Sadly baked goods don’t travel well digitally. Alas no #poliskybakes for these attendees!

#poliskybakes

A highlight of the conference was showcasing the work of Ella Krispel @unioftheartslondon.bsky.social, who uses woven textiles to convey information about immigration. Her argument that data and media are part of the 'fabric' of public opinion was inspiring: ualshowcase.arts.ac.uk/project/4509...

Friends don’t let friends go uncited 😉 Hope your semester is going well!

Thanks Isabelle! And also for the push to put France in conversation with other (perhaps better- or over-?) studied cases. I hope we see each other at EPSS or similar!

Thanks Andrej! And our ambition was to show how learning from the French case matters for other settings where an active far-fight mobilizes around immigration…couldn’t possibly think of parallels though…

Thanks Mike, and it was better for your comments! Looks like we are in good company too: congrats on your own team’s piece. Hope to see you again at EPSS and wherever the fun pol com crowd goes

Thanks Stu!

Might interest @polcomm.bsky.social @ecpr-polcom.bsky.social @rainbowmurray.bsky.social @egrossman.bsky.social

Also, Katharina is on the job market this year, so if you're looking for a brilliant mixed-methods social scientist with that rare mix of excellent computational know-how with insightful qualitative senses and ethnographic skills, look out for her! medialab.sciencespo.fr/en/people/ka...

We also want to thank those who generously gave feedback along the way, including @mikecowburn.bsky.social @iguinaudeau.bsky.social at last year’s @epssnet.bsky.social conference.

It was a joy working on this with Katharina and Pedro, and I learned a lot from them! Thanks to the support of their respective labs @cris-sciencespo.bsky.social @icmigrations.bsky.social @medialab-scpo.bsky.social @cnrsshs.bsky.social and the @britishacademy.bsky.social from my side.

In total, we think source selection plays a crucial role in defining, sustaining, and extending defensive publics’ political impact around the world. Documenting those patterns and trying to explain their persistence in context-specific issue-country combinations is a necessary step to do so.

Choices about which sources to repost can signal and serve political goals. In the case of French-language immigration posts, we argue highly-visible extreme right-wing users do so to sustain and defend systems of inequality (what some call “defensive publics.”)

Interviews with high-profile right-wing posters, including former senior politicians, revealed how they use hyperpartisan sources to redress perceived censorship by the mainstream and influence its agenda, but also cite evidence/data in those mainstream sources to appear respectable and credible.

Katharina Tittel, @piotram.bsky.social and I identified patterns of sources in French-language X immigration posts and the likely ideological leanings of posters. Far-right users uniquely flood feeds with hyper-partisan sources, but also post mainstream and public media like left/center users.