BEYOND LIKES AND SHARES: THE PRESENCE, CONTENT, COMMUNICATION, AND COLLECTIVE ACTION FRAME OF FAR-RIGHT GROUPS IN NORWAY ON FACEBOOK IN JANUARY 2016 AND AUGUST 2023

The strength of far-right groups on social media platforms in Norway has received a lot of attention from scholars and researchers, however, few systematic studies have been carried out on it. One prominent study was published in 2017 by Haanshuus and Jupskås, which compared data sets from March 2015 and January 2016 aiming to map the strength of the presence of far-right groups on Facebook in Norway. This study will compare my own data collection of the same data set and variables used in 2015/2016 by Haanshuss and Jupskås in order to say something about the presence, content, communication, and collective action frame of prominent far-right groups on Facebook in Norway in August 2023, and compare these findings with the ones from January 2016. By conducting a comparative analysis using the data collected in January 2016 and comparing it with my data collection from August 2023, it is possible to reflect on the evolution and development of the type of activism and the collective action frame after six years. It is also worth mentioning that events and circumstances in the span of these six years make for an interesting context to the results. During the data collection done by Haanshuus and Jupskås (2017), the European continent was facing the so-called “refugee crisis”, which made for an interesting context. Since January 2016, Norway has been through a pandemic in Covid-19 which featured protectionist policies and closed borders, a war on the European continent in Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, a subsequent energy crisis, and another lethal terrorist attack carried out by a man of mixed ethnicities belonging to the far-right. It is also worth mentioning that regional and communal elections were held in Norway on 11th of September 2023, possibly also impacting the content published by the far-right groups during the month of August. These were also interesting events when analyzing the narratives and main content of far-right groups on Facebook in August 2023. Haanshuus and Jupskås (2017) study concluded that the levels of activity increased, and that the collective action frame was incomplete. However, they pointed out that the narrative of far-right groups on Facebook had changed from Islamophobic to ultra-nationalist when it came to the interpretation of “the problem” (Haanshuus & Jupskås 2017.) The quantitative data that was collected from August 2023 revealed scattered results across the five far-right groups included in this study. Two of the groups, SIAN and Norgesdemokratene, gained less likes per post in August 2023 compared to January 2016, however, the posts in return got more comments and shares, indicating that the audience and followers were more nuanced and engaged in their communication as composing a comment or sharing a post requires more effort than simply pressing like. This also indicates that, in the case of Norgesdemokratene and SIAN, the Facebook-pages were channels for communication rather than simply informational. The Facebook-pages of Pegida and Norsk Folkeparti had an insignificant amount of likes, shares, and comments, however, they were still present in August 2023, albeit with very low levels of activity, and close to zero engagement and communication. The data collected from FMI revealed that, in contrast to January 2016, the Facebook-page of the group seemed to be mostly informational in August 2023, with the highest number of likes, and a drastic decrease of communicative responses from the audience. However, the group was very much still active and present on Facebook. The qualitative analysis, which relied on a content analysis of all the posts published, revealed, similar to January 2016, an incomplete collective action frame, and a scattered interpretation of the biggest “problem” with the society, with some groups leaning towards ultra-nationalist sentiments more than Islamophobia, and vice versa with others.