An analysis of the activity in the Polish internet sphere from the angle of social mobilization to perform acts of violence. A case study of the immigrant crisis

Abstract

This article is a case study of the process of mobilization to violence on the internet. The goal of this paper was to identify a select number of factors within the narrative on the topic of modern immigration that can be found on the internet and analyze them using the theoretical constructs that can be found in the literature on this subject. The scientists that study genocide have identified several factors commonly found in historically documented events that must be present in order for genocide to occur. In this paper the author will refer to works of scientists such as Helen Fein, Manus I. Midlarsky, Lech M. Nijakowski. The author of the paper analyzed the content published on the internet that deals with the topic of immigration. The materials selected for research contained topics that treat the subject of accepting refugees from outside of Europe, their process of assimilation and the way they coexist with the local population. The analysis was based on content in the Polish language which includes both materials that were created in Polish and those that were originally in a different language and then were remade with Polish footnotes. The content for the study was selected from among the following sources: propaganda movies which spread on the internet through social media, short unscientific propaganda and informational articles and finally memes (pictures with short footnotes). Factors that were analyzed in the following article: 1) Universe of obligation, construct created by Helen Fein. 2) Conspiratory discourse, described by Lech Nijakowski. 3) Utility and parasitism; discourse referring to them. 4) Two conditions necessary to instigate genocide, described by Manus I. Midlarsky. 5) Discourse on the topic of immoral sexual actions described by the author based on the theory of discourses created by Lech Nijakowski. During the study all the aforementioned factors have been identified. The author described the examples analyzed, interpreted them and subsequently matched them to the categories described above. It was determined that within those examples we can distinguish a number of factors that match the elements of mobilizing the population to violence. The article closes with an analysis of potential consequences of the phenomena described.