October 2024

As we reach the midpoint of our Horizon Europe-funded Smidge Project, we are pleased to share recent progress in addressing online extremist narratives targeting middle-aged individuals across Europe.

Midpoint Milestones

Over the past three quarters, we've effectively mapped current conspiracy theories, misinformation and extremist content. Our horizon scanning efforts have deepened our understanding of the evolving landscape, while our social network analysis has identified the connections among users engaging with extremist material. We've also conducted extensive text analysis of user comments to explore emotional responses and key concepts, alongside scraping data from various social media platforms.

In addition, we've successfully administered over 500 surveys and are facilitating eight focus groups to explore the factors that attract middle-aged individuals to extremist narratives. Smidge deliverables now include comprehensive reports on horizon scanning, social network analysis, data scraping and extremist content.

Building on this robust foundation, we are currently producing alternative counter-narrative materials, including MOOC content, documentary and micro-content—such as memes, images, gifs and videos—designed to engage middle-aged audiences, encouraging critical thinking and mitigating the spread of extremist ideologies.

Recent Activities: Events and Engagements

In May, the SMIDGE Project held two key events in Copenhagen. The General Assembly focused on reviewing project progress, particularly in ethics and the development of counter-narratives. The SMIDGE Seminar highlighted the "hybridization" of conspiracy theories, misinformation and extremism, featuring expert discussions on how these narratives intertwine with everyday life and digital media. A key takeaway from the seminar was the importance of addressing the fluidity between mainstream and extremist content to better counter its spread online.

Our partner institution, KCSS, hosted two significant webinars on far-right extremism and religious radicalisation among middle-aged individuals, featuring a distinguished panel of experts in the fields.

In the past six months, we released three podcast episodes addressing topics such as AI in education, conspiracy theories and the hybridization of extremism.

Furthermore, we continue to present our aims and findings at various academic platforms. Jason Lee and Sara Wilford showcased early results of SMIDGE at the 11th European Conference on Social Media (ECSM) in May. In September, Smidge collaborator Kalypso Iordanou, Professor of Psychology at UCLan Cyprus, delivered a keynote at the EARLI SIG 20 & 26 Conference, highlighting the challenges emerging technologies pose to human reasoning and decision-making.

More recently, Paulina Kowalicka and Marco Castelli from the University of Milan presented their research on Guidelines to Reduce the Spread of Online Extremism and Disinformation Among Middle-Aged Individuals at the Policy & Internet Conference 2024 in Sydney. In October, Mikkel Bækby Johansen participated in ECREA 2024 in Ljubljana, introducing the concept of Hybridized Prefatory Extremism (HYPE) to explain the hybridization of conspiracy theories in mainstream discourse.

Line Nybro Petersen from the University of Copenhagen held a co-creation session discussing SMIDGE's findings on conspiracy theories and online harassment, with notable attendees including Denmark’s Minister for Environment and Equality, Magnus Heunicke.

We look forward to continuing our work and appreciate your ongoing support and engagement.

OUR PARTNERS

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. UK participant in Horizon Europe Project SMIDGE is supported by UKRI grant numbers 10056282 (De Montfort University).