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In this article, the so-called 'anti-woke' culture war is deconstructed through the notions of metapolitics in fascist discourses – linked to the Gramscian 'hegemonisation' and 'the war of position' – as well as the Schmittian friend/enemy distinction coupled with theories of deviance and moral panics. The appropriation of the neo-fascist culture war discourse by the mainstream right in the UK is analysed discursively, combining political discourse analysis, the discourse-historical approach and discourse-conceptual analysis. The anti-woke culture war by the British conservative party as well as rightwing media will serve to analyse how social justice struggles like anti-racism, anti-sexism and pro-LGBTQ rights are being abnormalised and positioned as extreme deviant political positions. Linked to this, so-called 'cancel culture' is strategically deployed by dominant groups to neutralise contestations against racist, sexist and anti-LGBTQ views. Finally, freedom of speech and the right to offend is weaponised to protect racist and discriminatory language and to position these idea's as valid opinions worthy of democratic debate.

Our hypermediated societies affect the very nature of what a social movement is. This article identifies five core nodal points of what constitutes a social movement: Program claims, Identity construction, Connections, Actions, and Resolve (PICAR). Primarily using France's yellow vest movement case, I assess the impact of social media on these nodal points. I find that social media afford opportunities as well as present challenges for contemporary movements which taken together amounts to a newly emerging ontology. This new-new social movement ontology is characterized by processes of discontinuity (open ideological positioning, fluid collective identities, weak ties, an online repertoire of action, and relative ephemerality) co-existing with continuity (the return of a class politics of redistribution, the continued importance of collective identity, offline repertoires, and cycles of protest). This analysis demonstrates the dynamic interplay between political and mediation opportunity structures, producing new emancipatory potentials and challenging constraints.

This article aims to understand the dialectic between the visible and the invisible in relation to the post-hegemonic nature of neoliberalism and the role of mediation in that process. The neoliberal ideological project is geared towards making itself invisible, positioning itself as quintessentially anti-ideological and natural rather than ideological. However, the post-hegemonic status of neoliberalism and capitalism requires its constitutive outsides to struggle for visibility so as to be able to make itself invisible. Mainstream media plays a pivotal role in this regard not only in terms of invisibilizing capitalist interests, but also in terms of providing (negative or positive) visibility to the constitutive outsides of capitalism. Mediation also implicates audiences and publics, who could be approached as an increasingly angry and frustrated Spivakean subaltern, distrustful of democracy and of the media. It is argued that a new democratic imaginary is needed, de-territorialized from the market imaginary and mobilizing the discontented subaltern. The question remains, however, whether it is überhaupt possible to unsettle the post-hegemonic status of the neoliberal ideological project.

If you type in the word 'revolution' in the Google search engine the top result that comes up is a chain of bars called Revolution. Other results on the first page of the search engine include a commercial radio station, clothing, a skate park and a software company. A Wikipedia page and the website of the Revolutionary Socialist Youth are the only non-commercial results Google provides us on its first page. This says as much about the business model of Google than it does about the changes at the level of meanings attributed to revolution. Revolution, it will be argued here, is a political signifier emptied of its radical connotations and currently used graciously as a brand or as a buzzword to mean change in whatever direction. As a result, revolution has been firmly incorporated into the neoliberal discourse and value system.

In this article, the intricate relationship between the logic of damage as an act of political communication and its mediation is addressed. The mediation of protest by mainstream media is often deemed to be one-sided, biased in favor of the establishment and predominantly antiprotest, focusing on the spectacular crowding out real debate on the issues. A content analysis of the 2010 U.K. student protests as reported by four U.K. newspapers found this to be only partially true. The use of symbolic damage tactics by the protesters did not squeeze out attention for the issues, rather it increased media attention and coverage considerably. Militant voices were more quoted and given more space in articles than moderate voices. In all newspapers there was a degree of understanding for the anger of the students, but the use of symbolic damage tactics did produce much negative exposure. The use of symbolic damage tactics not only relates to a mainstream media opportunity structure, creating spectacle and drama, but also potentially produces division, negative representation, and delegitimization. Finally, the use of insurrectionary symbolic damage is a reminder of the failings of representative democracy in how it deals with political conflicts.

In this article the gap between research and theory on social movements and media and communication Studies is bridged. A conceptual framework is presented that relates both to social movement theory by referring to the political opportunity structure approach and logics of contentious action as well as to media and communication studies through the concept of mediation. It will be argued that mediation is a fruitful concept to encompass a wide variety of ways in which media and communication are relevant to protest and social movements. ; Nesse artigo articulamos a pesquisa e a teoria sobre movimentos sociais e mídia e estudos de comunicação. É apresentada uma base conceitual de trabalho, relacionando-se tanto à teoria de movimentos sociais ao se referir ao enfoque de estrutura de oportunidade e às lógicas de ação contenciosa assim como aos estudos de mídia e comunicação através do conceito de mediação. Argumenta-se que a mediação é um conceito eficiente para abranger uma grande variedade de maneiras nas quais a mídia e os meios de comunicação são relevantes para os protestos e movimentos.

If you type in the word 'revolution' in the Google search engine the top result that comes up is a chain of bars called Revolution. Other results on the first page of the search engine include a commercial radio station, clothing, a skate park and a software company. A Wikipedia page and the website of the Revolutionary Socialist Youth are the only non-commercial results Google provides us on its first page. This says as much about the business model of Google than it does about the changes at the level of meanings attributed to revolution. Revolution, it will be argued here, is a political signifier emptied of its radical connotations and currently used graciously as a brand or as a buzzword to mean change in whatever direction. As a result, revolution has been firmly incorporated into the neoliberal discourse and value system.

On 9 December 2011 a new Belgian government was sworn in after a record-breaking 541 days of negotiations between all democratic political forces with the aim to alter the constitution and provide more autonomy to the different regions that make up Belgium. In this article, the frequent
use of political metaphors by North-Belgian politicians and journalists is analysed through a critical metaphor analysis (CMA) that approaches the different metaphors at a descriptive, an interpretative and a motivational level. Four meta-categories of metaphors were identified – sports
and games metaphors, war metaphors, culinary metaphors and transport metaphors. The different metaphors fed into six core frames: expressing immobility, attributing blame, the need for unity, bargaining and teasing, the end is nigh and finally lack of direction and leadership. Metaphors were
instrumental in strategies to present the Flemish demands as unquestionable and common sense, while the counter-demands of the French-speaking parties were positioned as unreasonable, impossible to accept. In other words, the strategic use of metaphors, some of which resonated throughout the
long period of analysis, not only served to represent complex political issues in an easily digestible language, but also shaped and influenced the negotiations through their various mediations and the ideological intentions embedded within the metaphor.

This article aims to bridge a gap between social movement studies and media and communication studies. A conceptual framework is presented that integrates the political opportunity structure approach and the logics of contentious action with the concept of mediation. The author argues that mediation opportunity structure is a fruitful concept to encompass a wide variety of ways in which media and communication are relevant to protest and social movements. It refers to mainstream media representations of protest and movements, to movements 'becoming the media' and counter-spinning, as well as to media and communication practices that constitute protest and resistance in their own right. The manifold articulations of mediation illustrate that media and communication are not merely relevant to the symbolic and discursive realms in which social movements operate, but that they are also instrumental and material to realizing their immediate goals. Activists are becoming more aware and conscious of the mediation opportunity structure, through their lay-knowledge of how the mainstream media and technologies operate, partially adapting to them or appropriating them. The nature and degree of mediation opportunities for activists and the structural constraints impeding the opportunities varies according to the type of protest logic that is being used.