Right Topic, Right Source? Source Diversity and Balance in Right-Wing Alternative News Content Across Topics

Abstract

This article investigates how the hybrid nature of right-wing alternative news media striving for journalistic legitimacy and partisan credibility plays out on source and topical diversity and balance in article content. The article draws on a sample of 1000 randomly selected articles published by 20 right-wing alternative online news media from six countries (the US, the UK, Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden) from March 2019 to February 2020 (i.e., in “routine” pre-COVID-19 times). The results show that most of the alternative media outlets in the sample cover relatively broad topical spectra. More specifically, US and UK media primarily focus on politics and policy issues, whereas Scandinavian media are more heavily geared toward societal issues and crime coverage. Overall, right-wing alternative news content is characterized by a variety of partisan and non-partisan sources. However, core partisan topic areas, such as politics and mass media, are more likely to include partisan and especially right-wing sources. Often, with respect to these topics, right-wing sources are evaluated positively, and left-wing sources are evaluated negatively. Finally, right-wing and non-right-wing sources often appear in separate articles rather than in direct confrontation.