Earlier in 2019, Marc Tuters gave a lecture at the conference “A Century of Radical Right Extremism: New Approaches”, hosted by the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right in partnership with Richmond, the American University in London. The talk touches on the concept of the Deep Vernacular Web and dynamics of subcultural antagonistic expressions […]

Sal Hagen of OILab appeared in the Dutch national news on 5 August 2019 to briefly touch on the horrific shootings in the United States, in specific to discuss the imageboard 8chan. Listen to the NPO Radio 1 fragment here (click “18:00 – 18:30” and go to 9:28). Watch the NOS Journaal clip here from […]

Marc Tuters was interviewed for a report by the Dutch news programme Nieuwsuur, talking about fringe Internet platforms. Watch the item here:

We published a scholarly article in M/C Journal on the origins and dynamics of the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, in which a wildly speculative narrative was constructed about a secret child sex ring led by Democrat officials. This conspiracy, as is argued, was enabled by the affordances of 4chan, that stimulate a “butterfly effect” of bullshit. […]

Marc Tuters of OILab joined a conference panel organised by the Stimuleringsfonds voor de Journalistiek and IMMovator, together with journalist Joris Luyendijk and writer/Internet-sceptic Evgeny Morozov. Tuters touched upon the merging dynamics between Internet memes and post-truth politics, forming vehicles for political propaganda. In doing so, Tuters claims the meme-culture of these online right-wing movements […]

One of the main Dutch public broadcasters, VPRO, featured an article in their magazine with comments from Marc Tuters of OILab. It raises questions on 4chan’s current culture as a cultic milieu, and how to consider the humorous politics of Kekistan, a fake country dedicated to trolling campaigns targeting identity politics. “Wat is de voedingsbodem […]

OILab’s research on thematising memes was featured in an article by De Correspondent, an online platform for investigative journalism. In the Digital Methods Initiative’s 2018 winter school, Sal Hagen from OILab, together with a group of researchers, classified memes from 4chan/pol/ as related to specific themes. The research is written up on the DMI website. […]

Marc Tuters was interviewed for a piece on fluter.de – “Warum die Trump-Fans dem Präsidenten weiter treu bleiben.” It features a discussion on the dynamics of the content aggregator Reddit, and how it enables r/The_Donald as a hub for pro-Trump activity. Read the text here (German). Read the text in English (translated by Google Translate).