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.

Thinking globally, acting locally

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 178-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabienne H. Baider
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Qualitative Method ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Conceptual Coherence ◽  
Figures Of Speech ◽  
Greek Cypriot ◽  
Linguistic Strategies ◽  
Youtube Videos ◽  
Conceptual Shift ◽  
Mainstream Press

Abstract The aim of this study is to show how trans-national right-wing linguistic strategies and global xenophobic attitudes are reworked at national levels, and how, as a result, specialized country- and culture-specific coercion and legitimization strategies arise. Using a detailed, quantitative-qualitative method of analysis, we look at the Greek Cypriot extreme-right party ELAM to see how the party’s anti-migration rhetoric construes any foreign presence as threat, by proximizing it linguistically as ‘invasion.’ This strategy allows the conflation of the current ‘Other’ (migrants) with archetypical adversaries, such as Turkey. Indeed, anchoring the migration issue in the main national narrative, i.e., the long-standing Cypriot conflict, gives their xenophobic language conceptual coherence and strengthens its textual cohesion. In particular two figures of speech are the basis of this invasion script, the word metanasteftiko ‘the immigration phenomenon’ conceptualized as the kipriako (the Cyprus problem, i.e., the political division of the island). This parallelism opens the way for a number of inferences, while it also enables a conceptual shift from the real phenomenon known as globalization and multiculturalism to the imagined idea of a (white/Western) genocide. Data include comments responding to ELAM followers’ YouTube videos and mainstream press representations. Methodology includes corpus linguistics and discourse analysis focused on the fundamental metaphors found in the data such as migration as unbearable weight and migration as dirt.

Addicted to Hate: Identity Residual among Former White Supremacists

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (6) ◽  
pp. 1167-1187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pete Simi ◽  
Kathleen Blee ◽  
Matthew DeMichele ◽  
Steven Windisch
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Environmental Factors ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Physiological Responses ◽  
The Self ◽  
Cognitive Sociology ◽  
Recent Advances ◽  
White Supremacists ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Desire To Change

The process of leaving deeply meaningful and embodied identities can be experienced as a struggle against addiction, with continuing cognitive, emotional, and physiological responses that are involuntary, unwanted, and triggered by environmental factors. Using data derived from a unique set of in-depth life history interviews with 89 former U.S. white supremacists, as well as theories derived from recent advances in cognitive sociology, we examine how a rejected identity can persist despite a desire to change. Disengagement from white supremacy is characterized by substantial lingering effects that subjects describe as addiction. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of identity residual for understanding how people leave and for theories of the self.

Muslim Origins and Destinations

2019 ◽  
pp. 29-44
Author(s):  
Tahir Abbas
Keyword(s):  
Social Mobility ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Global North ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Right ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Downward Social Mobility

Patterns of racism in the Global North are correlated with the changing nature of globalization and its impact on individual economies, especially over the last four decades. The ‘left behind’ are groups in society who have faced considerable downward social mobility, with some becoming targeted by the mainstream and fringe right-wing groups who do this to release their pent up frustration towards the center of political and economic power. How this form of racism has evolved over time to focus on race, ethnicity, culture and now religion is explored in relation to the UK case, discussing the rise of Trump and the issue of Brexit as symptoms of a wider malaise affecting societies of the Global North. These forms of tribalism act to galvanize the right, combining racism with white supremacy, xenophobia and isolationism.

scholarly journals Feeling the signs: The origins of meaning in the biological philosophy of Susanne K. Langer and Hans Jonas

2002 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-200
Author(s):  
Andreas Weber
Keyword(s):  
Embodied Cognition ◽  
Organic System ◽  
Symbolic Expression ◽  
Hans Jonas ◽  
A Value ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Semiotic Approach ◽  
Cultural Symbolism ◽  
Creating Meaning ◽  
Value Concept

This paper describes the semiotic approach to organism in two proto-biosemiotic thinkers, Susanne K. Langer and Hans Jonas. Both authors develop ideas that have become central terms of biosemiotics: the organism as subject, the realisation of the living as a closed circular self, the value concept, and, in the case of Langer, the concept of symbol. Langer tries to develop a theory of cultural symbolism based on a theory of organism as a self-realising entity creating meaning and value. This paper deals mainly with what both authors independently call “feeling”. Both authors describe “feeling” as a value-based perspective, established as a result of the active self interest manifested by an organic system. The findings of Jonas and Langer show the generation of a subject pole, or biosemiotic agent, under a more precise accent, as e.g. Uexküll does. Their ideas can also be affiliated to the interpretation of autopoiesis given by the late Francisco Varela (embodied cognition or “enactivism”). A synthesis of these positions might lead to insights how symbolic expression arises from biological conditions of living.

scholarly journals Googly eyes and yard signs: Deconstructing one professor’s successful rebuffing of a right-wing attack on an academic institution

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-152
Author(s):  
Theresa Catalano ◽  
Ari Kohen
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Academic Institution ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Multiple Strategies ◽  
Emotional Appeal ◽  
Linguistic Strategies ◽  
Auto Ethnography ◽  
The Media ◽  
University Of Nebraska Lincoln ◽  
The University

Right-wing populism is on the rise worldwide, and political attacks against universities have increased in the United States since the election of Donald Trump. In 2017, an incident occurred at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln which resulted in accusations of hostility toward conservative students. Just over a year later, political forces again attempted to denigrate the university’s reputation, but this time they did not succeed. This (multimodal) positive discourse analysis/generative critique combines collaborative auto-ethnography to describe the way these events were represented in the media, deconstructing a professor’s methods of countering a right-wing attack on an academic institution. Findings demonstrate the use of multiple strategies such as controlling the narrative through social media savvy; using linguistic strategies such as refutation of strawman fallacies, syntax, deixis and emotional appeal; and use of image.

Grammars of contestation and pluralism: Paulo Freire’s action in Brazil’s periphery and the rise of right-wing discourse on YouTube

2020 ◽  
Vol 82 (5) ◽  
pp. 474-489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helton Levy
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Gender Issues ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Multimodal Discourse Analysis ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
Critical Action ◽  
Youtube Videos ◽  
And Gender ◽  
One Year ◽  
The Right

This article examines YouTube videos that feature right-wing discourses from Brazil’s periphery based on perspectives extracted from Paulo Freire’s ideas of action for liberation. The findings from a survey conducted from one year before the 2018 elections until one year later combined with a multimodal discourse analysis have pointed to the formation of a new grammar of contestation that discusses socioeconomic, racial, and gender issues in a discourse identified with the right. The Freirean notion of action helps to enlighten aspects that indicate the rise in critical action and pluralism from the periphery, despite the politics of the right that a few media producers have entertained.

scholarly journals An Obstacle to Decolonising Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-122
Author(s):  
Jordan Kiper
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Cultural Variations ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Colonial Legacies ◽  
White Nationalism ◽  
Yugoslav Wars

While the central aim of decolonisation is undoing colonial legacies, a major obstacle is white nationalism. A new wave of transnational anti-globalist, Islamophobic, and white-grievance tropes have hybridised with local political ideologies of right-wing politics and authoritarian populists in Europe and the United States. Here, I review the cultural characteristics of this new wave of white nationalism by focusing on its co-option of Serbian nationalist propaganda from the Yugoslav Wars and shared receptivity to narratives among far-right political groups in former colonial powers. The portrait that emerges is one of cross-cultural variations on a common theme: maintaining white supremacy and actively countering ideological challenges to it. Critically, the new wave of white nationalism expands our anthropological understanding of white supremacy but also highlights the significance of white nationalism in obstructing justice initiatives that address the race crimes of colonialism. Less consensus has been reached, however, on how to counter white nationalist networks and transnational extremist propaganda. In addition to highlighting ways to counter white nationalist propaganda, I argue that decolonising Europe and achieving its envisioned relations of sociative peace will not be fully realised unless more is done to minimise the influence of white nationalism.

scholarly journals Decoupling in the perspective of responsibility

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Adamus-Matuszyńska ◽  
Grzegorz Polok
Keyword(s):  
Research Method ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Review Of Literature ◽  
A Value ◽  
Principal Objective

The principal objective of the article is to examine responsibility as a value helping to enhance the ability of organisation to deal with highly institutionalised environment in which it operates, and which has an impact on the decoupling process. The authors put forward a hypothesis that the development of the sphere of responsibility may support to deal with the complexity of organisation and its environment. To verify the hypothesis the review of literature was undertaken as the research method. Decoupling process is neither good nor bad although it bears ethical dilemmas. The results of the literature examination let to make the conclusion that responsibility is a value that allows organization to solve dilemmas resulting from the complexity and controversy of the decoupling phenomenon. The authors propose to concentrate on the individuals managing and co-forming the organisation in the light of responsibility.

Sorry, not sorry

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriella Licata
Keyword(s):  
White Supremacy ◽  
Media Ecology ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Image Repair ◽  
Female Politicians ◽  
Image Repair Theory ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
Democrats And Republicans

Right-wing populism emboldens its members to publicly challenge those they find threatening to white conservative frameworks, e.g. progressive female politicians of colour. I critically analyse how Republican Ted Yoho uses discursive agency to deliver infelicitous statements in response to the diatribe he directed at Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in July 2020. Guided by the principles of citationality (Derrida 1988), I utilise image repair theory (Benoit 1997) to reveal how Yoho minimises the alleged offences he committed by redirecting his rant at policy, not person. This allows Yoho to issue non-apologies and – in line with right-wing populism – villainize Ocasio-Cortez and elevate himself and his party. Both Democrats and Republicans deemed Yoho’s apology ‘appropriate’, resulting in unfavourable perlocutionary effects for female politicians of colour. The dismissal of Yoho’s offences highlights the normalisation of violent language directed at women of colour, revealing how white supremacy and toxic masculinity are normalised aspects of US media ecology.

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