Social Media and the Belfast Riots: Articles in The Conversation, New Statesman and The Times

Posted on June 12, 2026 by Paul Reilly

I have three new articles out on the role of social media in the violent disorder seen in Northern Ireland this week.

On Wednesday I wrote for the Conversation UK on how social media had been used by far-right agitators like Tommy Robinson to incite violence in Belfast and other towns. I argued that while more could be done to prevent online hate and misinformation, the toxic discourse around immigration was a bigger problem. It can be read in full here.

Yesterday I had an op-ed published in The Times. I posited how facts don’t matter to those seeking to leverage traumatic incidents, such as Monday’s knife attack in North Belfast, to further anti-immigrant agendas. I was also interviewed by David Leask for a report on the protests and related violence in Glasgow.

Finally, I had an article published in The New Statesman yesterday. In this one I reflected on the similarities between this week’s events and the racist violence seen in Ballymena last summer. I discussed the reasons why far-right agitators have been able to mobilise support from working-class loyalist communities, and the role of online platforms in whipping up anti-immigrant sentiments. The piece can be read here (you may need to subscribe to access it).

Many thanks to Charlotte Morris for helping arranging these , and to Nick Harris, David Leask, Dale Miller and Sarah Reid for publishing them.

Invited presentation at Memory, Conflict & Peace event

Posted on January 16, 2026 by Paul Reilly

Yesterday I gave an invited presentation at an event entitled ‘Memory, Conflict & Peace’. It was organised by the University of Glasgow’s Memory Lab, an interdisciplinary initiative exploring how memories are made, stored and retrieved by individuals.

Featuring a keynote by Prof. Ann Rigney (Utrecht University), the event considered how memory contributes to conflict. It addressed questions such as: How do official narratives sustain nationalism and preparedness for war? In what ways do digital media amplify, reshape, or contest memories of past violence? What can we learn from societies where memory of division remains a site of contestation?

My paper was called Random Access Memories or clichéd representations? How historical photographs of the Troubles are interpreted on Instagram. This was based on my previous article published in the journal Information, Communication & Society,

The slides can be read below.

View this document on Scribd

Many thanks to the organisers (Yulia, Maria & Craig), the other speakers and attendees for such an thought-provoking workshop.

Presentations at MeCCSA 2025

Posted on September 8, 2025 by Paul Reilly

This week I was at Edinburgh Napier University to attend the annual MeCCSA conference. The theme this year was ‘Identity and Belonging’, with a specific focus on how identities are mediated and mediate themselves.

First, I was part of a Glasgow University Media Group panel on the Cost of Living Crisis. I presented an overview of the key findings with Cairsti Russell and Gavin Hawkton (unfortunately Catherine Happer was unable to join us due to ill-health).

Key themes included the debate over the use of the word ‘crisis’. There was also a focus on the impact of austerity and cuts in public services on low-income households. Our results suggest that media coverage of the COLC prioritised business perspectives over those of civil society. Citizens are increasingly attracted to alternative news sources. The slides from the session can be viewed below:

View this document on Scribd

These findings are from the GUMG’s forthcoming book ‘Bad News for the Cost of Living Crisis’. The book, edited by Catherine Happer, Alison Eldridge and me, will be published with Palgrave Pivot in December 2025.

My second paper was on my ongoing research on social media, parades and protests in Northern Ireland. I drew on my book Digital Contention in a Divided Society and article on #Brexitriots in my presentation. It explored hashtags as affective ritualised responses to contentious events in Northern Ireland. I examined who was behind these discursive formations online, and who benefited from this activity. The slides can be viewed below:

View this document on Scribd

Thanks to everyone who attended the sessions. asked questions, and provided important feedback on the work.

Publication: Article on #BrexitRiots published in International Journal of Communication

Posted on May 1, 2025 by Paul Reilly

The start of the brexit riots
byu/mrdougan inbrexit

My article ‘The Blame Game? #Brexitriots as an affective ritualized response to civil disorder in Northern Ireland has been published in the International Journal of Communication.

This paper focuses on how the April 2021 violence in Northern Ireland were discursively framed on Twitter. I argue that #Brexitriots was an affective ritualised response to civil unrest in Northern Ireland. It demonstrated a lack of knowledge of the grievances fuelling this violence.

The abstract is below:

The protests and violence in Northern Ireland in April 2021 were nominally a manifestation of Loyalist anger at the “Irish Sea border” created as part of the deal that saw the United Kingdom leave the European Union. Social media were widely blamed for having amplified tensions surrounding the protests. This study explores how affective publics, mobilized on Twitter, responded to the “Brexit riots.” It does so by providing an overview of how online platforms are used during contentious episodes in divided societies, examining the background of the disorder, and presenting the results of a reflexive thematic analysis of #brexitriots tweets (N = 8287) posted between April 9 and April 13, 2021. Results indicate that #Brexitriots was an affective ritualized response from tweeters who appeared unaware of the manifold grievances of the protesters. They used these events as a source of partisan political expression, confirming their view that the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union was a mistake.

I would like to thank Suay Özkula and Victoria Baskett for their feedback on an earlier draft of this study. Also, a special mention to Kady and the IJOC team for their editorial help.

The paper is published Open Access and can be read in full here

Sixth review of Digital Contention published in LSE Review of Books

Posted on August 29, 2024 by Paul Reilly

Digital Contention in a Divided Society, MUP, 2024

The sixth review of Digital Contention in a Divided Society was published in LSE Review of Books last week. Penny Nakou (University of Bath) provides a very comprehensive and detailed reflection on the book’s key themes. Some quotes from the review are below:

“The book enables a wide range of readers – academic scholars and researchers, but also citizens and activists – to grasp the relevance of contentious politics and how these are articulated and disputed in the digital era, especially in our increasingly datafied social world”

“This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the context of NI as a divided society, understanding the recent history of local protests and disputes (between 2012-2015) and the wider scene of the relations between NI, Ireland, and the UK”

“Overall, this book offers valuable and detailed insights into the ways that digital media shape and fuel contentious politics, social mobilisation and citizenship. It shows how online platforms can impact polarised societies negatively, by reproducing prejudice and hate speech, but also positively by managing inter-group tensions, avoiding violence and social unrest, and providing informal learning”

“This work can help academics, activists, political and media experts, as well as the general public evaluate the occurrence of disputable events, such as protests and demonstration parades, within profoundly fragmented contexts like NI particularly in the face of rising mis- and dis-information in the digital age”

I am very grateful to Penny for such a thoughtful review of the book, which can be read in full here

Dr Paul Reilly

Communication expert, researcher and lecturer

Tag Archives: Northern Ireland