POLHYBRID

Abstract

POLHYBRID sits at the crossroads of comparative politics and media studies, starting from the premise that before societies break apart, public debates break apart. The project investigates how far-right ideas become mainstream in hybrid media systems, focusing on how changes in traditional media structures have created new opportunities for political challengers to stir conflict around specific issues. In doing so, POLHYBRID puts political conflict back at the centre of the study of media systems, and media systems back at the centre of the study of political conflict. It does so by examining the conditions and strategies through which far-right actors shape and polarize public debates and influence how contentious issues are understood.

One important arena in which this dynamic becomes visible is the contestation of cultural and symbolic issues, where political actors can mobilize existing social divisions and turn them into sources of political conflict. The project therefore focuses in particular on how opposition to feminism and universities may contribute to support for the far right. It examines how antifeminism and the contestation of the legitimacy of higher education institutions can function as symbolic divides and expressions of broader neo-authoritarian attitudes, shaping both democratic attitudes and far-right voting. Combining computational methods for studying (digital) public debates with large-scale surveys and survey experiments that capture issue-specific attitudes, the project investigates how these symbolic conflicts interact with authoritarian predispositions and voting behaviour, and how they shape contemporary communication dynamics.