Beatriz Buarque is a journalist and PhD student who is investigating the circulation and legitimisation of alt-right conspiracy theories on digital media.

Based on the assumption that discourses, in digital environments, can be legitimised through authoritative performance and visibility, she is investigating how and why cultural Marxism, deep state, great replacement, and white genocide have been legitimised in online spaces.

Her project contributes to existing debates on critical security studies concerning digital political phenomena such as the alt-right and it also dialogues with existing efforts to understand the role played by affects in Politics and IR.

Beatriz is also the leading investigator of the independent research group MAFTI (Mapping the Far-right Truth Industry) and Founder of the award winner NGO Words Heal the World, which empowers young people to challenge hate speech and develop strategies to tackle extremism.

Research skills: qualitative analysis; multimodal critical discourse analysis; internet research; social media analysis; CrowdTangle, NVivo.

Research interests: critical security studies - political psychology - alt-right - conspiracy theories - multimodal critical discourse analysis