"They are just a danger": Chronotopic worlds in digital narratives of the far-right

In: Journal of language and politics, Band 19, Heft 5, S. 809-830

Abstract

Abstract
In recent years, there has been much discussion about the role of social media platforms in the reproduction of
exclusionary rhetoric leveled against social "others" in far-right contexts across the globe. While scholars have examined the
ideologies underpinning exclusionary discourses, few have analyzed the discursive mechanisms through which such ideologies and
"othered" social types become meaningful to ordinary citizens. In this article, we extend this conversation by analyzing digital
discourses on Facebook and YouTube that pertain to Philippine "drug users" and racialized remarks against migrants in Italy
through a chronotopic lens. We demonstrate that despite the historical, economic, and social differences,
far-right ideologies are ordered through chronotopes of national crisis in both cases. Through these chronotopic
worlds, despicable, "othered" social types such as "extracomunitari" in Italy and drug users in the Philippines,
acquire coherence.