Enemy Imaginaries: A Case Study of the Far Right in Canada

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen J. Neville ◽  
Ganaele Langlois

Background: Social media and digital technology play a central role in amplifying the potential harms of the far right.  Analysis: The concept of enemy imaginaries is developed to map the digital and social media practices of far-right actors and groups in their antagonistic participation with and against a liberal, multicultural, globalist imagined community. Analysis focuses on a dramatic clash at a People’s Party of Canada event in Hamilton, Ontario, during the 2019 federal election.  Conclusion and implications: Disparate far-right groups can momentarily crystallize around a particular event to define new nationalist objects that are symbolic of their networked and mediated fight against an imagined enemy. Contexte : Les réseaux sociaux et les technologies numériques sont des sources d’amplification des risques posés par l’extrême droite.   Analyse : Nous développons le concept d’imaginaires ennemis pour identifier les pratiques en ligne et en réseau social des acteurs et groupes d’extrême droite, en particulier leur engagement antagoniste envers une communauté imaginaire libérale, multiculturelle et mondialisée. Nous concentrons notre analyse sur un affrontement dramatique lors d’une rencontre organisée par le Parti populaire du Canada à Hamilton, Ontario, lors de l’élection fédérale de 2019.  Conclusion et implications : Les mouvements disparates d’extrême droite peuvent s’agglomérer momentanément autour d’un événement particulier pour définir de nouveaux objets nationalistes qui symbolisent leur lutte dans les réseaux sociaux et les médias contre un ennemi imaginé.

Author(s):  
Olu Jenzen ◽  
Itir Erhart ◽  
Hande Eslen-Ziya ◽  
Umut Korkut ◽  
Aidan McGarry

This article explores how Twitter has emerged as a signifier of contemporary protest. Using the concept of ‘social media imaginaries’, a derivative of the broader field of ‘media imaginaries’, our analysis seeks to offer new insights into activists’ relation to and conceptualisation of social media and how it shapes their digital media practices. Extending the concept of media imaginaries to include analysis of protestors’ use of aesthetics, it aims to unpick how a particular ‘social media imaginary’ is constructed and informs their collective identity. Using the Gezi Park protest of 2013 as a case study, it illustrates how social media became a symbolic part of the protest movement by providing the visualised possibility of imagining the movement. In previous research, the main emphasis has been given to the functionality of social media as a means of information sharing and a tool for protest organisation. This article seeks to redress this by directing our attention to the role of visual communication in online protest expressions and thus also illustrates the role of visual analysis in social movement studies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 498
Author(s):  
Ahmad Mulyana

The sustainability of industrial business depends on the ability of organizations to manage the needs and desires of consumers so that the products produced become part of consumer life. The radio broadcast industry in the era of digital technology is threatened no longer able to meet the needs of its listeners because social media has changed the behavior of audiences in consuming radio media. on that basis the radio broadcast industry must adapt to managing radio broadcasts by synergizing the behavior of the use of digital media with radio characters that are personal to the audience so that the radio broadcast industry continues to survive. The purpose of this study was to determine the management of social media and identify the added value it generates to maintain the business continuity of radio broadcast programs, especially Iradio 89.6 FM. The related concept is digital media management, product added value for business continuity. The research method used is a case study with a qualitative approach with the support of data triangulation so that the analysis can meet the validity aspects of the data. The results showed that the management was carried out with a strategy to build emotional bounding audiences through social media by synergizing digital technology with broadcast radio-based programming content. This helps the business continuity of IRadio 89.6 FM significantly. The existence of digital media for the radio industry is as a complement rather than as a competitor and digital media makes radio easier to access from various areas


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 540-572
Author(s):  
Nadine Keller ◽  
Tina Askanius

An increasingly organized culture of hate is flourishing in today’s online spaces, posing a serious challenge for democratic societies. Our study seeks to unravel the workings of online hate on popular social media and assess the practices, potentialities, and limitations of organized counterspeech to stymie the spread of hate online. This article is based on a case study of an organized “troll army” of online hate speech in Germany, Reconquista Germanica, and the counterspeech initiative Reconquista Internet. Conducting a qualitative content analysis, we first unpack the strategies and stated intentions behind organized hate speech and counterspeech groups as articulated in their internal strategic documents. We then explore how and to what extent such strategies take shape in online media practices, focusing on the interplay between users spreading hate and users counterspeaking in the comment sections of German news articles on Facebook. The analysis draws on a multi-dimensional framework for studying social media engagement (Uldam & Kaun, 2019) with a focus on practices and discourses and turns to Mouffe’s (2005) concepts of political antagonism and agonism to operationalize and deepen the discursive dimension. The study shows that the interactions between the two opposing camps are highly moralized, reflecting a post-political antagonistic battle between “good” and “evil” and showing limited signs of the potentials of counterspeech to foster productive agonism. The empirical data indicates that despite the promising intentions of rule-guided counterspeech, the counter efforts identified and scrutinized in this study predominantly fail to adhere to civic and moral standards and thus only spur on the destructive dynamics of digital hate culture.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ty Hollett ◽  
Jeremiah (Remi) Kalir

In this article, we analyze the production of learner-generated playgrids. Playgrids are produced when learners knit together social media tools to participate across settings and scales, accomplish their goals, pursue interests, and make their learning more enjoyable and personally meaningful. Through case study methodology we examine how two platforms - Slack and Hypothesis - enabled learners to curate and participate among their own digital resources and pathways for learning. We contend that both theoretical and pedagogical development is necessary to support adult learners as they curate tools and pathways based upon their contingent needs and goals, and that the concept of playgrids does so by usefully connecting less formal social media practice with more formal professional learning across various settings and scales. In the end, we demonstrate the importance of honoring learners' desire to connect their completion of formal course activities with their less formal social media practices; both sets of practices need not be in conflict and may be complementary.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Davidson ◽  
Mabel Berezin

Social movement scholars have recently turned their attention to the interactions between political parties and social movements, but little is known about how social media have impacted these relationships, despite widespread adoption of these technologies. We present a case study of the relationship between Britain First, a far-right anti-Muslim social movement, and the U.K. Independence Party, the Eurosceptic political party that spearheaded the Brexit campaign. The movement appeared marginal in the press but it dominated social media, and used this presence to support to the party. We examine the dynamics of the relationship between these groups from 2013 until 2017, drawing upon data from social media, newspapers, and other online sources, and focusing both interactions on between elites and rank-and-file supporters. Our findings illustrate how far-right groups have used new technologies to generate an unprecedented amount of popular support and to attempt to influence the political mainstream.


MedienJournal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-18
Author(s):  
Anna Zoellner ◽  
Stephen Lax

Digitalisation and the emergence of online media in particular have led to intense debates about its effects on what is now often called “traditional media” including broadcast media such as radio. Our paper investigates how radio stations’ expansion into online space has transformed radio production. Focusing on the relationship between station and listeners, it discusses the social media practices of radio producers and explores whether these new digital tools contribute to a shift towards a more participatory production culture. The paper draws on data from a multi-method case study investigation of local British radio stations that combined programme analysis, expert interviews and web analysis. The study highlighted a shared belief among producers in the importance and value of social media for achieving audience loyalty and engagement. Nevertheless –not least due to a lack of additional resources –their use of social media is mainly an extension of traditional journalistic and promotional tech niques. Its potential for listener involvement in the production process is not met and exchanges with the audiences remain in the digital realm without impact on the on-air listener experience.  


Author(s):  
Thor Gibbins ◽  
Christine Greenhow

In this chapter, the authors seek to help educators understand trends in students' writing outside of the classroom, with a particular emphasis on illuminating students' purposes and practices in writing within social media spaces. The authors synthesize current research on students' Internet and social media practices and offer a case study from their own research on students' writing within an educational Facebook application called Hot Dish. This chapter seeks to elucidate the reciprocal relationship between students out of school writing using popular social media and their in-school practices. Ultimately, the authors seek to help readers make connections between what students are doing with new media in their leisure time and the improvement of students' writing performance in K-12 settings, believing there may be important but under-explored synergies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Paweł Golda ◽  
Natalia Żywicka ◽  
Vanessa Ferreira Vieira

This paper aims to examine the use of inclusive French in the Internet publications of Paris universities on their social media. Three higher education institutions were selected: Paris Dauphine-PSL University, Gustave Eiffel University, and Sorbonne Paris North University. The publications were obtained from Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Firstly, the groups of people to whom the use of inclusive French referred were considered. The second question was about the practices used to make the French language inclusive. Eight practices were observed and are described in the paper. Also, the frequency of gender-neutral language was a point of interest. The research corpus is available online: https://tiny.pl/9rcdj.


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