Iva Pencheva

How entertaining is the resistance? Iva Pencheva

As violent attacks increase and extremism spreads worldwide, so do countermeasures. Nowadays, social media is often used to recruit and radicalize vulnerable target groups, mostly youth, through various communication strategies. One of the recruitment strategies is the use of eudaimonic entertaining elements. In contrast to extremist propaganda, counter narratives seek to expose the illusion created by radical and extremist groups through a focused and enlightening counter narrative, and to initiate a change of mindset in those targeted through thought provoking and advice. The entertainment experience from the perspective of the two-process model in the resistance against right-wing extremism has gained rather little scientific interest so far. The aim of this bachelor thesis is to fill this research gap through a qualitative content analysis focused on Instagram posts with the hashtag #wirsindmehr.