scholarly journals Emergent self-mediating classes in the digital semiosphere: Covid-19 conspiracies and the climate justice movement

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-140
Author(s):  
John Hartley ◽  
Indrek Ibrus ◽  
Maarja Ojamaa
Keyword(s):  
Media Studies ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Adversarial Models ◽  
Cultural Science ◽  
Climate Crisis

Abstract In this article, we advocate for media studies to adopt a systematic evolutionary-complexity model, in order to link the study of human culture and knowledge practices to the biosphere and geosphere, arguing that such global phenomena require a new kind of cultural science. For this purpose, we extend Juri Lotman's model of the semiosphere to the “digital semiosphere”, superseding inherited adversarial models in both mainstream media and media studies. We contrast the mediation of Covid-19 with that of the climate crisis, using Lotman's model to propose that, in the digital semiosphere, the global emergence of girl-led climate activism and far-right Covid-19 conspiracy groups indicates how new social classes are organising around the means of their own mediation. We discuss ways to study and forecast such emergent processes using the means of cultural data analytics and related approaches.

SOCIAL CLASSES AND THE FAR RIGHT IN BRAZIL

2019 ◽  
pp. 103-116
Author(s):  
SÉRGIO COSTA ◽  
RENATA MOTTA
Keyword(s):  
Social Classes ◽  
Far Right

Environmental Justice and the Anthropocene Meme

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanna Di Chiro
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Justice ◽  
First Century ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Sustainable Communities ◽  
Local Economies ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Indigenous Organizations ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Ecologically Sustainable ◽  
American Academic

This essay examines the adoption of and the indifference to the term “Anthropocene” in diverse discourses addressing the urgency of climate change in the early twenty-first century. Through an analysis of keynote speeches, this essay argues that Anthropocene—a storytelling device invoking a pan-human species responsibility for the current climate crisis—is deployed widely within Euro-Australo-American academic environmental studies and environmental politics, but has not gained political or epistemic traction in environmental justice and climate justice organizations and social movements. Challenging the underlying universalism, anti-humanism, and cynicism woven into Anthropocene discourse, activists from environmental justice, climate justice, and indigenous organizations do not invoke Anthropocene’s rhetoric of humans as destroyers or masters of nature. Rather, these groups provide examples of “people powered” regenerative politics based on life-enhancing political strategies and proactive organizing in support of a just transition toward renewable energy, local economies, and socially and ecologically sustainable communities.

scholarly journals Political Memes and Fake News Discourses on Instagram

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 276-290
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi
Keyword(s):  
Online Communities ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Search Term ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Us ◽  
Insight Into

Political memes have been previously studied in different contexts, but this study fills a gap in literature by employing a mixed method to provide insight into the discourses of fake news on Instagram. The author collected more than 550,000 Instagram posts sent by over 198,000 unique users from 24 February 2012 to 21 December 2018, using the hashtag #fakenews as a search term. The study uses topic modelling to identify the most recurrent topics that are dominant on the platform, while the most active users are identified to understand the nature of the online communities that discuss fake news. In addition, the study offers an analysis of visual metadata that accompanies Instagram images. The findings indicate that Instagram has become a weaponized toxic platform, and the largest community of active users are supporters of the US President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, mostly trolling liberal mainstream media especially CNN, while often aligning themselves with the far-right. On the other hand, a much smaller online community attempts to troll Trump and the Republicans. Theoretically, the study relies on political memes literature and argues that Instagram has become weaponized through an ongoing ‘Meme War,’ for many members in the two main online communities troll and attack each other to exert power on the platform.

scholarly journals Love Jihad in Contemporary Art in Norway

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 1106
Author(s):  
Ragnhild Johnsrud Zorgati
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Cultural Boundaries

This article explores the concept of ‘love jihad’ and the love jihad discourse in a Scandinavian setting, with a particular emphasis on contemporary works of art and popular culture in Norway. Arguing that ‘love jihad’ may be understood as part of a larger cluster of meaning related to fear of love across religious and cultural boundaries, and of losing ‘our women’ to ‘foreign men’, the article demonstrates that the love-jihad discourse and its related tropes exist in the Norwegian public sphere. It is directly articulated in far-right blogs and Facebook groups and indirectly present in the works of art and popular culture that this article explores. Indeed, read intertextually and in light of recent research in sociology and media studies about Islamophobia and anti-Muslim rhetoric on the Internet, works such as Disgraced, Heisann Montebello, SAS plus/SAS pussy, and Norskish demonstrate—through challenging, mocking or discussing the love-jihad discourse—that ‘love jihad’ has echoes in contemporary Norway.

scholarly journals New Right Metapolitics and the Algorithmic Activism of Schild & Vrienden

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630511985670 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ico Maly
Keyword(s):  
Digital Media ◽  
Digital Literacy ◽  
Practical Knowledge ◽  
Relative Weight ◽  
New Right ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Media System ◽  
Discursive Power ◽  
Activist Groups

Digital media play an important role in the contemporary rise in visibility of New Right and far-right activist groups online, offline, and in the mainstream media. This visibility has boosted their online and offline mobilization power. Through a live digital ethnographic analysis of the rise of Schild & Vrienden, a recent Flemish far-right activist movement, I will argue that we should understand their online and offline activism as part of a “metapolitical battle” exploiting the affordances of digital media in a hybrid media system. Schild & Vrienden, just like most contemporary New Right movements, draws ideological and strategic inspiration from “ La Nouvelle Droite,” the French far-right school of thought. Following their lead, these activists focus first and foremost on the circulation and the normalization of ideas: the discursive or metapolitical battle for hegemony. Digital media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube prove to be ideal platforms for that metapolitical battle enabling them to gain considerable discursive power in a hybrid media system. This article argues that the distribution of New Right content on these platforms presupposes digital literacy and algorithmic activism. “Algorithmic activists” are defined as activists who use (theoretical or practical) knowledge about the relative weight certain signals have within the proceduralized choices the algorithms of the media platforms make as proxies of human judgment, to reach their (meta)political goals. In this sense, “algorithmic activism” contributes to spreading their message by interacting with the post to trigger the algorithms of the medium, so that they boost the popularity rankings.

A Knight in Sheep’s Clothing: Media Framing of the Alt-Right Can Alter the Image of Racist Groups

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-96
Author(s):  
Burton Speakman
Keyword(s):  
Political Communication ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Media Framing ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
Framing Analysis ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Media ◽  
Racist Ideology ◽  
National Profile

The Alt-Right increased its national profile during the 2016 presidential election based on its support of Donald Trump. This research becomes more salient with the media continuing to face similar challenges in framing far-right groups. The Alt-Right, like other Far Right groups worldwide, has moderated their framing to hide racist ideology. Therefore, the challenge of this article is to learn if the media allow newer far-right conservative groups to self-frame even against the advice from the Associated Press. This study uses qualitative framing analysis through grounded theory to review the coverage of the Alt-Right as a manner of examining if the group was successful in advancing its desired frames into mainstream media coverage. The results of this study suggest overall the Alt-Right was successful in reducing a direct discussion about the racist beliefs of the group within press coverage. This study continues in the tradition of framing studies of the past yet moves the genre forward as journalists negotiate increasing polarised and fragmented political communication.

Science Fiction Futures and (Re)visions of the Anthropocene

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia D. Gibson ◽  
Kyle Powys Whyte
Keyword(s):  
Technological Change ◽  
Science Fiction ◽  
Philosophy Of Technology ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Technological Risk ◽  
History Of ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Climate Crisis

This chapter discusses how humans envision futures, especially environmental futures, including the climate crisis, the Anthropocene, and mass extinctions. Although the philosophy of technology has traditionally examined the forecasting of technological risk and arguments about whether to embrace or reject the growth of technological mediation of human lives, the field has yet to fully investigate environmental futurisms and imagination. To begin a conversation for the philosophy of technology, philosophies of science fiction narrative discuss the different roles that imagination plays in projecting our concerns with the present onto futures that have not occurred and future generations who are not yet living. One of the key issues that the chapter explores is how science fiction imagination is based on assumptions and values about the history of technological change, including industrialization, capitalism, and colonialism. These issues reveal ways in which technology, future narrative, and climate justice are related.

The Critical Risk of Disinformation for Humanitarians – The Case of the MV Aquarius

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-39
Author(s):  
Sean Healy ◽  
Victoria Russell
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
Search And Rescue ◽  
State Agencies ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
A Site

The search and rescue of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants on the Mediterranean has become a site of major political contestation in Europe, on the seas, in parliaments and government offices and in online public opinion. This article summarises one particular set of controversies, namely, false claims that the non-government organisations conducting such search and rescue operations are actively ‘colluding’ with people smugglers to ferry people into Europe. In spring and summer 2017, these claims of ‘collusion’ emerged from state agencies and from anti-immigration groups, became viral on social media platforms and rapidly moved into mainstream media coverage, criminal investigations by prosecutors and the speech and laws of politicians across the continent. These claims were in turn connected to far-right conspiracy theories about ‘flooding’ Europe with ‘invaders’. By looking at the experience of one particular ship, the MV Aquarius, run in partnership by MSF and SOS Méditerranée, the authors detail the risks that humanitarian organisations now face from such types of disinformation campaign. If humanitarian organisations do not prepare themselves against this risk, they will find themselves in a world turned upside-down, in which their efforts to help people in distress become evidence of criminal activity.

Responsibility for climate justice: Political not moral

2020 ◽  
pp. 147488512095514
Author(s):  
Michael Christopher Sardo
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
Political Responsibility ◽  
Adaptation Capacity ◽  
Climate Vulnerability ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
In Virtue Of

How should responsibility be theorized in the context of the global climate crisis? This question is often framed through the language of distributive justice. Because of the inequitable distribution of historical emissions, climate vulnerability, and adaptation capacity, such considerations are necessary, but do not exhaust the question of responsibility. This article argues that climate change is a structural injustice demanding a theory of political responsibility. Agents bear responsibility not in virtue of their individual causal contribution or capacity, but because they participate in and benefit from the carbon-intensive structures, practices, and institutions that constitute the global political and economic system. Agents take responsibility by engaging in collective political action to transform these structures that generate both climate hazards and unjust relationships of power. By incorporating distributive principles within a capacious conception of political responsibility, this framework advances the theory and practice of climate justice in two ways. First, adopting a relational rather than individualistic criterion of responsibility better makes sense of how and why individuals bear responsibility for a global and intergenerational injustice like climate change. Second, framing climate justice in terms of political responsibility for unjust structural processes better orients and motivates the political action necessary for structural transformation.

Climate Justice: Holding Governments and Business Accountable for the Climate Crisis

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 197-201
Author(s):  
Kristin Casper
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Fossil Fuel ◽  
Business Leaders ◽  
Climate Justice ◽  
The World ◽  
Fossil Fuel Industry ◽  
Fuel Industry ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Impacts Of Climate Change

People around the world are already experiencing the impacts of climate change, and their human rights are under threat. Greenpeace's Climate Justice and Liability Campaign is collaborating with a growing number of communities to reclaim their rights through strategic climate litigation. Three themes run throughout these efforts. First, the climate breakdown is a human rights crisis. Second, political and business leaders must take immediate action or risk being sued. Third, there is mounting evidence that the fossil fuel industry is significantly responsible for the climate crisis and will ultimately be held accountable. Before exploring these themes, it is useful to understand the origins of Greenpeace International's climate justice efforts.

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