Understanding Alt-Tech Social Media Users: Media Behaviors, Political Attitudes, and Electoral Attitudes
Fatima Gaw (Northwestern University ) - United States
Erik Nisbet (Northwestern University ) - United States
Keywords: Alt-tech, Far Right, Social Media, Political Attitudes, Election Survey, United States
Abstract
The rise of alt-tech social media platforms in the United States has been largely attributed to heightened regulation of politically extremist and fringe, predominantly right-wing, personalities and groups by mainstream platforms following the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots. These platforms have since gained popularity as tools for influencing public opinion, particularly through the dissemination of election-related messages and mobilization by right-wing political actors. Despite this, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the broader user base of alt-tech platforms.
This study addresses three critical questions:
• To what extent do alt-tech platform audiences overlap with those of mainstream platforms?
• What are the information and media use behaviors of alt-tech users, including their preferred media types, partisan leanings of favored sources, and their political attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors?
• How do individuals exclusively using alt-tech platforms compare with those who mix alt-tech and mainstream platforms or rely solely on mainstream platforms across these dimensions?
Using data from the 2022 Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP) U.S. Midterm Survey (N=2,000), conducted by YouGov in November 2022, this study analyzes respondents’ social media use across three categories: legacy mainstream platforms (e.g., Facebook), multimodal mainstream platforms (e.g., Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube), and alt-tech platforms (e.g., Truth Social, Rumble, Parler, Gettr, Gab, Telegram). Respondents were categorized as exclusive users of mainstream platforms (66%), users of multimodal mainstream platforms (73%), and users of alt-tech platforms (11%).
Through a combination of network and regression analysis, this paper explores audience overlap between these categories and examines how users’ media behaviors, political attitudes, and beliefs about the 2020 U.S. presidential and 2022 U.S. midterm elections vary across platforms. The findings provide new insights into how alt-tech platforms shape opinion formation and public opinion in electoral contexts, with implications for understanding the evolving role of these platforms in U.S. political communication.