| Abstract [eng] |
Covid-19 pandemic has turned the world upside down – countries entering massive lockdowns, the whole socialization transferring to the online world. With the consequences for all possible spheres of life, security has also been impacted. For the past few years international terrorism has become a more serious threat with suicidal terrorist attacks being a common thing. In addition to this, radical right movements have become more visible, especially in the West. It has been argued that with the pandemic in place, terrorism will change, and various radical movements will use it for their own purposes. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze how frames are changing for the US radical right groups – Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, Oath Keepers – in the face of pandemic situation. Three defensive theses have been defined – 1) Radical right movements form new “pandemic” frames which are a continuation of their ordinary discourse; 2) Familiar movements use the same frames in crisis (pandemic) time; 3) Radical right groups blame ethnical minorities for the pandemic and suggest harsh ways to deal with it. At first, the overview of pandemics history and conspiracy theories related to them are described. The focus is how different minorities are usually blamed for causing and spreading the diseases. Then, radical right is presented with overviewing how it is defined in general and how its visibility and threat has increased recently. Finally, the history of white supremacy in the US is described with a look at radical right of the US nowadays. Framing theory of David Snow and Richard Benford has been considered when constructing the theoretical approach for the analysis. Fourth-step framing process of Charlotte Ryan has been used to help form the frames used by three radical right movements in the US. The research of posts in Telegram has been conducted to find diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames of chosen radical right movements in the US in pre-pandemic time (2019) and the first year of pandemic (2020). The results have shown that a) radical right movements react to the changing environment and integrate new events to their discourse at some extent; b) media and government institutions are the main to be blamed by Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer; c) despite similarities, radical right movements react differently to crisis (pandemic) situation; d) radical right movements form few main problems in their discourse, but do not suggest structural and clear solutions. To conclude, the research has shown that radical right movements may integrate new frames in their ordinary discourse to follow the new reality. However, it proved wrong that radical right blame ethnical minorities for such event as worldwide pandemic. |
