ABSTRACT
The rapid rise and radicalization of the European New Right (ENR) has been propelled significantly by online tools of mobilization. These transgress traditional presence on the World Wide Web and call for mixed methods in research combining qualitative and quantitative approaches as well as sensitivity towards the media logic of online communication itself. This chapter addresses the methodological challenges to investigate the interplay between online and offline communication and mobilization. The methodological proposals of this chapter draw from research into the German ‘right-wing populist movement of indignation’ PEGIDA and its support environments. In particular the chapter investigates how the far-right multi-platform einprozent.de constructs its popular support. A major finding is that what Wodak (2009) calls ‘discursive events’ are staged and recorded in real life with the deliberate purpose of online dissemination, appealing to both cognitive and behavioural dimensions of social activism and blending the position of produced and consumer into a ‘prosumer’. Online forms of socialization can also be powerfully translated into offline forms of traditional street mobilization and furthermore heavily influence electoral behaviour. Studying the emblematic hybrid media narratives of the German far-right illuminates this relationship on the interface between online and offline activism.
