After the storm
Translating the US Capitol storming in Germany’s right-wing digital media ecosystem
This study investigates the translational practices of far-right activists in Germany through content analysis of storytelling about the January 6 storming of the US Capitol in influential German alternative news websites. Findings reveal how far-right commentators used their intermediary position to re-narrate, translate, and convert ‘mainstream’ accounts of an exceptionally contentious event into stories supporting far-right- wing and extremist identities. Re-narrations of January 6 events characterized protesters as victim-heroes and contrasted them with the true villains responsible for the chaos and violence, which included a broad spectrum of political actors on the ideological left writ large.
Article outline
- Politics of translation in digitally mediated information environments
- Translation in mobilization processes
- Far right translations: Contesting the ‘mainstream’ media
- Storytelling in social movements and character ‘polysemy’
- Methods and data: Unpacking translational practices
- Findings
- Ideological positionings in far-right translations: Omitting, selecting, and re-writing political events
- Self-positioning as alternative media experts
- Re-narrating political events through victim-heroes and martyr character tropes
- Discussion and conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
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