Threat discourses in and between crises – ascribing threats to forced migrants on Facebook

Article Open access Published: 02 July 2026 Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2026) Cite this article We are providing an unedited version of this manuscript to give early access to its findings. Before final publication, the manuscript will undergo further editing. Please note there may be errors present which affect the content, and all legal disclaimers apply. Subjects Abstract This article examines how crises catalyse intergroup threat expression, focusing on the European refugee crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. We analysed Estonian-language Facebook posts, which had the maximum number of user engagements per quarter, and the content linked within these posts on the topic of forced migration from 2014 to 2020. Applying the discourse-historical approach, we analysed threats attributed to forced migrants. The results reveal that the refugee crisis opened a discursive window of opportunity for expressing existential, economic, and religious threats, and the pandemic for health threats. Realistic threats proved to be more persistent, with symbolic threats amplifying the threat perception when combined. Since the refugee crisis, radical right actors used the combination of different threat types to mobilise electoral support, and during the pandemic, a pro-Russian (dis)information network employed a similar strategy to spread divisive content. The study advances
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