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Parasocial Relationships, Social Media, and Radicalization

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Social media engagement has been shown to be a significant pathway to violence, terrorism, fanaticism and recruitment into cultish social formations (Montell 2021), defined as tight, insular groups that bear a resemblance to cults. Montell (2021) and Danesi (2023) have explained how language and social psychology play important roles in the development of a radical mind-set; others (Haidt 2013, Morozov 2011) have considered related, critical dimensions of the formation of authoritarian perspectives and the use of media to develop “followerships” with the potential for promoting radicalization, violence, and societal disruption. A social media cottage industry developed and incentivized through social media monetization schemes has played a significant role in the promotion of malign content and extending the reach of influencer celebrities who often participate in the creation of malign content either as a primary or secondary income, seeding social media platforms with malign content that is a critical factor in the creation of cultish social formations. This is an international phenomenon, prevalent in many countries outside of the United States, and a significant concern in Europe, South America, and Asia (Morozov 2011).

Social media engagement has been shown to be a significant pathway to violence, terrorism, fanaticism and recruitment into cultish social formations (Montell 2021), defined as tight, insular groups that bear a resemblance to cults. Montell (2021) and Danesi (2023) have explained how language and social psychology play important roles in the development of a radical mind-set; others (Haidt 2013, Morozov 2011) have considered related, critical dimensions of the formation of authoritarian perspectives and the use of media to develop “followerships” with the potential for promoting radicalization, violence, and societal disruption. A social media cottage industry developed and incentivized through social media monetization schemes has played a significant role in the promotion of malign content and extending the reach of influencer celebrities who often participate in the creation of malign content either as a primary or secondary income, seeding social media platforms with malign content that is a critical factor in the creation of cultish social formations. This is an international phenomenon, prevalent in many countries outside of the United States, and a significant concern in Europe, South America, and Asia (Morozov 2011).

Cultish social formation in online communities has recently been a focus of research, primarily in the United States. As noted above, a cultish social formation is a tight-knit, insular group that bears a resemblance to cults (Montell 2021) which can lead people to not engage with the broader society or even to actively attempt to undermine it. These “cultish” social formations often have a key, charismatic leader who claims to have access to exclusive truths or solutions and their own lexicon or specialized vocabulary to separate in-group members from out-group members. These groups often demand purity or strict adherence to the group’s beliefs, fostering an environment where questioning or dissent is met with disapproval or even ostracism. Social media topic communities have been shown to be an important conduit into fanaticism; cultish social formations like QAnon and other anti-social cultish formations that promote extremism have become a conduit to terrorism and radical extremism. These formations often have additional influencer accounts that serve particular sub-audiences of the larger formation. These accounts may in turn serve the needs and interests of an influencer or media celebrity “up the chain.”

Social media platforms present (and benefit from) the opportunity for audiences to develop parasocial relationships with one another, aided and abetted by the algorithms of the platforms to hypercharge these many-to-many relationships. Individuals can even leverage their popularity among peers to become “influencers,” achieving that more traditional type of para-social relationships with their peers that provide them with new power to shape discourses (and achieve economic rewards from communication).

Montell (2021) describes how cultish social formations involve the use of language and emotional content to develop in-group identities that center around the group. These processes, which often destroy old social identities and social connections, can cause individuals to sever ties with family and friends. This may be necessary to create the isolation needed to accept the group’s belief system, norms and values. These new beliefs and values may be contrary to their previous beliefs and values. Other research on moral psychology (Haidt 2013) and cognitive linguistics (Danesi 2023) expand on the social science of the power of languages to shape group belief and behavior. Influencer-led groups, where strategic objectives or more utilitarian objectives may be in play. The use of social psychological tactics to develop cultish social formations can be relatively benign (such as promotion of veganism or paleo diet) and might effectively end there. Others are far less benign, setting up individuals to move down the path of self-radicalization even if they have no real-world relationships that subscribe to the group’s beliefs, norms, and behaviors.

In this research effort, offerors are encouraged to submit a study on highly followed radical influencers on social media in nations other than the United States to issues such as consider:

• The social and psychological dynamics of para-social interactions and relationships in radicalization, extremism, and anti-US discourse

• The role of the influencer in the creation of radicalizing cultish social formations;

• The investigation of compelling content offered by influencers in organizing, socializing and developing radicalizing belief systems

• State and non-state actor influencers (example: Wagner Group Telegram channels, Hezbollah or Hamas Telegram, Twitter (X), or other social media platform) in the development of parasocial social formations with the potential for creating cultish social formations

• How social media monetization schemes contribute to the creation of radicalizing content from influencers

• The social psychological, sociological, or linguistic aspects of influence in social media, to include the strategic and tactical use of language, image, and video to prompt culturally-relevant emotional responses

• The investigation of techniques of education in media literacy to promote audience resilience to radicalization

Social sciences that are of interest to this solicitation are sociology, anthropology, political science, linguistics, cognitive linguistics, media studies, communications, social psychology, and the economics of social media.

This solicitation invites the study of the topic communities with the potential for radicalization and the promotion of violence, group polarization, and civil instabilities outside of the United States. The essential focus of such studies is the economic and social ecologies of cultish social formations that focus on social media influencers—accounts with very high followerships—and those accounts that seek to become such influencers.

This effort will study the spread of extremism, hate, fear, and conspiracy theory as it spreads to social media audiences through parasocial relationships and interactions. The sociological, social psychological, and cognitive science of how influencers develop into radicalizing social media personalities, the social networks and economic networks and algorithmic maneuvers that position influencers optimally for broad reach, and the influencer’s use of language, video, audio, and other affordances to provide compelling content suitable for the development of cultish social formations are all good candidates for a successful proposal. Online and offline influence can be considered. The objective is to develop a deeper understanding of audience relationships with parasocial others, in either a one-to-many or many-to-many parasocial relationships that lead individuals deeper into cultish social formations that promote self-radicalization. The economic incentives for social media celebrities and the role of monetization schemes to create conducive environments for the development of toxic parasocial groups and radical extremist discourses may also play a role in the study.