Reactionary Digital Politics

In an era of high political melodrama there has to be a ‘big bad’ weaving a tangled web. In this episode we theorise conspiracy theories - from racist myths about ‘globalists’ plotting white genocide to fevered dreams of Hollywood Satanists harvesting ‘adrenochrome’ from stolen children. What makes these absurdities so compelling for so many? What is it about the digital portal that invites us to fall into them? What have they inhe...

When politics takes place mostly on our screens, how it looks - and how we look, when we look at people looking at us - matters a lot. This episode explores the relationship between politics and aesthetics, from haircuts and Hawaiian shirts to frog memes and ‘fashwave’. We think about how reactionary subcultures have embraced the DIY logic of digital technologies to develop symbols, genres, styles and vocabularies that express thei...

Modernity is hard. Late modernity is harder. Nobody knows who anybody else is, let alone who they are supposed to be. But someone on the internet is there to give you an answer. This episode is about how ideological entrepreneurs and influencers weave politics into their personal brands, promoting a reactionary politics of race, sex and gender by appealing to people seeking a sense of belonging and poking at their wounds. And behin...

Politics has always been an emotive subject. ‘Virtual’ media provoke, play with and monetise our very real feelings. Where the two meet is a goldmine of likes, subscriptions and donations. In this episode we think about how reactionary ideological entrepreneurs appeal to anxiety and resentment, fear and pride, and how they promise to reveal secrets and hidden truths that will make us feel better.

Presented by: Alan Finlayson, Rob...

If there’s one thing the internet loves it's an argument (and cats). This episode looks at the tactics political reactionaries have developed to sell their ideas, win converts and DESTROY their opponents online. Weaponising irony and free speech absolutism to represent themselves as transgressive rebels, the right has refined its culture-war playbook with each shitpost and pile-on. We think about how political appeals are dressed i...

Online, the marketplace of political ideas has become a free-for-all, as professional politicians compete for likes and subscribers with edgelords, influencers, conspiracist crackpots and unabashed extremists. This episode explores how the internet has accelerated the breakdown of familiar political ideologies, bringing fringe views to mass audiences and encouraging users to pick and mix political ideas from their personalised feed...

Politics used to be easy. There was the left. There was the right. There was a bit in the middle. Politicians wore suits and were awkward on television. Protestors marched in the streets for fewer wars and more rights. And then everyone went online and found that they hated each other. In the last decade reactionary movements, from the alt-right to QAnon, have transformed politics using digital technologies. What happened? How? Why...

In the 1990s tech evangelists told us that the internet would bring the world together; that it would help us share knowledge and learn from each other. Spoiler Alert: that didn’t happen. The world of digital politics is filled with hucksters, ideological entrepreneurs performing invective for a few likes and subscriptions. It’s a recruiting ground for far-right extremists, cultists and conspiracy fantasists. And it’s changing how ...