Right-wing, populist, controlled by foreign powers? Topic diversification and partisanship in the content structures of German-language alternative media
Müller, Philipp
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Freudenthaler, Rainer
DOI:
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https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2022.2058972
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URL:
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https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/21670811.2...
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Document Type:
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Article
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Year of publication:
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2022
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The title of a journal, publication series:
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Digital Journalism
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Volume:
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10
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Issue number:
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8
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Page range:
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1363-1386
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Place of publication:
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London [u.a.]
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Publishing house:
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Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
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ISSN:
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2167-0811 , 2167-082X
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Publication language:
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English
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Institution:
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School of Humanities > Institut für Medien- u. Kommunikationswissenschaft
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Subject:
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070 News media, journalism, publishing
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Abstract:
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This study investigates the overall topic compositions and traces of right-wing populist partisanship in the content structures of German-language digital alternative news outlets. We argue that a topically heterogeneous landscape of right-wing populist alternative news outlets could maximize the reach of right-wing populist messages. Using LDA topic modeling, we explore the topical structures of nine different outlets (n = 66,965 articles) and empirically identify meaningful groups of outlets. Our analyses suggest the existence of two topically heterogeneous clusters of alternative news media: (1) core right-wing populist outlets, with around 45–50% of articles coming from topics that are related to right-wing or populist politics; and (2) topically diverse outlets. The latter group's topic selection also reveals right-wing populist partisanship, but less prominently so, while putting more emphasis on general interest news topics, such as sports, economy, or international relations. This group also includes Russian state-owned RT deutsch and Falun Gong-affiliated Epoch Times whose institutional roots, however, are only partially reflected in their topic selection. Additionally, longitudinal analyses reveal an increase of populism-related topics in both groups around the election date of the 2017 German federal election.
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| Dieser Eintrag ist Teil der Universitätsbibliographie. |
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