This is a social media ethnography research on Parler - the right wing social media platform. The research mainly focuses on understanding user’s behaviors and how they behave to inforce their faiths on Parler instead of main stream media.
Parler is a social media platform which many conservative right wing people were using. It was founded because the right-wing didn’t believe the mainstream media anymore. Some of the reasons why they didn’t believe it is that Trump’s post was tagged by Twitter saying his speech was disputed, and he always accused the mainstream media of having lots of fake news.
In Parler, I mainly focus on how people talk about fake news, and also I want to understand what kind of media they believe. It is really interesting for me as they always complain that there is a lot of fake news on social media, but they still believe what people say in Parler or (different one) over platforms.
So, how I conducted the research on Parler platform is that I created an account and I made up my name and my age. I have trouble with it because it is not morally correct to do so and I don’t know if net-ethnography is fine to with doing that or not. What I know is in field work we alway use your true self to talk and interact with others. Still, I made myself into a white old man — Collin Miller 1964.
Here are some points I found on how they behave in Parler.
First, a lot of them believe in god. In their comments, they always wrote about thank you lord, god bless you etc.
Second, they do not share links from mainstream media. The links they share are usually from 1.GreenToday 2.USAToday 3. Wishintong Examiner 4.Hannity.com 5. Theepochtimes 6.Conservative Daily and actually mainly from Newsmax. However, there is one condition that they are willing to share from the mainstream is that the news needs to say something bad about the democratic party. Then, they will share the Parcel.
Third, they are against people who aren’t on their side, harshly liking comments a lot to say something bad or pressing the dislike button. Also, they try to block them putting them into the different categories, showing they are better or have power.
Fourth, when people support you (which) it means your posts need to be conservative and support Trump. Then, they will give you a lot of supportive, sweet comments and tell you that you have them, you belong together. Also, they always use ‘patriot’ to compliment people.
Fifth, as I made up my identity in Parler, using the name which can give them some illusion — I am an old, white, man. (I hope so). My profile name is Colin Miller 1964. The reason why I do that is because I want to make them feel closer to me.Then, I commented on the post which discusses fake news. This post is about the Pardon issues and a user gave the data which said the amount of pardon is the lowest in Trump’s presidential period.
Then, I comment “Can anyone suggest which media we can trust?”
Interestingly, the first people replied to me: Newsmax. Second person replied to me: Not Parler. Immediately, there was another person replied and tried to argue against the other one, asking him why he was there? In this short conversation, maybe it is a small pattern how people are acting in this social media bubble. People try to be against those who aren’t on their side, they refuse any different opinions. They read the article they believe and shared it to Parler. Then, people in Parler will read it and reinforce what they think is the truth.
In the Murdock 2020 paper, I remember he said for right-wing populists there is an absolute binary division between them and others. I can see in people’s behaviors here is really the same as what he argues. Also, people here care about being patriots. This also mentions in Murdock that it is important for them to restore the nation and make America great again.
Here, I also want to say some problems I encounter. First, about identity, I don’t know whether it is correct to do so ? Second, I do not use the same language they use. I am not native english speaker, it is easy to see when I try to make a comment. I think it will be a problem to continuously interact with people in Parler.
After doing this research, there are also some questions that come up in my mind. First, populist are against the elite but they support politicians they like. Then, Who is elite? Also, what is the truth? I believe everything has different perspectives, it depends on how we see things.( I was wrong on this point, there are many facts and lies which we can identify. Moreover, people can know what is clear aggression on the one hand, and tolerance on the other) Moreover, nowadays, everyone can easily create a lot of social media accounts and comment to lead the trend, to make people believe. Does that mean populist is manipulatively created?
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Nowadays, there are too many social media platforms. People share a same environment with same functions triggering people’s wants. It will be interesting to dig deeper in different platfomrs to understand how people normally behave there, how people change, what beliefs be created, how those beliefs be reinforced because of using the social media platforms. ‘
Thanks for your time and thanks for reading.
