The role of social media affordances in promoting far-right discourses in the RT France’s comment space on YouTube
Type de matériel :
- anti-democratic counter-publics
- YouTube
- social media affordances
- audience studies
- far-right online communities
- RT France (Russia Today)
- digital comments
- anti-democratic counter-publics
- YouTube
- social media affordances
- audience studies
- far-right online communities
- RT France (Russia Today)
- digital comments
40
RT France is the French-language branch of Russia Today, a transnational television channel funded by the Russian state and considered to be a tool of Russian public diplomacy. Launched in 2017, it gathered more than a million subscribers on YouTube, before being banned in the European Union following the war between Russia and Ukraine. This study aims to demonstrate, through a qualitative analysis of RT France’s 15 most popular YouTube videos’ comments, collected in July 2021, the dynamics of far-right counter-publics within the vocal minority of RT’s audiences. While RT’s history and alternative positioning draw these counter-publics to RT’s content, it is YouTube’s architecture that helps them consolidate and promote their ideas and reach wider audiences, namely through social media affordances of association and metavoicing.
Réseaux sociaux