrality in the face of rising extremism, fascism, and anti-democratic politics on a global scale. Drawing on Whitney Phillips’ ‘oxygen of amplification’ thesis, the paper argues that despite the best intentions of journalists, news media has (unwittingly) played into the hands of the contemporary far-right. The paper concludes with a set of research-informed recommendations to assist journalists and editors in engaging more ethically with the far-right, particularly in ways that limit the uncritical amplification of their reactionary, conspiratorial and anti-democratic political project.

Given the paucity of studies on the communicative approaches employed by vice presidents in political public relations and studies on Africa in public relations, the current study analyzes how the Vice President of Ghana, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, enacted authenticity to construct his public image on Twitter. The study used Multimodal Discourse Analysis to analyze 161 tweets, finding the manifestation of cues of authenticity: ordinariness, consistency, immediacy, and intimacy in Dr. Bawumia’s display of strategic humility and respect, his commitment to technology and Information, Communication, and Technology in Ghana, and his leadership by example. We argue that he constructs the image of an exemplary, caring, trustworthy, pious, and proactive leader, which helps him to build social and political capital. Implications of our study for public communication are discussed.

Under what conditions do violent tactics receive public support? Focusing on the process of social influence, this article utilizes a survey on the 2019 Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Bill Movement to test how social interactions with people with different orientations toward the movement (opposing, neutral, supportive) relate to individuals’ tolerance of violent tactics. Social interactions with neutral people generated the largest effect, as such interactions made people particularly intolerant of violent tactics. Interactions with opposition networks also led people to disapprove of violent tactics, although the association is weaker than interactions with neutral people. Interactions with movement supporters did not make people condemn violent tactics but instead increased their tolerance. Additional analyses show that such interaction effects hold across political affiliations. We discuss the implications for public opinion and democracy.

The responses of 1,443 individuals to a questionnaire were used to test a cognitive-decision mediation model that predicts the expression of an opinion. Fear of Social Isolation and opinion congruence predicted a media surveillance motive that was mediated by attention, interpersonal discussions, and elaboration. In turn, perceived familiarity with an issue was mediated mainly by attention, opinion perspective diversity by discussions, and structural knowledge by elaboration. Also, information instrumentality (the perceived usefulness of information) mediated perceived familiarity and opinion perspective diversity, whereas presenting counter-arguments was mediated by structural knowledge. Finally, information instrumentality was the strongest predictor of opinion expression, followed by counter-arguing and cognitive rehearsal.

In the era of dissonant public spheres, negative campaigning on social media is an increasingly relevant topic. This study enhances the understanding of negative campaigning in the Portuguese political communication context by introducing three advancements: (1) an assessment of which factors influence the use of negative campaigning by political parties on social media; (2) a more detailed characterization of the attacks and their targets; and (3) its impact on the public. To achieve this, we conducted a quantitative content analysis of all the posts by Portuguese political parties on Facebook during the 2022 National Election ( n = 1384). Our findings suggest that negative campaigning has increased in Portugal over the last decade. Attacks came mostly from challengers, more extreme and better-resourced parties; they were predominantly based on economic matters and mainly issued through audiovisual formats. The key targets were parties, especially the established ones, who faced both issue-based and trait-based attacks throughout the electoral month. Furthermore, users seem receptive to negativity, as negative campaigning posts performed better across nearly all engagement metrics. The implications of these results are further discussed.

This article examines the representations of Myanmar migrant workers and the Thai government’s press conferences in Thai and English during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the lens of critical discourse analysis, the migrant workers were portrayed as helpless recipients of assistance, subtly reinforcing the alienation of migrants against the host society’s attempt at egalitarianism. The Thai government was positioned as a “protector,” strengthening the existing hierarchical power relations with foreign workers at the bottom of the social ladder. Buddhist morality was invoked to maintain patron–client relationships with the false impression of “brother and sister,” positioning Thai authorities as the attentive protector and Thai people as the benevolent host to whom the migrants should respect, obey, and be grateful. This supports Foucault’s notion that power is not the plain oppression of the powerless but the strategic building of power relations and dynamics between institutions and people in a society.

Characterized by robust technical anonymity and a conspicuous absence of stringent regulations, the dark side of the Internet represent the less illuminated aspects of the digital world. This study analyzed a national survey conducted in the United States in November 2020 ( N = 702) to understand the relationship between using the dark side of the Internet and misinformation beliefs in both public health and political context. With the help of propensity score matching and instrumental variables, the results reveal that the users of the dark side of the Internet are more inclined to believe the misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 US Presidential Election. Overall, the findings significantly contribute to the existing body of knowledge concerning the social impacts of technologies that grant a high level of user anonymity while operating with minimal regulatory oversight.

In recent years, political instability in South American countries has led to an increase in violent collective actions. While extensive research has examined normative collective action, fewer studies have investigated its non-normative forms, particularly regarding the comparison of the predictive role of participative and group efficacy in non-normative collective behavior. By analyzing the dynamics between social media, efficacy, and non-normative collective behavior, this study aims to provide insights into the indirect effect of group and participative efficacy in the relationship between political social media use and non-normative collective action. Structural Equation Modeling analysis was done using a sample of 1979 participants from Chile, Colombia, and Peru. Participative efficacy was found to mediate the relationship between political social media use and non-normative collective action in all three countries, while only in Peru group efficacy mediated this relationship, with a negative effect. The authors concluded that non-normative collective action is better predicted by individual perceptions such as participative efficacy.

Since the 2008 US Presidential election, the salience of Twitter in political discourse has been apparent. Donald Trump revolutionized presidential communication through his use of Twitter by communicating to narrow audiences, which are difficult to reach with traditional communication channels. Although now back on the platform, his controversial tweets were subject to widespread scrutiny and eventually led to him being permanently banned from Twitter. Due to Trump’s status as a political elite, it is essential to examine his rhetoric’s morality as public elites have the power to shape public opinion. However, existing literature on morality and presidential communication does not offer an analysis of whether moral disengagement is used by presidents on new media platforms such as Twitter. This study employs quantitative content analysis to explore the use of moral disengagement mechanisms as a communicative tool by Trump approximately 3 months before the 2020 US Presidential election. Our analysis found that at least one moral disengagement strategy was present in Trump’s tweets 45% of the time, with attack being the most commonly used strategy. Moral disengagement mechanisms were used most commonly when other politicians, election/voting, or news was mentioned. Overall, based on an index that we created, a low level of moral disengagement was used.