Affective visual rhetoric and discursive practices of the far-right across social media

Abstract

Supported by social media, political discourses are increasingly expressed and shared in different visual formats from photographs to videos, infographics and memetic image macros. This chapter discusses the growing yet varying role of visual communication for the far-right movement. Building on our previous empirical studies in the context of the so-called European refugee crisis in 2015-2017, and a related, more general circulation of racist discourses in society, we explore the uses of still images and videos in the communication of Finnish anti-immigration and far-right movements, as well as the broader patterns of circulation of those visuals in the media system. We illustrate how the visual rhetoric of the far-right is central to the technology-mediated affective economy of the political immigration question and digital racism