Between mainstream and alternative – co-orientation in right-wing populist alternative news media

Frischlich, Lena; Klapproth, Johanna; Brinkschulte, Felix

Abstract

Alternative news media with a right-wing populist leaning are flourishing.They pitch themselves as opposition to a hegemonically interpreted mainstreamnews media system. Yet, at the same time, they rely on the so criticizedothers to justify their own existence. Using a co-orientation framework, the currentstudy asked in how far right-wing populist alternative news media orientthemselves towards the mainstream. Using a qualitative content analysis of all 658 websites referenced by a popular right-wing conspiracy-theoretical YouTuberin Germany, we demonstrate that distinct source types were quoted. Referencesranged from mainstream news media up to ultra-right wing truther blogs. Aquantitative examination of the content-analytical categories confirmed significantdifferences between mainstream news media and right-wing populist blogs, withspecial interest and alternative news media ranging in between these poles. Alternativenews media were overall found to orient themselves stylistically stronglytowards the mainstream but less so regarding their content selection. Particularly,the top sources, accounting for over 76% of all references, were mostly rootedin the alternative ultra-right-wing ecosystem. In sum, our analyses showed howstylistic co-orientation is used to build a bridge towards the mainstream whilecontent-related co-orientation towards other ultra-right-wing alternative sourcesallows for validating one's own right-wing populist worldview.