New Publication Out: Source and Topical Diversity in Right-Wing Alternative News Media Across Six Countries
Right-wing alternative news media often present themselves as correctives to “mainstream” journalism—claiming both journalistic legitimacy and political credibility.
In their new article, “Right Topic, Right Source? Source Diversity and Balance in Right-Wing Alternative News Content Across Topics”, Annett Heft, Tim Ramsland and Eva Mayerhöffer examine how this hybrid positioning plays out in practice by analyzing source diversity, topical diversity, and balance in right-wing alternative news content across six countries (the US, the UK, Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden).
The study draws on a sample of 1,000 randomly selected articles published by 20 right-wing alternative online news outlets between March 2019 and February 2020 (i.e., prior to the COVID-19 pandemic). The results show that many of the outlets cover relatively broad topical spectra, but with clear country-level differences: US and UK outlets tend to focus more on politics and policy, while Scandinavian outlets are more heavily geared toward societal issues and crime.
Across the dataset, right-wing alternative news content features a mix of partisan and non-partisan sources. However, in core partisan topic areas—especially politics and mass media—articles are more likely to rely on partisan sources, and in particular right-wing sources. In these contexts, right-wing sources are typically evaluated positively, while left-wing sources tend to be evaluated negatively.
Notably, the study also finds that right-wing and non-right-wing sources most often appear in separate articles, rather than being placed in direct dialogue or debate within the same piece. Together, the findings help clarify how hybrid alternative media logics are expressed through everyday sourcing and topic choices.
The article, published in Journalism Studies, can be found here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1461670X.2023.2294362