Over the past decade, one of the central strands of my research has focused on the rise and diffusion of anti-gender traditionalism across digital platforms. By introducing computational methods and digital trace data—still relatively new in this field—I have examined how anti-gender movements, from grassroots cultural resistance in Italy to the transnationalization of CitizenGo’s conservative messaging, mobilize religious and traditional values, reshape political narratives, and exploit the digital environment to gain visibility, legitimacy, and influence in networked publics.
This post outlines the main contributions of this strand of my research and presents the next phase of inquiry, which I am already conducting and planning.
Foundations: Cultural Resistance and Sacred Values (2015–2019)
My interest in the anti-gender movement stems from a broader background in sociological and communication studies, particularly with regard to the role of sacred values in social mobilization. Early in my academic journey, I explored how moral worldviews shape collective action and public discourse—an approach informed by my engagement with cultural sociology, symbolic boundaries, and the study of moralization in communication.
In The Sacred in Current Social Science Research (2014), I reflected on how sacredness—understood not only in religious but also in secular and political terms—structures meaning-making and drives boundary work in contemporary societies. This concern with sacred values has informed various strands of my research, including my studies on veganism and animalism (e.g., 2020, 2024, among others), which also rely on strong moral foundations and symbolic narratives of purity, innocence, and justice.
This same lens proved crucial when I turned to traditionalist and anti-gender mobilizations, which also rely on sacred notions—particularly around the family, nature, gender roles, and religious identity. My early empirical work applied these insights to offline and online mobilizations in Italy that sought to defend traditional values against perceived threats.
In Watching over the Sacred Boundaries of the Family. Study on the Standing Sentinels and Cultural Resistance to LGBT Rights (2016), I analyzed the Standing Sentinels—a conservative protest movement opposing same-sex unions. Through a combination of ethnography and digital analysis, the study showed how symbolic offline performances rooted in Catholic moral values could project legitimacy and mobilize support. Crucially, it also revealed how these actors actively built a persistent online presence to diffuse their message and normalize traditionalist frames.
Later, in collaboration with Manolo Farci (2019), I examined Italian men’s rights activism and online backlash against feminism on Facebook. This research unpacked how digital backlash against feminism took shape through narratives of male victimhood and anti-feminist counter-discourses. It highlighted how online platforms facilitate the re-articulation of hegemonic masculinity as a form of reactive identity politics.
From these early works, I have continued to explore how sacred and moral claims are mobilized to support traditionalist worldviews in digital media contexts.
National and Transnational Mobilizations of Anti-Gender Politics
In The Anti-Gender Debate on Social Media. A Computational Communication Science Analysis of Networks, Activism, and Misinformation (2021), I applied computational methods to map Italian Facebook networks around anti-gender discourse.
The findings illustrated how misinformation, activist content, and far-right narratives circulate within hybrid networks—bridging fringe actors with institutional politics. The study documented how online spaces foster coalition-building among traditionalist influencers, far-right groups, and political leaders.
Expanding beyond the national context, the paper Mainstreaming and Transnationalization of Anti-Gender Ideas through Social Media: The Case of CitizenGO, recently published in Information, Communication & Society (2025) analyzed the social media communication of CitizenGO, a transnational conservative organization.
We traced how CitizenGO uses social media to mainstream anti-gender narratives across borders, building digital infrastructures that merge local grievances with global ideological frames. The research highlights how social media affordances facilitate the transnationalization of moral-conservative activism—transforming organizations like CitizenGo into digital hubs for anti-gender coordination across Latin America, Europe, and beyond.
These studies collectively show how anti-gender campaigns move between scales—local, national, and global—through digital mediation, framing, and strategic platform use.
Political and Religious Identity—and the Role of Misinformation
In Right-Wing Populism and Political Instrumentalization of Religion (2022), co-authored with Marchetti, Pagiotti, and Stanziano, we analyzed the Italian right-wing leader Matteo Salvini’s use of Catholic symbolism on Facebook. The study demonstrated how populist leaders invoke religious imagery to reinforce moral authority and align themselves with traditionalist values—thereby legitimizing anti-gender stances in ways that resonate with culturally conservative constituencies.
Further developing this strand of research, my recent study Religious Social Media Users’ Engagement in Online Politics and Moral Conservatism (currently in an advanced stage of review at Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture) focuses on religious users in the 2022 Italian election debate on abortion. Using computational methods, the paper identifies religious actors as a small but highly visible minority on Twitter. These users disproportionately include media professionals, influencers, and pro-life campaigners—and they frequently share content blending conservative theology with nationalist rhetoric.
Average partisanship of religious (RU) vs. non-religious (non-RU) Twitter/X users involved in the abortion debate during the 2022 Italian elections, estimated using computational methods. The analysis shows the online alignment of traditionalist, pro-life religious users with right-wing parties.
Their messages include religious narratives but also misinformation—such as vaccine-related conspiracy theories linked to abortion. Network analysis reveals their community is closely aligned with far-right political clusters, yet remains distinct, suggesting a symbiotic but not fully integrated relationship between religious actors and right-wing political networks. This paper contributes both conceptually and methodologically by introducing scalable techniques to identify religious users and empirically analyze their communicative behavior in moral-conservative discourse.
Misinformation and Affective Politics
The problem of misinformation consistently emerged in my research on the anti-gender movement online. For example, in my 2021 paper, I found that approximately 2% of posts spread misinformation linking LGBTQ+ individuals and organizations to paedophilia. Determined to explore this critical issue further, I examined the psychosocial dimensions of anti-gender belief systems and their potential connection to misinformation susceptibility in my recent article, Anti-Gender Fundamentalist Traditionalism and Vulnerability to Misinformation, published in the Journal of Media and Religion (2025). The study found that individuals with strong traditionalist worldviews tend to have lower levels of education and economic status, proxies for susceptibility to misinformation.
New Directions: Beliefs, Digital Information Environment, Activism, and the General Population
Building on these findings, and thanks to a competitive grant from the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, I am currently working with original survey data to better understand the prevalence of anti-gender beliefs in the broader population and how these attitudes intersect with exposure to digital content and online activism. This project assesses how widely these narratives circulate beyond activist bubbles and investigates the sociological and informational mechanisms behind their uptake. Despite growing interest in the phenomenon, we still lack systematic, population-level data on the reach and impact of anti-gender ideologies—an empirical gap this research aims to fill. Other related projects are also underway.
Why This Matters?
Anti-gender mobilizations are no longer confined to fringe groups or isolated events—they are reshaping political agendas, influencing elections, and fueling misinformation across borders. As digital platforms continue to amplify these narratives, understanding how traditionalist worldviews circulate, gain legitimacy, and resonate with broader publics is more urgent than ever. While important research across sociology, political science, and gender studies is illuminating this phenomenon, my work seeks to contribute by leveraging computational methods, statistical approaches, and large-scale digital trace data. The goal is to shed light on the mechanisms driving this cultural backlash—not only to understand the present moment, but also to inform more effective academic, civic, and policy responses to its democratic and social consequences.
This blog post has been necessarily brief and highlights only a few key insights, but all the referenced studies are available for deeper reading. Feel free to get in touch if you’re interested in learning more or discussing potential collaborations.
Bibliography
Righetti, N. (2014). The sacred in current social sciences research. Italian Sociological Review, 4(1), 133-133. https://doi.org/10.13136/isr.v4i1.77
Righetti, N. (2016). Watching over the Sacred Boundaries of the Family. Study on the Standing Sentinels and Cultural Resistance to LGBT Rights. Italian Sociological Review, 6(2), 265–292. https://doi.org/10.13136/isr.v6i2.134
Farci, M., & Righetti, N. (2019). Italian Men’s Rights Activism and the Online Backlash Against Feminism. Rassegna Italiana di Sociologia, 4, 765–781. https://www.rivisteweb.it/doi/10.1423/96115
Righetti, N. (2021). The Anti-Gender Debate on Social Media. A Computational Communication Science Analysis of Networks, Activism, and Misinformation. Comunicazione Politica, 2/2021, 223–250.
Marchetti, R., Righetti, N., Pagiotti, S., & Stanziano, A. (2022). Right-wing populism and political instrumentalization of religion: the Italian debate on Salvini’s use of religious symbols on Facebook. Journal of Religion in Europe. https://doi.org/10.1163/18748929-bja10052
Righetti, N., Kulichkina, A., Almeida Paroni, B., Cseri, Z. F., Aguirre, S. I., & Maikovska, K. (2025). Mainstreaming and transnationalization of anti-gender ideas through social media: the case of CitizenGO. Information, Communication & Society, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2025.2470229
Righetti, N. (2025). Anti-Gender Fundamentalist Traditionalism and Vulnerability to Misinformation. Journal of Media and Religion, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/15348423.2025.2541098
Righetti, N. (Under review). Religious Social Media Users’ Engagement in Online Politics and Moral Conservatism. Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture.