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The Far-Right’s Reinterpretation of Sexual Assaults in Sweden

The post-lunch session at AoIR 2023 starts with a panel on the far right, and I’ll be slightly distracted as I’m also keeping an eye on the second half of the Hannover 96 – FC Magdeburg match, but let’s see how we go. We’re starting with Mathilda Åkerlund, whose interest is in the racialisation of sexual assault reports from Sweden by the US far-right.

Propaganda Strategies of Anti-Abortion Conspiracists

The final speaker at this AoIR 2023 session is Zelly Martin, whose focus is on the female spreaders of health disinformation. This is also in the context of the US Supreme Court’s decision to undermine the right to abortion in the United States, which is part of a long history of activism against abortion, birth control, and female reproductive rights.

The Yoga-to-Conspiracy Pipeline on Gaia.com

The next speaker in this fascinating AoIR 2023 session is Yvonne Eadon, whose interest is in the subscription-based streaming platform Gaia.com, the self-declared ‘Netflix of consciousness-raising media’. She describes this as a kind of conspirituality capitalism, which is perhaps accidentally encountered by people searching for life advice and spiritual content.

Conspiracy Theorists’ Responses to Deplatforming

The next presenter in this AoIR 2023 session is Kamile Grusauskaite, whose interest is in the deplatforming of mis- and disinformation – the removal of accounts for breaking platform rules, for instance on disinformation or hate speech. This has particularly targetted conspiracy theorists, yet such conspiracists still spread on alternative media or find ways to circumvent prohibitions on mainstream media.

The Role of Screenshots in Conspiracy Theories

The next session at AoIR 2023 that I’m in is on conspiracies, and starts with Elisabetta Zurovac, whose focus is on COVID-19 conspiracy theories. These seek to undermine trust in the established science and mainstream media coverage, and this is related to a broader erosion of trust in established knowledge. They encourage people to ‘do their own research’ and are often building also in important ways on visual content.

Fans’ Complex Resistance against the Commercialisation of Fandom

The final speaker in this AoIR 2023 session is Allegra Rosenberg, whose interest is in fan art. This is now a big business, with fan-created fiction and fan-created imagery being provided for pay on various platforms. This is not uncontroversial, however; the fan site Archive of Our Own (AO3) has a long-standing ban against linking to for-profit sites, for instance.

Twitch Streamers’ Compunctions about Streaming That Wizard Game

The next speaker in this AoIR 2023 session is Kyle Moody, who shifts our focus to branding and consumption markets in cultures; much fandom is tied up with such branding activities. In particular, the focus here is on Twitch, where affective labour and fan work collides with the gig economy of media content creation.

Twitter Influencers’ Impact on the Reception of Brazil’s COVID-19 Inquiry

The next speaker in this AoIR 2023 session is the excellent Adriana Amaral, whose interest is in fan practices surrounding the government of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Her project examined social media data from Twitter, Reddit, and YouTube related to COVID-19 in Brazil, and through this work also identified the strong politicisation of vaccines especially under and by the leadership of Bolsonaro. The Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry on COVID-19 in Brazil (CPI da COVID) also emerged as a key player in these debates.

Political Fandom for Danish PM Mette Fredriksen

The early morning session this Friday at AoIR 2023 that I’m in starts with a paper by my QUT DMRC colleague Sebastian Svegaard. He presents a case study of what happens when politicians behave badly – and how their political fan bases respond to this. This connects with a larger body of work which connects fandom and political research, and positions politics as fandom.

Interactional Moderation by Instagram’s Bot Police

The final speaker in this AoIR 2023 session is Nathalie Schäfer, whose focus is on bots on Instagram. Bots are pervasive there, and some users have banded together to detect fake accounts and highlight automated interactions that are seen as problematic. They do so with ‘bot police’ accounts that ask to be tagged whenever users encounter bots, and also provide advice on how to detect bots and report them to Instagram.

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