8. Pictured hate

Abstract

Memes have become a propaganda weapon of far-right groups. While several studies highlight the strategic use of memes in far-right contexts, there is little empirical research on which groups these memes target, and how. As the visual stigmatisation of outgroups is a central means of communicating far-right worldviews, this study examines the visual propaganda of far-right and conspiratorial actors from a quantitative and qualitative perspective. To do this, we analysed memetic communication using computational and interpretive tools selected according to the visual discourse methodology. We collected our material from 1,675 alternative right-wing German-speaking channels of the messenger service Telegram, which we categorised into different sub-milieus and monitored continuously. Our findings suggest that there are significant differences in the way certain groups are targeted and a tendency to highlight the trigger points of current polarised public debates.