“My freedom doesn’t care about your fear. My freedom doesn’t care about your feelings”: Postmodern and oppositional organizing in #OpenAmericaNow

Abstract

In April 2020, amid the global COVID-19 pandemic, fringe political activists, conspiracy theorists, and far-right subcultures joined together to protest stay at home orders and social distancing decrees. Largely sharing information and organizing strategies on social media, these protestors adopted the Twitter hashtag #OpenAmericaNow to activate and mobilize supporters across the United States. In this study, we examine the online organizing of #OpenAmericaNow through analysis of 17,965 tweets to understand how fringe and conspiracy subcultures organized through oppositional consciousness raising. Our findings reveal multi-level discourses, which bridge identification on the micro-level with anti-elitist and post-truth logics on the macro-level. Theoretically, our study advances theorizing on postmodern organizing and conceptualizes alt-civic engagement, while also engaging in innovative methodological strategies useful for interrogating paradoxical and multi-level discourses.

Analyzing Text and Images in Digital Communication: The Case of Securitization in American White Supremacist Online Discourse

“…Analyzing the text and image documents separately and then finding their connections, as in our empirical illustration, helps detect topics unique to and similar across each mode. This distinction between modes may be especially useful when studying fringe or marginalized groups who may use one mode in a special way, such as subversively humorous images (Jarvis and Eddington 2021b). Preserving the intermodal distinction could also be useful for understanding the dynamics of seemingly irrational and paradoxical discourse by identifying relevant context, such as how antiracists might use images to mock racists, thereby clarifying the intent of (hypothetical) sarcastic text that may initially appear to inexplicably condone them (see Jarvis and Eddington 2021a).…”

Thinking different as an act of resistance: Reconceptualizing the German protests in the COVID-19 pandemic as an emergent counter-knowledge order

“…Openness to conspiracist ideation emerged as a commonality among coronavirus protesters (Hetzel et al, 2022;Liekefett et al, 2023) since a general mistrust in established orders bridged various streams of protest. This phenomenon has often been observed in far-right conspiracist and esoteric communities (Jarvis and Eddington, 2023;Meiering et al, 2020;Pantenburg et al, 2021). A possible explanation for the early prevalence of fringe beliefs in an otherwise rather heterogeneous movement is that it made a group more visible for which, 'the restrictions of fighting the pandemic come as a surprise, .…”

Gender: A Postmodern Idea Developed in Association with the Modern Concept of Sex in Considering the Implications for Evolving Sexuality

“…As a set of approaches to data intended to increase inclusivity, the understanding of what is postmodern developed from Wittgenstein's notion of family resemblances [28]. Although it is theoretically conceptualizable since the posthumous publication and translation of Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations [29], postmodern thought in this regard became practical once supercomputers had the capacity to add large data sets together in aid of quantitative research [30], and the data mining of people's actual opinions was provided by social media for those conducting qualitative research [31]. In this way, these technologies emerged as vital components driving postmodern culture [32].…”