Alt Tech and the public sphere: Exploring Bitchute as a political media infrastructure

IF 1.8 2区 文学 Q2 COMMUNICATION European Journal of Communication Pub Date : 2023-07-24 DOI:10.1177/02673231231189041
E. Siapera
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Abstract

The article explores Bitchute, a video-hosting platform associated with the Far/Alt Right, with the aim of understanding how it reconfigures political communication and the digital public sphere. Methodologically, the article employs the walkthrough method and non-participant observation to identify the main features and functionalities offered to users. These include a set of values that prioritise creators, an algorithmic organisation that keeps users engaged with a single creator channel rather than with the same topic across channels; and embedded buttons for tips and pledges for creators enabling them to directly monetise their content. The content posted on Bitchute tends to coalesce around politicised cultural issues. It is noteworthy that although Bitchute hosts some advertising, it does not use data for microtargeting and in general makes limited use of user data. We interpret these findings as suggesting that Bitchute constitutes a media infrastructure that encourages, incentivises and sustains microcelebrities of the Far/Alt Right, who act as ideology entrepreneurs. Bitchute can therefore be seen as an infrastructure for the multiplication/sustenance of ideological entrepreneurs/political influencers who vie for the attention and money of far-right publics. If we can speak of a structural transformation of the public sphere associated with Alt Tech, our discussion of Bitchute suggests that this takes the form of a political media infrastructure that enables the continued existence and consolidation of a new type of political actor, the ideology entrepreneur.
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Alt Tech和公共领域:Bitchute作为政治媒体基础设施的探索
本文探讨了与极右/另类右翼有关的视频托管平台Bitchute,旨在了解它如何重新配置政治传播和数字公共领域。在方法上,本文采用了演练方法和非参与式观察来确定提供给用户的主要特性和功能。其中包括一套优先考虑创作者的价值观,一个让用户与单一创作者渠道保持互动的算法组织,而不是跨渠道关注同一个主题;并为创作者嵌入提示和承诺按钮,使他们能够直接将其内容货币化。Bitchute上发布的内容往往围绕政治文化问题进行整合。值得注意的是,虽然Bitchute托管了一些广告,但它并没有使用数据进行微定位,而且通常对用户数据的使用也很有限。我们将这些发现解释为,Bitchute构成了一种媒体基础设施,鼓励、激励和维持那些充当意识形态企业家的极右翼/另类右翼微名人。因此,Bitchute可以被视为意识形态企业家/政治影响者增殖/维持的基础设施,他们争夺极右翼公众的关注和金钱。如果我们可以谈论与Alt Tech相关的公共领域的结构转型,那么我们对Bitchute的讨论表明,这采取了一种政治媒体基础设施的形式,这种基础设施使一种新型的政治行动者——意识形态企业家——能够继续存在和巩固。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
6.40
自引率
0.00%
发文量
86
期刊介绍: The European Journal of Communication is interested in communication research and theory in all its diversity, and seeks to reflect and encourage the variety of intellectual traditions in the field and to promote dialogue between them. The Journal reflects the international character of communication scholarship and is addressed to a global scholarly community. Rigorously peer-reviewed, it publishes the best of research on communications and media, either by European scholars or of particular interest to them.
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