Jordan McSwiney is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. He completed his PhD at The University of Sydney in 2021.

Jordan’s research focuses on the far right, with a particular focus on the organisation of far-right parties and movements, and their use of social media. His work has been published in Information, Communication & Society, New Media & Society, and the Journal of Australian Political Economy.

At the Centre, Jordan is working on the project ‘Democratic Resilience: The Public Sphere and Extremist Attacks’ (Discovery Project, funded by Australian Research Council, 2021-24)

Key Publications

• Jasser, G., McSwiney, J., Pertwee, E., & Zannettou, S. (2021). ‘Welcome to #GabFam’: Far-right virtual community on Gab. New Media & Society. E-pub ahead of print.

• McSwiney, J. (2021). Social networks and digital organisation: Far right parties at the 2019 Australian federal election. Information, Communication & Society, 24 (10), 1401-1418.

• McSwiney, J. (2021). ‘Far-right recruitment and mobilization on Facebook: The case of Australia’, in M. Devries, J. Bessant & R. Watts (Eds.), Rise of the far right: Technologies of recruitment and mobilization (pp. 23-40). Rowman & Littlefield.

• McSwiney, J., Vaughan, M. Heft, A., & Hoffman., M. (2021). Sharing the hate? Memes and transnationality in the far right’s digital visual culture. Information, Communication & Society, 24 (16) 2502-2521.

A full list of Jordan McSwiney’s publications is available here.

Public Engagement

• McSwiney, J., Vaughan, M. Heft, A., & Hoffman., M. (2021, August 20). Memes in Far-Right Digital Visual Culture. Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET).

• McSwiney, J. Jasser, G., & Pertwee, E. (2021, June 1). Gab’s gift to the far right. Lowy Institute.

• McSwiney, J. (2021, May 18). The rise of the fascist cadre: Shifts in far right organising in Australia. RightNow! (Center for Research on Extremism).

• McSwiney, J. Jasser, G., & Hammer, D. (2021, January 21). Alt-Tech and online organising after the Capitol riots. Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET).

• McSwiney, J. (2021, January 7). Why are the Capitol rioters so angry? Because they’re scared of losing grip on their perverse idea of democracy. The Conversation.

• McSwiney, J. (2020, March 4). A year on from Christchurch: The far-right threat is “real and growing”. GQ Australia.

• Democratic resilience: Public sphere responses to violent extremism. (2022, October 27). Threat Briefing Webinar #14. Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security, Charles Sturt University

• Future flux. (2022, October 17). Futurecast Canberra. Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

• Democratic resilience: Public sphere responses to violent extremism report launch and panel discussion. (2022, October 13). Frielich Project for the Study of Bigotry, Australian National University. Recording available here.

• Public sphere responses to violent extremism. (2022, September 6). Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra. Recording available here.

• Ercan, S., McSwiney, J., Balint, P., & Dryzek, J. (2022, September). Countering Violent Extremism and Democratic Resilience. Australian Political Studies Association General Conference 2022. Australian National University, Australia  

Honours and Awards

• June - September 2020 - Research Fellow, Digitalisation and the Transnational Public Sphere, Wizenbaum Institute, Berlin, Germany

• July-August 2019 - Doctoral Fellow, WZB Berlin, Berlin, Germany