Digital Manosphere: Algorithmic Mediation, Political Agency, and Digital Citizenship

The field of digital activism has rapidly evolved as a central domain for studying the manosphere. It is understood as a discursive space on social media composed predominantly of male communities—across platforms such as Reddit, YouTube, and Telegram—that, despite their heterogeneity, share anti-feminist and misogynistic discourses opposing women’s rights and gender equality. They also promote diverse forms of alternative masculinity and identity negotiation. Participants within the manosphere contest feminist power, express gender resentment, and counter egalitarian narratives. Frameworks such as Gaventa’s power cube, Habermas’s public sphere, Papacharissi’s affective networks, and Bennett’s logic of connective action illuminate these dynamics. Digital features such as fragmentation, algorithmic mediation, and surveillance pose significant challenges to understanding communicative power, affective mobilisation, and digital citizenship in spaces where gendered ideologies intersect with political participation. Scholars including Roberts, Castells, Maré, Marwick, and Tufekci highlight how such phenomena reconfigure the relations between visibility, vulnerability, participation, and agency in networked societies.This Research Topic investigates the evolving interplay between manospheric cultures, algorithmic infrastructures, and forms of digital activism and participation. It aims to advance theoretical and empirical understanding of how online environments shape discourses around gender, power, and agency. Rather than adopting a prescriptive or programmatic approach, this Topic invites interdisciplinary scholarship that examines how actors, algorithms, and institutions co-produce the conditions for visibility, contestation, and belonging in digital public life.Contributors are encouraged to explore how manospheric spaces interact with broader political, cultural, and technological dynamics — including populism, far-right movements, data surveillance, and affective polarisation. The Topic also welcomes analyses of how activists, journalists, educators, and communities respond to or reinterpret such discourses, generating new forms of civic expression, counterpublicity, and digital practice.By foregrounding analytical neutrality and epistemic openness, the Topic seeks to connect critical studies of gender, communication, and digital governance with empirical research into participation, power, and democracy in algorithmically mediated environments.Key questions• How can digital activism be conceptualised as a form of engagement within or against manospheric discourse, rather than purely as opposition?• In what ways do algorithmic systems and recommendation logics influence the visibility and replication of manospheric content?• How are participation, citizenship, and political agency being redefined within gendered and polarised online ecosystems?• What digital infrastructures facilitate the circulation of manospheric narratives across platforms and national contexts?• How do affect, emotion, and intimacy operate within manospheric and counter-manospheric spaces?• What is the role of data governance, moderation, and platform accountability in shaping gendered communication online?• How do emerging technologies such as deepfakes, AI-generated influencers, and synthetic media contribute to or challenge gendered mobilisation ?• What empirical evidence explains pathways of radicalisation and community building within manospheric networks?• How do educational, media liteacy, and civic initiatives mediate the relationship between users and manospheric content, and how can these be studied analytically rather than prescriptively?• How do race, class, sexuality, and transnational inequalities intersect with manospheric participation and reception?• How do discourses around men’s rights and masculinity relate to broader transformations in digital populism and political communication?• Which methodological and ethical challenges arise when researching manospheric groups or counterpublics under surveillance or authoritarian constraints?• How are notions of visibility, anonymity, and safety negotiated among activists, researchers, and users engaging with manospheric content?• How can comparative or cross-platform analyses deepen our understanding of manospheric fragmentation and diffusion?• How do economic incentives and platform monetisation strategies influence manosphere content production and visibility?• What are the patterns of user migration between manosphere-adjacent platforms and mainstream social media?• What role do micro-celebrities and influencers play in mainstreaming manosphere ideas within broader digital cultures?• What network structures emerge from inter-community interactions within and beyond manosphere ecosystems?• What comparative insights emerge from analysing manosphere dynamics alongside other identity-based digital subcultures?Suggested themes:• Theoretical approaches to digital power, surveillance, and the governance of masculinities.• Platform architectures, algorithmic amplification, and the dynamics of manospheric visibility.• Affective publics and the emotional economies of online misogyny.• Counterpublics, counter-visibilities, and practices of civic resistance in gendered digital spaces.• Connections between manospheric discourse, political polarisation, and populist mobilisation.• Comparative and transnational perspectives on the manosphere and digital citizenship.• Case studies of activism, journalism, and educational initiatives engaging with manospheric narratives.• Ethics and methodologies in researching hostile or extremist digital communities.• Intersections between digital culture, masculinity crises, and algorithmic control.• Forms of collective identity, vulnerability, and resilience among users confronting gender-based hostility online.• Critical examinations of policy, moderation, and governance impacting gendered participation in digital networks.• Platform policy impacts on gendered digital participation.• Economic models of polarised content ecosystems and attention economies.• Cross-platform analytics and bot/human interaction patterns in manosphere spaces.• Visual semiotics, meme evolution, and iconographic systems within gender networks.• Computational methods for studying ephemeral, deleted, or migrated digital communities.• Institutional interactions: journalism coverage, political uptake, regulatory responses to manosphere phenomena.This Research Topic positions digital activism, gender, and algorithmic mediation as key lenses to explore the transformation of public life in the digital era, welcoming contributions from communication studies, political science, sociology, gender studies, media anthropology, and related disciplines. It encourages both theoretical development and empirically grounded investigation, with attention to diverse methodologies and global contexts. Topic editors: Graciela Padilla, ASUNCION BERNARDEZ RODAL, Dunia Etura Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/76382/digital-manosphere-algorithmic-mediation-political-agency-and-digital-citizenship