Right-wing populism with Chinese characteristics? Identity, otherness and global imaginaries in debating world politics online

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenchen Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
World Order ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Global Circulation ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The One ◽  
Western Hegemony

The past few years have seen an emerging discourse on Chinese social media that combines the claims, vocabulary and style of right-wing populisms in Europe and North America with previous forms of nationalism and racism in Chinese cyberspace. In other words, it provokes a similar hostility towards immigrants, Muslims, feminism, the so-called ‘liberal elites’ and progressive values in general. This article examines how, in debating global political events such as the European refugee crisis and the American presidential election, well-educated and well-informed Chinese Internet users appropriate the rhetoric of ‘Western-style’ right-wing populism to paradoxically criticise Western hegemony and discursively construct China’s ethno-racial and political identities. Through qualitative analysis of 1038 postings retrieved from a popular social media website, this research shows that by criticising Western ‘liberal elites’, the discourse constructs China’s ethno-racial identity against the ‘inferior’ non-Western other, exemplified by non-white immigrants and Muslims, with racial nationalism on the one hand; and formulates China’s political identity against the ‘declining’ Western other with realist authoritarianism on the other. The popular narratives of global order protest against Western hegemony while reinforcing a state-centric and hierarchical imaginary of global racial and civilisational order. We conclude by suggesting that the discourse embodies the logics of anti-Western Eurocentrism and anti-hegemonic hegemonies. This article: (1) provides critical insights into the changing ways in which self–other relations are imagined in Chinese popular geopolitical discourse; (2) sheds light on the global circulation of extremist discourses facilitated by the Internet; and (3) contributes to the ongoing debate on right-wing populism and the ‘crisis’ of the liberal world order.

Die Macht der Bilder und Bilder der Macht: die sprachliche Konstruktion von Nationalismus und Konservatismus in der strategischen politischen Kommunikation von Vox España

2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (2) ◽  
pp. 538-566
Author(s):  
Sandra Issel-Dombert
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
The Social ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
The Media ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractFrom a theoretical and empirical linguistic point of view, this paper emphasizes the importance of the relationship between populism and the media. The aim of this article is to explore the language use of the Spanish right wing populism party Vox on the basis of its multimodal postings on the social network Instagram. For the analysis of their Instagram account, a suitable multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) provides a variety of methods and allows a theoretical integration into constructivism. A hashtag-analysis reveals that Vox’s ideology consists of a nativist and ethnocentric nationalism on the one hand and conservatism on the other. With a topos analysis, the linguistic realisations of these core elements are illustrated with two case studies.

The Web of Hate: Fragmentation of Media Authority and its Link to Right-Wing Populism and Cyber Islamophobia

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 231-243
Author(s):  
Zeynep Aydin ◽  
◽  
Albrecht Fuess ◽  
Thijl Sunier ◽  
Araceli González Vázquez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Information Exchange ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Terror Attacks ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Blowing Up ◽  
Echo Chamber ◽  
Right Wing Populism

The twenty-first century has been marked strongly with two extremely significant developments, firstly the increase in international terror attacks and secondly the evolution of media and information consumption based on technological advancements. These phenomena together have led to the figurative and literal blowing up of mass media coverage, but, increasingly and more importantly, social media traffic. This shift in information consumption by the general public, especially after terror attacks, is leading to a fragmentation of authority that traditional media gained after years of being the monopoly of verified information exchange. The increased usage and wide accessibility of social media is allowing more people to feel connected globally after terror attacks and is leading to the creation of mediascapes by defining in-groups of like-minded people against Islam, as a common enemy, which leads to a drastic increase in online hate against Islam and Muslims. Digital mediascapes therefore have the ability to unify participants around an “us” that is specifically against the “other” that is labeled as an enemy. Islamophobia thus has become a useful tool for right-wing populists not only to gather a large following online but for right-wing parties to assemble electors in several European nation-states. This, in turn, can provoke the escalation of right-wing populism where people, who are experiencing the echo chamber first hand or those perceiving the viral developments from outside, can become easy prey for political influence. Therefore, social media groups, hashtags and sites can be seen as the feeding ground for right-wing populist political parties. Keywords: Echo-chamber, Islamophobia, cyberspace, social media, right-wing populism.

Brexit and Euroskepticism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlene Wind
Keyword(s):  
European Integration ◽  
World Order ◽  
First Century ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Member States ◽  
Sovereign State ◽  
The Past ◽  
European Project ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Eu

Doomsdays preachers suggested that Brexit and Trump would mean the end of the liberal world order as we know it and thus the end of the EU. The research presented here suggests the opposite. Not only have Europeans turned their back to populism by voting yes to reforms and pro-EU-parties and governments in different member states over the past months, but Brexit and Trump also seems to have given a complete new momentum to the European project. This chapter demonstrates why Brexit cannot be generalized to the rest of the continent but is the result of a complicated and special British conception of what it means to be a sovereign state in the twenty-first century. Moreover, and paradoxically, surveys show that the greatest fear among Europeans today is not more European integration but right wing populism and European disunion.

Right-wing populism, social media and echo chambers in Western democracies

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-699 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelley Boulianne ◽  
Karolina Koc-Michalska ◽  
Bruce Bimber
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Online Social Media ◽  
Echo Chamber ◽  
Right Wing Populism

Many observers are concerned that echo chamber effects in digital media are contributing to the polarization of publics and, in some places, to the rise of right-wing populism. This study employs survey data collected in France, the United Kingdom and the United States (1500 respondents in each country) from April to May 2017. Overall, we do not find evidence that online/social media explain support for right-wing populist candidates and parties. Instead, in the United States, use of online media decreases support for right-wing populism. Looking specifically at echo chamber measures, we find offline discussion with those who are similar in race, ethnicity and class positively correlates with support for populist candidates and parties in the United Kingdom and France. The findings challenge claims about the role of social media and the rise of populism.

scholarly journals Populism and International Relations: (Un)predictability, personalisation, and the reinforcement of existing trends in world politics

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 711-730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Destradi ◽  
Johannes Plagemann
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
International Partnerships ◽  
Status Seeking ◽  
Global North ◽  
Different Shapes ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The Impact

AbstractAs populists have formed governments all over the world, it becomes imperative to study the consequences of the rise of populism for International Relations. Yet, systematic academic analyses of the international impact of populist government formation are still missing, and political commentators tend to draw conclusions from few cases of right-wing populism in the Global North. But populism – conceptualised as a ‘thin’ ideology based on anti-elitism and anti-pluralism – takes different shapes across world regions as populists combine it with different ‘thick’ ideologies. To reflect such diversity and gain more systematic insights into the global implications of populism, we focus on cases of populist government formation in the Global South. We find that populists in power are not, per se, more belligerent or less willing to engage globally than their non-populist predecessors. Factors like status seeking or a country's embeddedness in international institutions mitigate the impact of populism. Its most immediate effect concerns procedural aspects: foreign policymaking becomes more centralised and personalised – yet, not entirely unpredictable, given the importance of ‘thick’ ideologies espoused by populist parties and leaders. Rather than changing course entirely, populists in power reinforce existing trends, especially a tendency towards diversifying international partnerships.

Right-Wing Populism and Noncoercive Injustice

John Rawls ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 354-370
Author(s):  
Michael Blake
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Governance ◽  
The Other ◽  
Related Phenomenon ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Law Of Peoples ◽  
Conceptual Distinction ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Political Communities ◽  
The One ◽  
Coercive Intervention

John Rawls’s The Law of Peoples makes several assumptions that, in the years since that book’s writing, have been shown to be potentially flawed. The first is that democratic societies can be predicted to inculcate citizens with democratic values, such that democratic peoples have no realistic worry about backsliding into tyranny. The second is that there is a sharp conceptual distinction between coercive intervention, on the one hand, and mere conversation and speech on the other. The emergence of right-wing populism—and the related phenomenon of troll farms, intended to inflame disagreement and anger within democratic political communities abroad—have raised the issue of antidemocratic societies using speech to undermine support for democratic self-government abroad. Rawls’s Law of Peoples, I argue, is poorly suited for the task of responding to these circumstances. Rawls’s Law of Peoples might have been better situated for this task, the chapter concludes, had Rawls included robust respect for democratic governance within that law. This Democratic Law of Peoples might have been the basis of a global society in which democracies held each other to account for their deviations from democratic self-government—while still expressing tolerance and modesty about the extent to which we might coercively intervene in favor of democracy.

scholarly journals Social Media and the Emergence, Establishment and Transformation of the Right-Wing Populist Finns Party

Populism ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 121-139
Author(s):  
Tuukka Ylä-Anttila
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Attention Economy ◽  
Historical Trajectory ◽  
The Right ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Inside Out

Abstract This paper assesses the significance of social media for the Finns Party and the related anti-immigration movement from 2007 to the present day, in light of theories on the relationship of populism and social media. These include people-centrism, disenfranchisement, homophily, the attention economy, media elitism, and (lack of) communicative resources. Tracing the historical trajectory of the Finnish anti-immigration movement and the Finns Party, I argue that the Finnish case is an example of a movement being born online and using social media to build a political identity and strategically gain influence through a party, eventually transforming it from the inside out—rather than the party strategically using social media for its purposes, as is sometimes assumed in party-centric literature. While acknowledging the continued importance of parties, research on contemporary populist movements must take into account the political engagement of citizens facilitated by online media.

scholarly journals Social media and populism: an elective affinity?

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (5) ◽  
pp. 745-753 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Gerbaudo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
The United States ◽  
Elective Affinity ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
The People ◽  
Mass Politics ◽  
The One ◽  
Intense Debate ◽  
Populist Movements

Since the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, an intense debate has developed around the connection between social media and populist movements. In this article, I put forward some theses about the reasons for the apparent ‘elective affinity’ between social media and populism. I argue that the match between social media and populist politics derives from the way in which the mass networking capabilities of social media, at the time of a ‘mass web’ involving billions of people worldwide, provide a suitable channel for the mass politics and the appeals to the people typical of populism. But this affinity also needs to be understood in light of the rebellious narrative that has come to be associated with social media at times in which rapid technological development has coincided with a profound economic crisis, shaking the legitimacy of the neoliberal order. This question is explored by examining the role acquired by social media in populist movements as the people’s voice and the people’s rally, providing, on the one hand, with a means for disaffected individuals to express themselves and, on the other hand, with a space in which disgruntled Internet users could gather and form partisan online crowds.

scholarly journals Defining the Types of «Fakers» in Social Media

2020 ◽  
pp. 231-236
Author(s):  
Jose Ramon Saura ◽  
Jonathan Gomez Punzon
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Information Overload ◽  
Academic Quality ◽  
Scientific Review ◽  
Internet Users ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
The One ◽  
Real Person ◽  
Content Support

Nowadays, internet users spend much of their time on social networks, where they share and generate content, support the causes and activities they like, get in touch with their peers, and generate audio-visual content. Besides, they also share their opinions with other users, thus producing User-Generated Content (UGC). The authors noted that UGC lacks proven scientific, professional, or academic quality. However, when content is generated massively in social networks, it can get viral and achieve the most significant engagement of users in the community. Furthermore, there is evidence that the content with the most significant impact on other users is the one that achieves the greatest engagement and support. The scientific review analysis indicated that usually, the content that achieves more impact and engagement in social media is related to fake news or published by fake users. In this context, the present study aims to theorize and define the concept of «faker» based on a review of previous studies. Main results show that a «faker» is a user who is not a real person, but pretends to be such. Based on the results of the exploratory analysis, the following 6 types of users classified as fakers were identified and analyzed: conspiranoid (users who share compulsive and self-taught content in which they share minimal details of the theory they support, have powerful firm beliefs, and always find a way to verify their hypotheses); proselytizing (users who try to gain followers by any means and convince other followers to follow them); narcissists (users who base their content on love and attraction to themselves and generate false content that reflects their own image as the main message); creators of chaos (users whose main objective is to generate chaos in social networks and base their arguments and theories on personal, professional, or political relationships among other users to generate conflicts that will increase the chaos within a closed community); satyr humor (users who generate content focused on the satire targeting public, mythological, ideological, or other characters or entities and defame others by focusing on the actions of public characters); paranoid tyrants (users who focus on the analysis of the information overload, which makes it difficult to interpret the contents on the Internet today). In the frame of this paper, the authors provided a discussion of important theoretical and practical implications of obtained results for the marketing industry and digital marketing in social media. Keywords: faker, fake content, social media, social network, UGC.

scholarly journals Antifeminist and “Truly Liberated”: Conservative Performances of Gender by Women Politicians in Hungary and Romania

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 43-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ov Cristian Norocel
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Gender Roles ◽  
Women Politicians ◽  
Career Interests ◽  
Women In Politics ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Level Analysis

This article employs a two-level analysis to compare the discursive performance of gender on social media in Hungary and Romania; the two countries with the lowest percentage of women in politics in the European Union (EU). First, by revealing the tension between conservative views about gender roles, and social and political specificities in the two countries, the research illustrates how various parties on the conservative right ideological continuum―from the center-right to right-wing populism―relate to the feminist project. Secondly, it analyzes how selected women politicians within this continuum negotiate their ideological beliefs about gender roles with their political career interests, by means of social media (Facebook). The analytical constructs of idealized motherhood and feminine toughness are employed to examine a period of intensive political campaigning in 2014 in both Hungary and Romania. The study triangulates the multi-layered discursive circumstances (the historical, contextual, and social media contexts) in Hungary and Romania, and maps out the similarities and differences that are disclosed when comparing the selected women politicians. The article makes a significant theoretical and empirical contribution to scholarship on gender and conservatism in particular and raises questions for the wider study of gender, politics, and social media in general.

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