Weaponizing Victimhood

2019 ◽  
pp. 64-83
Author(s):  
Lee Bebout
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Social Power ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Oppression ◽  
Fox News ◽  
Felt Sense ◽  
Hyperbolic Form ◽  
White Supremacists ◽  
Perceived Challenge

This chapter analyzes a rhetoric of “weaponized victimhood” and its crucial role in uniting disparate factions of the contemporary American Right. Weaponized victimhood speaks to a felt sense of loss of power and esteem among social groups facing challenges to their traditionally privileged status positions. This expression of grievance takes on a hyperbolic form through assertions that groups such as whites, men, and Christians face great social oppression. These groups are portrayed as victims of such projected threats as a “War on Christmas” and “feminazi” activists. Such victimization narratives circulate across various types of conservative news and right-wing media—from Fox News to alt-right and men’s rights websites. A common rhetoric of victimization cultivates a shared affective sensibility among groups ranging from avowed white supremacists to anti-feminists to others reacting against a perceived challenge to their social power and standing.

Main Forms of Propagandistic Activities of the Right-Wing Parties (1904–1914)

2020 ◽  
Vol 102 ◽  
pp. 656-676
Author(s):  
Igor V. Omeliyanchuk
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Periodical Press ◽  
Political Movement ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Right ◽  
In The Beginning ◽  
The 19Th Century

The article examines the main forms and methods of agitation and propagandistic activities of monarchic parties in Russia in the beginning of the 20th century. Among them the author singles out such ones as periodical press, publication of books, brochures and flyers, organization of manifestations, religious processions, public prayers and funeral services, sending deputations to the monarch, organization of public lectures and readings for the people, as well as various philanthropic events. Using various forms of propagandistic activities the monarchists aspired to embrace all social groups and classes of the population in order to organize all-class and all-estate political movement in support of the autocracy. While they gained certain success in promoting their ideology, the Rights, nevertheless, lost to their adversaries from the radical opposition camp, as the monarchists constrained by their conservative ideology, could not promise immediate social and political changes to the population, and that fact was excessively used by their opponents. Moreover, the ideological paradigm of the Right camp expressed in the “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality” formula no longer agreed with the social and economic realities of Russia due to modernization processes that were underway in the country from the middle of the 19th century.

News on the Right

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Research ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Rhetorical Analysis ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Quantitative Research Methods ◽  
Fox News ◽  
National Review ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
The Right

This volume seeks to initiate a new interdisciplinary field of scholarly research focused on the study of right-wing media and conservative news. To date, the study of conservative or right-wing media has proceeded unevenly, cross-cutting several traditional disciplines and subfields, with little continuity or citational overlap. This book posits a new multifaceted object of analysis—conservative news cultures—designed to promote concerted interdisciplinary investigation into the consistent practices or patterns of meaning making that emerge between and among the sites of production, circulation, and consumption of conservative news. With contributors from the fields of journalism studies, media and communication studies, cultural studies, history, political science, and sociology, the book models the capacious field it seeks to promote. Its contributors draw upon a variety of qualitative and quantitative research methods—from archival analysis to regression analysis of survey data to rhetorical analysis—to elucidate case studies focused on conservative news cultures in the United States and the United Kingdom. From the National Review to Fox News, from the National Rifle Association to Brexit, from media policy to liberal media bias, this book is designed as an introduction to right-wing media and an opening salvo in the interdisciplinary field of conservative news studies.

The Fox Diet

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yochai Benkler ◽  
Robert Faris ◽  
Hal Roberts
Keyword(s):  
First Year ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Justice Department ◽  
Fox News ◽  
The Core ◽  
Deep State ◽  
Media Ecosystem ◽  
Conservative Media ◽  
The Right

This chapter focuses on the role of the dominant player in conservative media, Fox News, during the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency. It looks at three case studies to illustrate how Fox News used its position at the core of the right-wing media ecosystem repeatedly to mount propaganda attacks in support of Trump: the Michael Flynn firing in March 2017, when Fox adopted the “deep state” framing of the entire controversy; the James Comey firing and Robert Mueller appointment in May 2017; when Fox propagated the Seth Rich murder conspiracy; and in October and November, when the arrests of Paul Manafort and guilty plea of Flynn seemed to mark a new level of threat to the president, Fox reframed the Uranium One story as an attack on the integrity of the FBI and Justice Department officials in charge of the investigation.

scholarly journals Hillary-hating

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Blackett
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
American Dream ◽  
Public Debate ◽  
The State ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Facebook Pages ◽  
Pro Choice

As a politician who became famous for being another politician’s wife, Hillary Clinton has long been a lightning rod for American fears (and hopes) about the state of gender. Although most commentators agree that she has been hated ubiquitously since 1992, scholarship on Hillary-hating almost always considers it a male impulse. This paper asks why right-wing American feminists hate Hillary Clinton. The author studied “Women for Trump” Facebook pages, focusing on memes that present the pro-choice Clinton as a monstrous (anti-)mother. Hatred of Clinton is not produced by ‘reasonable’ public debate, this paper argues; more important are the potent affective charges Clinton’s image carries. A ‘memetic’ analysis is used to look at the affective object-ness of Clinton’s image: where it travels, with what impetus, and what responses it provokes. Affect plays a crucial role in both sharing memes online and the workings of misogyny and racism in right-wing women’s pursuit of the American Dream.

A Feminist Defense of Political Liberalism

John Rawls ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 249-262
Author(s):  
Christie Hartley ◽  
Lori Watson
Keyword(s):  
Social Power ◽  
Political Liberalism ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Internal Resources ◽  
Substantive Equality ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Subordination ◽  
Equal Citizenship

Some feminists claim that liberal theories lack the resources necessary for fully diagnosing and remedying the social subordination of persons as members of social groups. Part of the problem is that liberals focus too narrowly on the state as the locus of political power. However, equal citizenship is also affected by systems of power that operate in the background culture and that construct social hierarchies in which persons are subordinated as members of social groups. This chapter argues that political liberalism, properly understood, entails a commitment to substantive equality such that it has the internal resources to address the kinds of inequality produced by unjust forms of social power. Although some will claim that if the basic structure is the subject of justice, political liberalism will still fall short of securing gender justice, we explain why this worry is misplaced.

scholarly journals Oslavy výročí Slovenského národního povstání jako platforma pro vytváření obrazů nepřátel Slovenska

2020 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimír Naxera ◽  
Petr Krčál
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Broad Audience ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Right Wing Extremism ◽  
The Eu

The focus of this study lies in the instrumental use of history as a tool for the legitimization of political claims. Our paper is related to the Slovak National Uprising, which plays a crucial role in the national mythology of Slovakia. This role is a reason why the annual celebrations of this historical event are one of the most important political occasions in the country. Many politicians use the celebrations as an opportunity to highlight many political issues and address a broad audience. Using semi-participant observation, we analysed five anniversary celebrations of the event (2015–2019) and the securitization strategies inherited in the speeches of politicians at the celebrations. We showed that not only topics related to the legacy of the anti-fascist uprising (e.g. contemporary right-wing extremism) are securitized or serve as objects of the creation of moral panic during these events. Some other, unrelated actors/phenomena are securitized or labelled as a threat as well – especially immigration and the politics of the EU. This fact notwithstanding, the legacy of the SNU was always used for the legitimization of securitization/creation of moral panic. 

Globalization, Cleavages, and the Radical Right

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Bornschier
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Party System ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
System Change ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Scale Transformations ◽  
Relative Salience

This chapter underscores the merit of studying the emergence and growth of the radical right from a cleavage perspective, which sees party system change as rooted in large-scale transformations of social structure. The chapter begins by discussing explanations for the rise of the radical right in terms of the educational revolution, the processes of economic and cultural modernization, and globalization, showing where these perspectives converge and where they differ. It then goes on to show how the structuralist perspective has been combined with a focus on agency. Under conditions of multidimensional party competition, the behavior of mainstream parties is crucial, because it determines the relative salience of competitive dimensions and whether they offer space for radical right-wing challengers. Some of the most exciting recent research studies how the processes of dealignment and realignment structure the propensity of specific social groups such as the manual working class to support the radical right.

scholarly journals A Disinformation-Misinformation Ecology: The Case of Trump

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J. Froehlich
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Psychological Factors ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Social Self ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Fox News ◽  
Knowledge And Beliefs ◽  
Approval Rating

This paper lays out many of the factors that make disinformation or misinformation campaigns of Trump successful. By all rational standards, he is unfit for office, a compulsive liar, incompetent, arrogant, ignorant, mean, petty, and narcissistic. Yet his approval rating tends to remain at 40%. Why do rational assessments of his presidency fail to have any traction? This paper looks at the conflation of knowledge and beliefs in partisan minds, how beliefs lead to self-deception and social self-deception and how they reinforce one another. It then looks at psychological factors, conscious and unconscious, that predispose partisans to pursue partisan sources of information and reject non-partisan sources. It then explains how these factors sustain the variety and motivations of Trump supporters’ commitment to Trump. The role of cognitive authorities like Fox News and right-wing social media sites are examined to show how the power of these media sources escalates and reinforces partisan views and the rejection of other cognitive authorities. These cognitive authorities also use emotional triggers to inflame Trump supporters, keeping them addicted by feeding their anger, resentment, or self-righteousness. The paper concludes by discussing the dynamics of the Trump disinformation-misinformation ecology, creating an Age of Inflamed Grievances.

scholarly journals WHITE SUPREMACISTS DECEPTIVELY USING SCREENSHOTS AS EVIDENCE: A SOCIAL SEMIOTIC APPROACH TO ANALYSING CONSPIRATORIAL YOUTUBE VIDEOS

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivia Inwood
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Visual Content ◽  
A Value ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
Linguistic Strategies ◽  
Semiotic Approach ◽  
White Supremacists ◽  
Youtube Videos

YouTube has become notoriously associated with extreme right-wing communities that spread discourses of white supremacy and conspiracy. This study applies a social semiotic approach to analysing conspiratorial YouTube videos created by white supremacists in response to the Notre Dame Fire of 2019. In particular, this study applies a combined legitimation (Van Leeuwen, 2007) and communing affiliation (Zappavigna and Martin, 2018) framework to the verbal and visual content of 15 videos. Communing affiliation refers to how values are positioned as bondable in situation where users don’t interact directly (Zappavigna and Martin, 2018). It is formed from couplings of ideational (what is being evaluated) and attitudinal (how it is evaluated) meaning (Martin and White, 2005), hence forming a value that is bondable. Legitimation (Van Leeuwen, 2007) refers to how discourses establish authority and can be realised textually or visually, with various linguistic strategies. This study will focus on the idea of ‘technological authority’ construed by positive evaluations in the transcripts of screenshots as evidence and the use of screenshots as visual evidence. Overall, this study will show how key values are working in tandem with (de)legitimation strategies, how (de)legitimation can further explain the significance of these values, and how YouTubers artificially create credibility in their videos through these legitimation and affiliation strategies. This raises further questions about the invoked meanings of screenshots as evidence and the ethical dilemmas that screenshots become entangled in, when considering the attention given to false and hateful content that is shared online.

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