Papers by diggit magazine
The alt-right, the different chapters of the pan-European movement Generation Identity and the ri... more The alt-right, the different chapters of the pan-European movement Generation Identity and the rise of the so-called radical right populist parties in the West have been responsible for the renewed interest in the metapolitical project of La Nouvelle Droite. In this attention, we see a strong focus on the ideological impact of this school of thought and on Alain de Benoist in particular. This article adds new insights into the 21 st century legacy of La Nouvelle Droite by focusing on the uptake and reproduction of the work of GRECE's so-called number two Guillaume Faye. Whereas Alain de Benoist is usually seen as the transnational messenger of La Nouvelle Droite, Guillaume Faye has gained far less attention. The article presents a digital ethnographic discourse analysis of Faye's work and his uptake by new right and identitarian activists around the world. It makes two arguments. The first one is empirical, namely that Faye's legacy should be assessed in the context of the contemporary rise of new right activism and identitarianism in particular. The second argument is theoretical and stresses the importance of analysing the role of (digital) media in the distribution of ideas and ideologies. Introduction: Remembering Guillaume Faye In the mainstream media, the death of Guillaume Faye on 6 March 2019 was treated as a non-event. At the same time, the former figurehead of La Nouvelle Droite was praised as a genius and a visionary on social media by far-right activists, movements and publishers. On March 7, for instance, far-right publishing house Arktos posted a Tweet (see Figure 1) commemorating the death of their bestselling author by linking to an article published by 'Il primate Nazionale', the newspaper of the Italian (neo)-fascist movement and political party Casapound (2019). The article praises Faye as one of the most influential thinkers of the European metapolitical scene. The people commemorating Faye in the hours and days after his death are key figures of the transnational new right: far-right YouTube phenomenon the Golden One, former Front National president Jean-Marie Le Pen, co-founder of the Pro-Afrikaanse Aksiegroep Dan Roodt, Arktos publisher Daniel Friberg, Counter-Currents publisher Greg Johnson, editor-in-chief of American Renaissance Jared Taylor, Martin Lichtmesz from Sezession, alt-right star Richard Spencer, the Dutch new right movement CONTACT Ico Maly
This paper argues that nationalism, and nationalistic activism in particular are being globalized... more This paper argues that nationalism, and nationalistic activism in particular are being globalized. At least certain fringes of radical nationalist activists are organized as ‘cellular systems’ connected and mobilize-able on a global scale giving birth to what I call ‘global nationalistic activism’. Given this change in nationalist activism, I claim that we should abandon all ‘methodological nationalism’. Methodological nationalism fails in arriving at a thorough understanding of the impact, scale and mobilization power (Tilly, 1974) of contemorary ‘national(istic)’ political activism. Even more, it inevitably will contribute to the naturalization or in emic terms the meta-political goals of global nationalist activists. The paradox is of course evident: global nationalism uses the scale- advantages, network effects and the benefits of cellular structures to fight for the (re)construction of the old 19th century vertebrate system par excellence: the (blood and soil) nation. Neverthel...
Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose o... more Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright, please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.
Diggit magazine, 2021
Earlier this year, the Dutch city of Enschede received a 600.000 euro fine for allegedly violatin... more Earlier this year, the Dutch city of Enschede received a 600.000 euro fine for allegedly violating their citizens' privacy (NOS, 2021). The city used WiFi tracking to count the number of people in the city. According to the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens in Dutch), this practice violated people's privacy, so they fined the municipality (Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens, 2021). The question I would like to answer in this paper is: How is the Enschede WiFi tracking case related to the larger debate about privacy? WiFi tracking and its ties to privacy and democracy Before diving into the Enschede case, I want to discuss WiFi tracking, privacy, and related concepts. I will begin with a definition of WiFi tracking: it monitors people through the WiFi signals of their mobile phones by use of sensors (Privacy Company, 2019). WiFi tracking only requires the enablement of WiFi connections; it does not need phones to be connected to (open) WiFi networks (Privacy Company, 2019).
You wake up in the morning and the first thing you see on your smartphone is how you slept that n... more You wake up in the morning and the first thing you see on your smartphone is how you slept that night. It is not you who determines that, but an app on your phone, which says you moved a lot while you were sleeping and your quality of sleep was not good enough. Then your app asks you how you feel today-are you happy? You get up, get a glass of water and make breakfast. While doing this, you fill in all the ingredients you consumed this morning in the mHealth app and you also see that you almost have made two percent of the number of steps you have to make today.
Diggit Magazine, 2021
Brazil's polarization between citizens who were pro-Bolsonaro of PSL (the Social Liberal Party) a... more Brazil's polarization between citizens who were pro-Bolsonaro of PSL (the Social Liberal Party) and those who were pro-Haddad of PT (the Workers' Party) marked the 2018 presidential election. The way Bolsonaro's message was constructed and communicated through a hybrid media system is key to understanding how it triggered a huge mobilization power from his supporters, which, together with algorithmic activism and digital bubbles, contributed to his winning. Brazil before Bolsonaro In order to understand the outcome of the 2018 Brazilian presidential election, we should go back to 2002, the year in which Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva-or simply Lula-of the leftist Workers' Party (PT) was elected president of Brazil. PT consecutively won all the following elections until the 2018 one. All those years resulted in growing dissatisfaction among many Brazilian citizens of all classes, who saw themselves in the midst of a huge economic crisis, a period of high inflation and interest rates, and the most resilient unemployment rates in the country so far. During that period in which PT was in power, two big corruption scandals also emerged, and Brazilians didn't buy the PT members' "I don't know anything about it" stance. Additionally, fear and insecurity were part of the daily routine in Brazil, a country with around 60 thousand homicides per year.
Diggit Magazine, 2021
In 2019, Hong Kong protestors took to the streets, proclaiming democracy in their region. Their b... more In 2019, Hong Kong protestors took to the streets, proclaiming democracy in their region. Their battle took place not only in the streets but also in the media as young Hong Kong activists attempted to gather collective power from outside of the region. The hashtag #MilkTeaAlliance was born, symbolizing far more than Asian people's fondness for milk tea.
Diggit Magazine, 2021
The focus of this study is UK citizens' changes in attitude towards the government during the COV... more The focus of this study is UK citizens' changes in attitude towards the government during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was conducted using a mixed-method design called ethnomining, a combination of data mining and ethnography. Covid-19 in the UK At the end of 2019, COVID-19 emerged in China. In several short months the disease had spread across the world, leading to a global pandemic. There have been over 63 million coronavirus cases and 1.47 million deaths worldwide. The virus is spread through droplets in the air released while coughing or sneezing. Inhaling droplets from an infected person can lead to infection. Each country has developed its own strategy to prevent the spread of the virus; this study will focus on the United Kingdom (UK). In total, there have been 1.6 million coronavirus cases and 58 thousand deaths in the UK. The first coronavirus cases in the UK were confirmed on January 31st, 2020. Following a sharp rise in coronavirus cases and deaths, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the first lockdown on March 23rd, 2020. During this lockdown, everyone was ordered to stay at home as much as possible. Shops, schools, restaurants, gyms, and other publice spaces were closed, gatherings with people outside the household were not allowed, and all of these measures were enforced by police. After three weeks, these measures were eased as the number of cases decreased. Unfortunately, the coronavirus cases started to rise again later that year, and a second lockdown was announced beginning on November 5th, 2020. This lockdown consisted of the same measures as the first lockdown, with the exception of allowing schools to stay open. The second lockdown lasted for four weeks.
Diggit Magazine
The rise of the far-right party VOX is changing the political climate of Spain. By hegemonizing t... more The rise of the far-right party VOX is changing the political climate of Spain. By hegemonizing the ideology of the New Right, the party reintroduces nationalism in the public sphere. This article will explain how VOX is using meta-politics to realize national unity while remaining part of the political debate.
Diggit Magazine, 2020
With the 2020 elections drawing near, social media platforms are adjusting their policy for paid ... more With the 2020 elections drawing near, social media platforms are adjusting their policy for paid political advertising. Since social media platform Facebook has played an important role in Trump getting elected as President of the United States in 2016, concerns have arisen about social media potentially having too much influence on who will get elected in 2020. Democrat Elizabeth Warren, who is currently running for President, is a central figure in the battle against paid political advertising to stop it from influencing the 2020 elections with misinformation.
Diggit Magazine, 2020
Elizabeth Warren is running for the 2020 US presidential elections with a remarkable social media... more Elizabeth Warren is running for the 2020 US presidential elections with a remarkable social media strategy: selfies. How are "selfie lines" going to help Elizabeth Warren become the next President of the United States? In what follows, we will take a look at how selfies both online and offline can work to bring her message across to the voters.
Diggit Magazine, 2020
Scholarly articles written in English about populism often forget linguistic and discursive diver... more Scholarly articles written in English about populism often forget linguistic and discursive diversity. Driven by the need to include extremely different historical experiences, when these articles address the concept of "populism" as a "thin ideology", that concept becomes increasingly at odds with a discursive approach. On the one hand, this "ideology" is supposed to be based on core meanings such as "the people", "the elite" or the "charismatic leader". This superficial approach equates "ideology" to "signfiers", thereby ignoring that the sign "becomes an arena of the class struggle". In other words, a shared lexicon does not mean a shared set of core meanings, but a common arena in which to struggle for different accentuation of those meanings. This is true not only of populist discourse, but also of every other kind of political discourse. On the other hand, by using English as the sole language for designing and communicating scientific research-both data and theory-linguistic diversity is also obliterated, as there seems to be a transparent equivalency between the English word "people" and the Portuguese "povo", the Spanish "pueblo", the Italian "popolo", and so on. Populism: a brief conceptual overview Key concepts of political discourse, which are simultaneously instruments of analysis and arguments in the political dialogue, cannot be understood outside specific political traditions, as discourse is polyphonic and carries a memory of its past uses.
Diggit Magazine, 2020
Have you ever heard of QAnon? It is a pro-Trump conspiracy theory that started on the platform of... more Have you ever heard of QAnon? It is a pro-Trump conspiracy theory that started on the platform of 4chan, but has been infiltrating mainstream media at a fast pace. Followers of QAnon - the "Q-army" - believe that “there is a worldwide cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who rule the world” (Rozsa, 2019). Thankfully, Trump got elected and since he knows everything about these pedophiles, he will fight hard to destroy them, according to the Q-army (Wong, 2018).
Diggit Magazine, 2019
Paul Joseph Watson (PJW) is a British YouTube personality associated with Info Wars, conspiracy t... more Paul Joseph Watson (PJW) is a British YouTube personality associated with Info Wars, conspiracy theories, and the Global New Right. He is one of the core New Right YouTubers whose influence cannot go unnoticeable. This article focuses on Paul Joseph Watson's contribution to the Global New Right as he makes YouTube videos on hot politically incorrect topics.
Diggit Magazine, 2019
Salvini and his Lega Nord have become influencial political actors, not only in Italy, but on a E... more Salvini and his Lega Nord have become influencial political actors, not only in Italy, but on a European scale. This article analyses the communication strategy of the Italian populist leader.
Diggit Magazine, 2018
Technical developments and the growth of social media have caused politicians to start using soci... more Technical developments and the growth of social media have caused politicians to start using social media as a tool for their political campaigns. This is also the case for Alice Weidel: the leader of the AfD. In this article, the algorithmic populism of Alice Weidel is analyzed.
Diggit Magazine, 2019
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected to the US House of Representatives during the tumultuous mid... more Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was elected to the US House of Representatives during the tumultuous midterm elections of late 2018. Running for the Democrats in the 14th District of New York - including the Bronx and part of Queens - she won a landslide, crushing her Republican opponent with 78% of the vote. Born in 1989, Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest female Congresswoman ever. And not only that: she became a digital media phenomenon of global scope.
In the colossal manifesto Anders Behring Breivik ! wrote before killing sixty-plus members of a N... more In the colossal manifesto Anders Behring Breivik ! wrote before killing sixty-plus members of a Norwegian social-democratic youth organization in 2011, "Cultural Marxists" are a prominent category of "traitors". It is due to the Quisling-esque sellout to the enemy by this overrepresented elite that Europe is now threatened by a genocidal Islamic Jihad, to be perpetrated by the millions of Muslims who immigrated into European countries-so it reads. Consequently, they deserve the death penalty, and Breivik executed more than sixty of them. Cultural Marxism: the monster Admittedly, Breivik was an eccentric and a freak even by the standards of ultra-radical European nationalists. But the logic of his ideological constructions is more widely shared and features as a template for fractions of the New Right in Europe and beyond. And the phrase "Cultural Marxism", still rather marginal in 2011, has in the meantime become a stock term ! in political debate and in neoconservative writings, and it has precisely the meaning it had in Breivik's manifesto. In the words of an American organization called "Western Mastery", "Cultural Marxism has become the cultural branch of globalism. The enormous impact of this ideology on Western culture cannot be understated. It has effectively demolished societal structures and propagated cultural perversion. It has created a society that is racially mixed but extremely politically divided, sexually promiscuous, abrasive, hedonistic, and flat-out bizarre. " So: what is this monster? And why has it become such an enemy of the Right? Silly old Marcuse When Cultural Marxism is described in such writings (and Breivik's manifesto can serve as an example once more), fingers are pointed in two directions: to Antonio Gramsci !and to the Frankfurt School. While Gramsci's role is somewhat ambivalent-he is implicitly hailed as the inventor of metapolitics, and his strategies have been widely adopted in conservative and New Right politics-the Frankfurt School is usually presented as guilty of a long list C O L U M N J a n B l o m m a e r t 0 1 / 1 1 / 2 0 1 8
The way we live our lives, what we consider moral, inappropriate or justifiable is a personal mat... more The way we live our lives, what we consider moral, inappropriate or justifiable is a personal matter. Being a white queer female will most likely mean that you have a different outlook on life than your religious Arabic male neighbour. What we stand for and support says a lot about our identity as a person. Who we are shapes our lives and therefore, the decisions we make. In this article, we will tackle the issue of the construction of online identities. With many explicitly different identities to be found on the web, it is possible to put most profiles into boxes. However, not one profile is exactly the same as the other. This means that people with these identities all have different factors that determine their identity construction. They all have different sexualities ruling over their lives, and therefore, their profiles look different (Fig. 1). A R T I C L E J a d y v a n L e u s d e n 0 2 / 1 1 / 2 0 1 8
Hillary Clinton said towards the end of the first U.S. presidential debate in 2016; "Words matter... more Hillary Clinton said towards the end of the first U.S. presidential debate in 2016; "Words matter when you run for president. " That is certainly true. Once words leave the mouth of a presidential candidate, they are endlessly repeated in the papers, discussed on talk shows and ridiculed on the Internet. Often degraded to sound bites or headlines, these words are removed from their original context, trapped in an infinite media spectacle that drives the presidential race forward. Every few decades, a piece of technology comes along that reshapes this spectacle and forces the candidates to adjust their presentation. It happened in 1924 when Calvin Coolidge showed that he was a natural on the radio, which many historians believe helped him win the presidency. It happened again during the first televised debate in the 1960s, when John F. Kennedy — who was essentially an unknown senator at the time — destroyed Richard Nixon's presidential campaign, because Kennedy turned out to be more charming and confident on the screen than Nixon. Today, the candidates still try to persuade voters through televised debates, but their reach goes far beyond the stage that NBC is offering them. Not only do they have to make sure that their performance on television leaves the intended impression on voters, they also have to control their image, which is constantly reshaped and re-edited on the Internet. Before, during and after the debates, millions of tweets, texts and blog posts were shared on different digital platforms that discussed the likeability of the candidates. New media gave the people a voice to react to the debates that the television broadcasts and, needless to say, words play an important part in these discussions. But then, a new (or actually rather old) piece of technology came along that adds a remarkable medium to this verbal discussion: Graphic Interchange Formats (GIF). In these tiny animations, political debates are reduced to soundless gestures that seem to be capable of summarizing a reaction (of both politician and user) better than words could ever describe it. The GIF seems to be the embodiment of 'endlessness'. While Clinton was emphasizing the importance of words in her speech, I will argue that animated GIFs, and the way they depict gestures, have a great influence on contemporary politics. When it comes to news events like presidential debates, the voter can easily feel overwhelmed by the endless storm of discussions, debates and opinions. Animated GIFs allow for a different kind of consumption of all the available information, one that is recyclable and personalized, and therefore a remarkable and enduring addition to the public debate surrounding P A P E R I r i s C u p p e n 2 4 / 1 1 / 2 0 1 7
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Papers by diggit magazine