RT Article
T1 Anti-Government Extremism in Australia: understanding the Australian Anti-Lockdown Freedom Movement as a Complex Anti-Government Social Movement
JF Perspectives on terrorism
VO 17
IS 1
SP 144
OP 169
A1 Khalil, Lydia
A2 Roose, Joshua M. 1980-
LA English
YR 2023
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1867643790
AB This article aims to explore the emergence and consolidation of various actors and sympathisers into the Australian ‘anti-lockdown’ freedom movement, a diverse, hybrid anti-government movement that emerged during the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a qualitative longitudinal analysis of data from the online posts of a prominent branch of the anti-lockdown freedom movement, we identify the movement’s core narratives, motivations, and forms of action, revealing how this social movement developed into a complex form of anti-government extremist movement that combines and conflates anti-institutional, anti-elite sentiments, and anti-government attitudes and beliefs through conspiratorial narratives. Drawing upon interrelated strands of social movement theory and the broader body of research on conspiracy theories and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on radicalisation to extremism, we offer a conceptual framework to understand the movement’s emergence, consolidation, and development. This study furthers our understanding of how conspiracies and disinformation can be utilised and fed into anti-government extremism during times of crisis and emergency.
NO Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 166-169
K1 anti-government
K1 Conspiracy
K1 Extremism
K1 Crises
K1 Social movement
K1 hybrid movements