ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book aims to explain the construction of the masculinities on a white supremacist web forum called Stormfront in texts centred on the topic of the homosexuality. Through a linguistic analysis of the data, it attempts to demonstrate how the forum members endeavour to construct themselves as the in-group and those they consider as 'other' as part of the out-group. In the last twenty-five years, information technology has greatly affected the Western society, both socially and culturally, and impacted on the communicative and discursive practices of society. Thus, computer-mediated communication (CMC) has become omnipresent in contemporary Western society and the study of such a medium of communication provides significant insights into the ways that social actors construct their own identities and the identities of the others.
