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Murder fantasies in memes: fascist aesthetics of death threats and the banalization of white supremacist violence
Malmö University, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS), School of Arts and Communication (K3). Malmö University, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS), Rethinking Democracy (REDEM).ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4953-2852
Malmö University, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS), School of Arts and Communication (K3). Malmö University, Faculty of Culture and Society (KS), Rethinking Democracy (REDEM).ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1879-370X
2021 (English)In: Information, Communication and Society, ISSN 1369-118X, E-ISSN 1468-4462, Vol. 24, no 16, p. 2522-2539Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This paper traces the recent turn to humour, irony and ambiguity embodied in the adaptation of memes into the repertoire of online propaganda of the militant neo-Nazi group the Nordic Resistance Movement; in a process, we dub the ‘memefication’ of white supremacism. Drawing on a combination of quantitative visual content analysis (VCA) and in-depth visual analysis focused on iconography and symbolism, we explore all memes (N = 634) created and circulated by the group around the 2018 general elections in the country. The analysis proceeds in two steps: First, we present the results of the VCA in which we identified five thematic categories of memes crafting white supremacy, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny and anti-Semitic ideas onto esoteric and popular culture iconography then to map these across a matrix of content and form. We then proceed to the analysis of the cluster of memes coded as violent to explore the iconography and symbolism used to promote violence and death threats and render them banal. We draw on a range of recent scholarship on the entanglement of memes in the rise of the far- right and engage critical perspectives on the necropower of fascism to explore the interplay between ambiguous, playful and jokey imagery on the one hand and the murder fantasies and serious threat of white supremacist violence at the heart of neo- Nazi ideology, on the other.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Taylor & Francis, 2021. Vol. 24, no 16, p. 2522-2539
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-45759DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2021.1974517ISI: 000695458800001OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-45759DiVA, id: diva2:1592401
Funder
Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation, MMW.2016.0018Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, 1-MS-002Available from: 2021-09-08 Created: 2021-09-08 Last updated: 2022-02-28Bibliographically approved

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Askanius, TinaKeller, Nadine

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