Online Islamophobia and the politics of fear: manufacturing the green scare

Abstract

Negative attitudes and explicit racism against Muslims are increasingly visible in public discourse throughout Europe. Right-wing populist parties have strengthened their positions by focusing on the 'Islamic threat' to the West. Concurrently, the Internet has facilitated a space where racist attitudes towards Muslims are easily disseminated into the public debate, fuelling animosity against European Muslims. This paper explores part of the online Islamophobic network and scrutinizes the discursive strategies deployed by three 'prominent' online actors. By combining social network analysis and critical discourse analysis, the study shows that Islamophobic web pages constitute a dynamic network with ties to different political and geographical milieus. They create a seemingly mainstream political position by framing racist standpoints as a defence of Western values and freedom of speech. The study also shows that Islamophobic discourse is strengthened by xenophobic currents within mass media, and by the legitimization of intellectuals and political actors.

Platformed antagonism: racist discourses on fake Muslim Facebook pages

“…As Ekman (2015) highlights in a study of online Islamophobia, 'the idea that the Western world is 'under attack', 'silently occupied' by, or even at 'civil war' with Islam, is widespread among actors in the populist far right ' (p. 1986; see also Bangstad, 2013). Within this discourse, Muslims are supposedly conspiring to take over Europe from within through exploitation of European welfare states and breeding of Muslims (Horsti, 2016).…”

Detecting weak and strong Islamophobic hate speech on social media

“…It can be understood as what W. B. Gallie terms an 'essentially contested concept' -a concept with numerous definitions and descriptions but little consensus as to what the core features are (Gallie, 1956). In the present work, we use Bleich's widely cited definition of Islamophobia, as this reflects much other work undertaken by leading theorists in the field (Allen, 2010;Awan, 2016;Ekman, 2015). Bleich defines Islamophobia as: 'Indiscriminate negative attitudes or emotions directed at Islam or Muslims.'…”

Articulations of Islamophobia: from the extreme to the mainstream?

“…It is precisely these articulations of hate which are central to this article, and how Islamophobia springs from different sources and discourses and serves different purposes, contexts and constituencies, from the illiberal, unacceptable and extreme racist hate to the more liberal, acceptable and mainstream, but ultimately intersects. As noted by Mattias Ekman (2015Ekman ( , 1998, 'Islamophobia is framed in relation to various national and transnational political actors and processes, and depending on the topic, events or circumstances, it intersects with various political rationales and processes'.…”