The normalization of far-right populism and nativist authoritarianism: discursive practices in media, journalism and the wider public sphere/s

Abstract

This article postulates broadening as well as deepening the agenda for critical research on the role of discursive practices in media, journalism and the wider public sphere/s in normalization of far-right populism and nativist authoritarianism. Our argument is that, on the rise since the early 2000s and especially from the 2010s onwards, authoritarian and nativist populism has posed some very significant challenges to contemporary media and journalism. This has made necessary the calls for in-depth, critical discussions about the norms and practices of journalism as well as for the systematic analyses of the sometimes obviously active role that news and opinion discourse have played in normalizing the nativist as well as radically-nationalist and authoritarian status quo. Through a set of empirically-based studies which outline how media carry as well as normalize far-right political and other discourse and ideology, but also how they become the tool and the target of far-right politics, we show that the entanglement between far-right ideas and actions on the one hand, and media and journalism on the other, has become ever stronger as well as ever more complex. At the same time, we also point to the practices in the wider public spheres where, inter alia, the pervasive presence of alternative far-right media and uncivil society and its news sources has posed wider and indeed numerous challenges. These have become evident in the ongoing radicalization of both online/offline media and journalism and of wider public opinion and imagination wherein the normalization of undermining of values and norms of liberal democracy has become increasingly prevalent and widespread.

Political homophobia

“…As abovementioned, covert hate speech makes substantial use of implicit meanings and possible inferences (Baider 2022). Such subtle more subtle variants of hate speech, similar to what Engel and Wodak (Engel and Wodak 2013) call "calculated ambivalence" and Krzyżanowski and Ekström (Krzyżanowski and Ekström 2022) call "borderline discourses" significantly contribute to the so-called 'normalization to the right' Link 2013) whereby the mainly uncivilrather than civil -views become a 'norm' in contemporary societies. In both countries, social conservatives and right-wing actors use covert hate speech, but it plays out slightly differently in the two countries.…”

Radicalization to the right, secular (ish) pandemic politics and the normalization of the Greek Cypriot far right

“…Portugal, France, Italy, and Sweden stand as recent European examples that bear witness to this trend. Recent studies suggest that the rhetoric and policy proposals of FRPs gain traction and impact the political agenda well beyond their own audience (Cammaerts, 2018;Krzyżanowski & Ekström, 2022;Spoon & Kluver, 2019). Vrakopoulos (2022) also shows that electoral support for FRPs is associated with low quality of government (see also Agerberg, 2017;Boräng et al, 2017) and highly conservative mainstream right parties.…”

“…Portugal, France, Italy, and Sweden stand as recent European examples that bear witness to this trend. Recent studies suggest that the rhetoric and policy proposals of FRPs gain traction and impact the political agenda well beyond their own audience (Cammaerts, 2018; Krzyżanowski & Ekström, 2022; Spoon & Kluver, 2019).…”