Digital Media Strategies of the Far Right in Europe and the United States
Contributions by Chip Berlet, Kyle Christensen, Glen Duerr, Robert D. Duval, Justin D. Garcia, Freya Klier, Alexandra Koronaiou, Evangelos Lagos, Carol Mason, Lara Mazurski, Alexandar Mihailovic, Alexandros Sakellariou, Domonkos Sik, Arian Spahiu, Kjetil Stormark, Øyvind Strømmen, Fabian Virchow, Bret Wilson Edited by Patricia Anne Simpson, Helga Druxes
Publication date:
06 May 2015Length of book:
300 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9780739198810
With the leverage of digital reproducibility, historical messages of hate are finding new recipients with breathtaking speed and scope. The rapid growth in popularity of right-wing extremist groups in response to transnational economic crises underscores the importance of examining in detail the language and political mobilization strategies of the New Right. In Europe, for example, populist right-wing activists organized around an anti-immigration agenda are becoming more vocal, providing pushback against the increase in migration flows from North Africa and Eastern Europe and countering support for integration with a categorical rejection of multiculturalism. In the United States, anti-immigration sentiment provides a rallying point for political and personal agendas that connect the rhetoric of borders with national, racial, and security issues.
Digital Media Strategies of the Far Right in Europe and the United States is an effort to examine and understand these issues, informed by the conviction that an interdisciplinary and transnational approach can allow productive comparison of far-right propaganda strategies in Europe and the United States. With a special emphasis on performing ideology in the far-right music scene, on violent anti-immigrant stances, and on the far right’s skillful creation and manipulation of virtual communities, the contributions foreground the cultural shibboleths that are exchanged among far-right supporters on the Internet, which serve to generate a sense of group belonging and the illusion of power far greater than the known numbers of neo-Nazis in any one country might suggest. Moreover, with attention to transatlantic right-wing movements and their use of particularly digital media, the essays in this volume put pressure on the similarities among the various national agents, while accommodating differences in the virtual and sometimes violent identities created and nurtured online.
Digital Media Strategies of the Far Right in Europe and the United States is an effort to examine and understand these issues, informed by the conviction that an interdisciplinary and transnational approach can allow productive comparison of far-right propaganda strategies in Europe and the United States. With a special emphasis on performing ideology in the far-right music scene, on violent anti-immigrant stances, and on the far right’s skillful creation and manipulation of virtual communities, the contributions foreground the cultural shibboleths that are exchanged among far-right supporters on the Internet, which serve to generate a sense of group belonging and the illusion of power far greater than the known numbers of neo-Nazis in any one country might suggest. Moreover, with attention to transatlantic right-wing movements and their use of particularly digital media, the essays in this volume put pressure on the similarities among the various national agents, while accommodating differences in the virtual and sometimes violent identities created and nurtured online.
Simpson and Druxes’ edited collection provides a timely exploration of the role of digital media in political radicalism across Europe and North America. Drawing on an impressive array of rigorously researched studies, the volume considers not only Internet extremism, but the media strategies of contemporary far right parties and movements as well as how homophobia, racism, and radicalism are transmitted through a range of popular cultural forms. Avoiding the temptation to ascribe agency to the Internet itself, this book constitutes a rounded and nuanced contribution to the debate about how digital media is employed by the far right today.