Attitudes towards incels - A meta study on negatives attitudes in research

Abstract

This thesis addresses incels or involuntary celibates. A group that entered the sight of mainstream media in 2018 after the Toronto van attacks, and since have garnered an increasing amount of media attention. Several mass-killers have been linked to the group, either self-identifying or describing the same plights that incels describe. However, with the increase of focus on incels in mainstream media there has also been an increase on academic articles on incels. In this thesis I seek out to understand the academic work that has been published on incels and whether these articles are written with a sufficient understanding of internet culture and if they have a sufficient understanding of incels. Conducting a meta-study on existing literature on incels chosen by conducting a rapid review with set criteria through search engines such as Google Scholar and Oria I have found articles that suit this thesis well. To analyse the data I have chosen to go with Toulmin´s model for argument analysis to break down the arguments made in the existing literature on incels to find whether there are pre-conceived attitudes from the authors found within the data material. This thesis seeks to broaden the understanding of incels through a neutral understanding of the group.

This thesis addresses incels or involuntary celibates. A group that entered the sight of mainstream media in 2018 after the Toronto van attacks, and since have garnered an increasing amount of media attention. Several mass-killers have been linked to the group, either self-identifying or describing the same plights that incels describe. However, with the increase of focus on incels in mainstream media there has also been an increase on academic articles on incels. In this thesis I seek out to understand the academic work that has been published on incels and whether these articles are written with a sufficient understanding of internet culture and if they have a sufficient understanding of incels. Conducting a meta-study on existing literature on incels chosen by conducting a rapid review with set criteria through search engines such as Google Scholar and Oria I have found articles that suit this thesis well. To analyse the data I have chosen to go with Toulmin´s model for argument analysis to break down the arguments made in the existing literature on incels to find whether there are pre-conceived attitudes from the authors found within the data material. This thesis seeks to broaden the understanding of incels through a neutral understanding of the group.