Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 15:4 (2016) ► pp.399–421

The media of the ultra-right

Discourse and audience activism online

| Southern Illinois University Carbondale

In light of the rise of ultra-right ideologies in Europe, this article offers an in-depth analysis of the discourse on immigration presented by CasaPound Italia (CPI), a self-defined fascist organization in Italy. This case study illustrates the importance of media and communication activism for the promotion of contemporary ultra-right movements. Specifically, the analysis focuses on how CPI reported one of the first widely covered immigration-related disaster in the Mediterranean, on 3 October 2013, and on the audience interactions that followed on the organisation’s website. In this article, I argue that CasaPound Italia’s online communiqué and its members’ comments need to be considered as one discursive event in which the encoding/decoding processes at play can be explored in detail. The examination, which draws from critical discourse studies, reveals audiences’ contributions in unpacking the implicit message contained in the original communiqué and underlines the active role that “rank and file” members play in the promotion of ultra-right ideologies.

Keywords: ultra-right/far-right media, ultra-right/far-right audiences, ultra-right/far-right social movements, critical discourse studies, fascism, social media, alternative media, radical media, online activism, immigration.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Active audiences and double-speaking
  • 3.Definitions of the Ultra-right
  • 4.The ultra-right and mainstream media
  • 5.The media of the ultra-right
    • 5.1The ultra-right media in the age of interactivity
  • 6.CasaPound Italia
    • 6.1CPI’s media
  • 7.Methodology
  • 8.The schematic structure
  • 9.Global meanings
  • 10.Local meanings
    • 10.1CPI’s journalistic style
    • 10.2The immigrationists
    • 10.3The victims
  • 11.The “Elephant in the room” (macrostrategy)
  • 12.CPI audiences
    • 12.1Decoding Fascism: The activism of ultra-right media audiences
    • 12.2“We”, the courageous
    • 12.3“Them,” a heterogeneous out-group
      • 12.3.1All our enemies
    • 12.4What needs to be done
    • 12.5Five functions of audience activism online
  • 13.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 20 October 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.15.4.02pad
References
Askanius, Tina, and Yiannis Mylonas
2015 “Extreme-right Responses to the European Economic Crisis in Denmark and Sweden: The Discursive Construction of Scapegoats and Lodestars.” Javnost-The Public 22 (1): 55–72. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Atton, Chris
2006 “Far-right Media on the Internet: Culture Discourse and Power.” New Media & Society 8 (4): 573–587. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bar-On, Tamir
2013 “Italian Postwar Neo-Fascism: Three Paths, One Mission?” In Analysing Fascist Discourse: European Fascism in Talk and Text, ed. by Ruth Wodak and John Richardson, 42–55. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Jamie, Jonathan Birdwell, and Caterina Froio
2012 “The rise of populism in Europe can be traced through online behavior.” Accessed 14 May 2015. [URL].
Caiani, Manuela, Donatella della Porta, and Claudius Wagemann
2012 Mobilizing on the Extreme Right: Germany, Italy, and the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Caldiron, Guido
(2001) La Destra Plurale. Rome: Manifestrolibri.Google Scholar
Cammaerts, Bart
2009 “Radical Pluralism and Free Speech in Online Public Spaces: The Case of North Belgian Extreme Right Discourses.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 12 (6): 555–575. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
CasaPound Italia
2013 “Sul Fronte dell’Essere.” Accessed 14 May 2015. [URL].
Castriota, Anna, and Matthew Feldman
2014 “Fascism for the Third Millennium.” In Doublespeak: The Rhetoric of the Far Right Since 1945, ed. by Matthew Feldman, and Paul Jackson, 223–246. Stuttgard, Verlag.Google Scholar
Copsey, Nigel, and Graham Macklin
2011 British National Party: Contemporary Perspectives. London: Routlege.Google Scholar
Di Nunzio, Daniele, and Emanuele Toscano
2012 “Fascisti del terzo millennio. Una lettura sociologica del movimento CasaPound.” In Innovazione tecnologica e diseguaglianze territoriali, ed. by Costantino Cipolla, Giovanni Boccia Artieri, and Lia Fassari, 139–153. Milan, Franco Angeli.Google Scholar
Downing, John
2001 Radical media. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Downing, John, and Charles Husband
2005 Representing Race. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Ellinas, Antonis
2010 The Media and the Far Right in Western Europe: Playing the Nationalistic Card. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feldman, Matthew, and Paul Jackson
2014 Doublespeak: The Rhetoric of the Far Right since 1945. Stuttgart: Verlag.Google Scholar
Gattinara, Pietro, Caterina Froio, and Matteo Albanese
2013 The Appeal of Neofascism in Times of Crises — the Experience of CasaPound Italia. Fascism 21: 234–258. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hall, Stuart
1980 “Encoding Decoding.” In Culture, Media, Language, ed. by Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Lowe and Paul Tillis, 128–138. London, Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Ignazi, Piero
2006 Extreme Right Parties in Western Europe. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lucht, Hans
. The Watery Tomb Europe Tolerates. New York Times, October 7 2013.Google Scholar
Macklin, Graham
2014 “‘Teaching the Truth to the Hardcore': The Public and Private Presentation of BNP Ideology.” In Doublespeak: The Rhetoric of the Far Right Since 1945, ed. by Matthew Feldman, and Paul Jackson, 123–146. Stuttgard, Verlag.Google Scholar
Melilli, Massimiliano
2003 Europa in fondo a destra. Rome: Derive Approdi.Google Scholar
Mudde, Cas
2000 The Ideology of the Extreme Right. Manchester UK: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Orrù, Paolo
2015 “Racist Discourse on Social Networks: a Discourse Analysis of Facebook Posts in Italy.” Rhesis. International Journal of Linguistics, Philology, and Literature 5 (1): 113–133.Google Scholar
Padovani, Cinzia
2008 “The Extreme Right and Its Media in Italy.” The International Journal of Communication 21: 753–770.Google Scholar
Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak
2001 Discourse and Discrimination Rhetorics of racism and anti-Semitism. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Richardson, John
2007 Analysing Newspaper: An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taguieff, Pierre-André
. L’immigrationnisme, dernière utopie des bien-pensants, Le Figaro, May 9 2006.Google Scholar
ten Thije, Jan D.
2006 “Notions of perspective and perspectivising in intercultural communication research.” In Beyond Misunderstanding: Linguistic Analyses of Intercultural Communication, ed. by Kristin Buhrig and Jan D. ten Thije, 97–154. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Dijk, Teun
2008 Discourse and Power. New York: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 Ideology and discourse: A multidisciplinary introduction. Accessed 9 July 2015. [URL].
1988 News as Discourse. London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth
2015 The Politics of Fear. London: Sage.Google Scholar
2014 “The Strategy of Discursive Provocation: a Discourse Historical Analysis of the FPO's Discriminatory Rhetoric.” In Doublespeak: The Rhetoric of the Far Right Since 1945, ed. by Matthew Feldman and Paul Jackson, 101–122. Stuttgard, Verlag.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, Majid KhosraviNik, and Brigitte Mral
2013 Right-Wing Populism in Europe. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth
2013 “‘Anything Goes!'-The Haiderization of Europe.” In Right-Wing Populism in Europe, ed. by Ruth Wodak, Majid KhosraviNik, and Brigitte Mral, 23–37. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Majid KhrosraviNik
2013 “Introduction.” In Right-Wing Populism in Europe, ed. by Ruth Wodak, Majid KhosraviNik, and Brigitte Mral (eds.), xvii–xxviii. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 7 other publications

Haanshuus, Birgitte P. & Karoline Andrea Ihlebæk
2021. Recontextualising the news: How antisemitic discourses are constructed in extreme far-right alternative media. Nordicom Review 42:s1 ► pp. 37 ff. DOI logo
Li, Jingfang, Hamedi Mohd Adnan & Jiankun Gong
2023. Exploring Cultural Meaning Construction in Social Media: An Analysis of Liziqi's YouTube Channel. Journal of Intercultural Communication ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Mjelde, Hilmar
2023. Importing a new outgroup? Foreign right-wing alternative media coverage of Black Lives Matter: The case of Resett1. Journal of Alternative & Community Media 8:1 ► pp. 27 ff. DOI logo
Myagkov, Mikhail, Evgeniy V Shchekotin, Sergey I Chudinov & Vyacheslav L Goiko
2020. A comparative analysis of right-wing radical and Islamist communities’ strategies for survival in social networks (evidence from the Russian social network VKontakte). Media, War & Conflict 13:4 ► pp. 425 ff. DOI logo
Nygaard, Silje
2023. On the Mainstream/Alternative Continuum: Mainstream Media Reactions to Right-Wing Alternative News Media. Digital Journalism 11:7 ► pp. 1311 ff. DOI logo
Rocamora-Pérez, Pablo & Eva Espinar-Ruiz
2021. Nuevos discursos en el neofascismo:. Política y Sociedad 58:2 ► pp. e67922 ff. DOI logo
Waisbord, Silvio
2018. Revisiting mediated activism. Sociology Compass 12:6 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.