The mainstream orientation of digital alternative news environments: The significance of national context and political ideology in four European countries

Alternative news media combine a (quasi-)journalistic self-understanding with an explicit anti-mainstream agenda. As an increasingly important part of digital political information ecosystems in many countries, they have the potential to contribute to a more separatist or publicist orientation of digital counterpublics. This article analyzes the contextual conditions for the mainstream orientation of broader digital alternative news environments that form around the dissemination of alternative news content on social media. We draw on a network-analytical approach and more than 900 million social media posts shared on nine social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, YouTube, Telegram, VKontakte, Reddit, Gab, and 4Chan) from 2019 to 2021 that have ties to right-wing, left-wing, or anti-system alternative news outlets based in four European countries (Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden). Our findings indicate that the mainstream orientation of European digital alternative news environments is more pronounced in countries with a cordon sanitaire tradition in the political sphere, as well as in left-wing-oriented environments. The article adds to a growing body of research on the complex relationship between alternative news media and the mainstream by highlighting the importance of contextual conditions and the nature of the broader information environments in which alternative news content is circulated.