Over the past years, a network of alt-right media platforms has emerged online that have attracted significant popularity and readership in Western democracies. Through their antiestablishment and...Show moreOver the past years, a network of alt-right media platforms has emerged online that have attracted significant popularity and readership in Western democracies. Through their antiestablishment and right-wing ideology, these platforms have provided challenges towards trust in mainstream media and liberal democracy. Historically, populism has tended to rise during times of crisis, meaning that the outbreak of the corona pandemic provides potential new breeding ground for its idealism. To get a better picture of how these platforms operate on the Internet, this thesis aims to analyse alt-right and mainstream media coverage of the corona crisis through a comparative analysis of online news articles by the Dagelijkse Standaard and NOS in the Netherlands, and Breitbart and CNN in the United States. Through a content analysis of 842 articles, it researches media coverage by looking at the dominant crisis frames (i.e. the ‘conflict’, ‘responsibility’, ‘morality’, ‘economic-consequences’ and ‘humanitarian-interest’frame), the persons and institutions that were quoted in the texts and what the tone of the quote sand overall articles was with regard to the government’s handling of the crisis. Altogether, it concludes that there were significant differences in media coverage of the corona crisis between mainstream and alt-right media platforms. Indeed, alt-right media framed the corona crisis in more anti- or pro-establishment terms than their mainstream counterparts. This means that news consumers consulting either alt-right or mainstream media were differently informed on their governments performance, which affects their ability to hold the government accountable for its conduct and the responsiveness of the government to the public’s needs. Furthermore, the platforms’ alt-right framing of events raises the concern for the formation of “filter bubbles” that reinforce political polarization, media scepticism and gravitation towards political extremes.Show less
