Governing Emotions: Hybrid media,Ontological Insecurity and the Normalisation of Far-Right Fantasies

Abstract

Focusing on the debates on ‘due impartiality’ provided to far-right leaders in Swedish media, this article uses a Lacanian approach to address the relationship between the practices of normalisation of far-right discourses and fantasies, and the evolution of emotional governance at the interstice of old (i.e. traditional) and new (e.g. social media) media. Emotional governance refers to the everyday emotionally charged utterances and statements made by political leaders. However, this phenomenon can also be read in a larger Foucauldian sense as techniques of surveillance, control and manipulation and as related to narrative representational fantasies. Studies dealing with the normalisation of far-right discourse from a media perspective tend to focus on framing, journalistic norms, market structures and business incentives. We aim to expand these perspectives by opening a discussion on the interplay between the ontological (in)securities attached to the emotional governance of far-right leaders, and the techno-social affordances and roles provided to (and by) ‘old’ and ’new’ actors in the hybrid media ecosystem. We further analyse this interplay by looking at the particular fantasies embedded in it and the consequences of the enactment of ‘due impartiality' and equal footing’ norms and practices in the Swedish media landscape.

Keywords

emotional governance Lacan ontological security social media far-right hybrid media systems political influencers

Introduction

On 20 August 2021, the Swedish newspaper Blekinge Läns Tidning (BLT) published a rejoinder article entitled ‘SD strikes back at criticism: “We stand up for democracy at all times”’¹ (Nyberg, 2021a). This note was an open retort to an interview article published by BLT the same day, titled ‘Political Scientist: “It is difficult to see that right-wing populist parties are not a threat to democracy”’² (Nyberg, 2021b). This rejoinder portrayed the perspective of Richard Jomshof, Sweden Democrats’ (Sverigedemokraterna, SD³) party secretary, who had come under scrutiny for his Islamophobic comments on the religion and culture and Muslim youth upbringing (Blekinge Läns Tidning, 2021). The rejoinder by Jomshof was published simultaneously with the interview piece, effectively placating and blind-sighting the criticism against SD’s far-right rhetoric. However, BLT did not grant the interviewed political scientist an opportunity to make a public response against Jomshof’s rejoinder.

This is not the only case, in Sweden or elsewhere, where media outlets afford generous platforms to far-right groups and subjects to express and disseminate their views. Critically, this platforming is often done in traditional media by portraying the far-right (as well as other extremist positions) as valid interlocutors in public debates. Providing different political positions in the public sphere can, of course, be viewed as one of the hallmarks of a well-functioning liberal democracy (Habermas, 1991). However, the extent to which mainstream media afford these opportunities to extremist positions – especially those distinguished by exclusionary, anti-democratic rhetoric and practices, such as that of SD – comes across as problematic and responds to a twofold process. First, erstwhile shunned far-right discourses and practices have become normalised in democratic politics whilst political preferences in Sweden and elsewhere have decidedly shifted towards the right. Second, algorithmic-powered social media have drastically changed the logics⁴ of news-making. In an attention-based economy, traditional media increasingly depend on artificial intelligence (AI)-fuelled social media to provide attention to specific topics and actors, where the framework of news- and consumption-worthiness in the political sphere is often provided by extremist, scandalous and spectacular positions.

The normalisation of far-right public discourse is not a new phenomenon – nor is the profound impact of social media logics on contemporary politics (Cammaerts, 2020; Chadwick, 2017; Wodak, 2020; Wodak, Culpeper, & Semino, 2021). In the case of Sweden, scholars have addressed the evolution, replication and streamlining of xenophobic terms used by the far-right over different online platforms and blogs (Åkerlund, 2021); the use of memes, codes and the exploitation of the humour-hate axis in social media to sanitise the consumption and dissemination of far-right content (Askanius, 2021); and the weaponisation of nostalgic moods and modes in the every-day Swedish political sphere manifested in images and memes (Merrill, 2020). Despite these important contributions, little has been said about the relationship between the practices of normalisation of far-right discourses and the evolution of emotional governance at the interstice of old (i.e. traditional) and new (e.g. social media) media – that is, the hybrid media system (Chadwick, 2017).

In the International Relations (IR) literature, the term emotional governance has been used to understand the state as not only a political, but also an emotional regime that determines the norms of socially-sanctioned emotional expressions through what Koschut (2019: 149) calls ‘feeling rules’. Such rules are employed via official rituals and discursive practices (see also Hutchison and Bleiker, 2014; Holland and Solomon, 2014). A particular focus of this literature has been on crisis and trauma as emotional contexts in which ‘sites of affective investment’ arise, manifest in governments’ responses to, for instance, September 11 (Solomon, 2012) or the Covid-19 pandemic (Kinnvall & Svensson, 2022). In more general terms, Richards (2013) has suggested that all leaders, politicians and movements are engaged in reading and responding to feelings that are out there, and how they by these very acts are engaged in emotional governance. Richards is mostly interested in the emotionally charged statements made by politicians and other prominent figures, in what he calls ‘emotional management’. However, Richards also acknowledges that emotional governance can be read in a larger Foucauldian sense as techniques of surveillance, control and manipulation of emotions to shape the emotional climate more generally.

This is also how we understand emotional governance in terms of the far-right: as narratives, discourses and myths that resonate affectively (Solomon, 2015), play on perceived or real insecurities, and are deployed by far-right leaders both in the short- (everyday) and long-term. Emotional governance is enacted in different spaces (e.g. newspaper articles, TV interviews or social media networks), by different actors (e.g. parliamentarians, media pundits, political influencers), with diverse practices (e.g. autobiographical narratives, network gatekeeping, content creation and dissemination) in an attempt to mould and mobilise everyday insecurities. This has led to arguments that populist far-right leaders are not only passive receivers who channel grievances, fantasies and longings embedded in the political sphere. Rather, they are active agents in the shaping and propagation of failed or successful narratives concerning other political bodies (people, parties, states), often by asserting ‘ownership’ of contentious issues, such as migration, borders and national identity (Agius, Rosamond & Kinnvall, 2020; Benkler, Faris, & Roberts, 2018; Kinnvall & Svensson, 2022; Wodak et al., 2021). Along these lines, emotional governance in the hybrid media system can be addressed from the analytical lenses of ontological (in)security and Lacanian fantasy (Areni, 2019; Kinnvall, 2018; Kinnvall & Mitzen, 2017)⁵. The relationship between emotional governance and far-right fantasies is particularly important as far-right populist leaders tend to offer or provide a perceived sense of ontological security through fantasies of collective belonging that play on nativist myths of a collective past that is now under threat (see e.g. Steele & Turner, forthcoming). This is often symbiotic with an ontological insecurity concerning fantasies of unmitigated disasters and/or paranoid delusions, as well as perceived others who are, by their very direct or indirect presence, seen to be challenging such a mythical past. These insecurities, and their related fantasies, are emotionally co-elaborated with other leaders and followers in traditional and social media through their construction of, and appeal to, deeply felt emotions of anxiety, fear, anger and despair. Together this has resulted in a normalisation of far-right politics, facilitated by the emergence of new hybrid media actors and the inclination of news media to provide equal space to emotionally charged fantasies on the far-right.

In this article, we propose to address the relationship between the practices of normalisation of far-right discourses and the evolution of emotional governance in the hybrid media system through the following questions. First, how do hybrid media exploit narratives of ontological (in)security in an attempt to amplify the far-right’s emotional governance of the public sphere in Sweden and elsewhere? Second, how are these practices connected to fantasies of autonomous self and others and how do they interrelate with the cultures and practices of hybrid media settings and new political actors? And third, how do traditional media practices of providing ‘equal footing’ and platforms to far-right positions connect to the larger pattern of normalising far-right discourses?

The structure of this article follows these questions and highlights some underexplored debates on the relationship between media, technology, far-right fantasies and ontological (in)security. In the first section, we address the relationship between the normalisation of far-right politics, emotional governance enacted by their leaders, and fantasy in the framework of ontological (in)security. In the second section, we discuss the characteristics of the news media system that emotionally constrain and enable these fantasies, focusing on the discourses, rhetoric and actors that contain the hybrid media system. While our main focus is on the role of mainstream media actors (e.g. newspapers, tabloids, TV news broadcasts), we nonetheless address the features of social media politics and their emotional influence over more traditional actors. In the third section, we discuss mainstream news media systems from a psycho-political perspective, specifically, the practices of ‘equal footing’ and ‘due impartiality’, which are both influential over the normalisation of the far-right in Sweden and elsewhere. The Swedish case is discussed in more detail in the final section.

Normalisation, Fantasy, Emotional Governance and Ontological (In)Security

Political leaders have expanded their emotional governance over a plethora of actors by exploiting ontological insecurities among the public. The concept of ontological security entered the social sciences through Anthony Giddens’ (1991) efforts to understand how late modernity had affected people’s sense of security. Departing from Laing’s (2010) psychoanalytical notion of ontological security as tied to feelings of continuity – to experience oneself as a ‘whole person’ – and Donald Winnicott’s symbolic interactionism, Giddens put trust in others as the central component for experiencing a stable world. The literature on ontological security has since become an established field in security studies (Peoples & Vaughan-Williams, 2020), and the focus of numerous debates on its psychoanalytical and existential foundations (for an overview, see Kinnvall & Mitzen, 2020). Giddens’ focus on routines and continuity in his discussion of ontological security as a ‘security of being’ has been prominently questioned. Instead, scholars point to how ‘being’ is always incomplete and, in Lacanian (1988) terms, bound to narrative desires and fantasies (Browning, 2019; Eberle, 2019; Kinnvall & Svensson, 2022). As Kinnvall and Svensson (2022) argue, a focus on desire and fantasy narratives illuminates how the search for ontological security is a story – a fantasy – that can never be fulfilled. In responding to increased feelings of ontological insecurity, people, groups and state representatives thus temporarily close down categorical identifications. It is a form of banal representational fantasy that works to defend against emotional anxieties and traumatic experiences (ibid.). As such, it is located within the Lacanian (1978, 1988) psychoanalytic inventories of the Imaginary where the subject fixes itself to an ideal image – an image called upon to affirm its imagined sense of self. The failure to safeguard this image through the other leaves the subject to turn to the Symbolic (or the Symbolic Order: the larger narratives of nation, religion, gender, culture, etc.), to find a way to secure its desire for an ideal image.

Representational Fantasy and the Far-Right

Representational fantasy highlights how the ‘emotionally governed’ are not solely followers or supporters of far-right discourse, but also political opponents, as well as allegedly ‘neutral’ political institutions, such as news media outlets, academia and government agencies. As emotional governance implies setting an agenda in the public sphere – and thus, a projection of expertise over controversial topics – these often-antagonistic actors are drawn into the same fantasmatic (fictional) discursive arena. In this arena, they compete for control over the pre-eminence of their position. However, the norms and rhetoric of these spaces, and nature of the discursive competition itself, are pre-emptively framed and influenced by far-right fantasies that exploit the incessant oscillation between uncertainty (e.g. about ‘ethnic replacement’ in Sweden) and desire for closure (e.g. by controlling bodies according to their belongingness to ‘Sweden’). Consequently, the expansion of emotional governance from far-right actors has resulted in the gradual normalisation of their discourses, attitudes and practices through the manipulations of narrative fantasies of categorical identification – of ontological security.

The connection between emotional governance and the normalisation of far-right discourse is not always explicitly dealt with in the literature, although a number of scholars touch upon important intersections (e.g. Ekström, Patrona, & Thornborrow, 2020; Krzyżanowski, 2020; Richards, 2018; Wodak, 2020). Citing the cases of Donald Trump and Brexit, Richards (2018) addresses how (far-right) political leaders have harnessed support for their causes, ideologies and discourses regardless of their facticity through the use of post-truth strategies. In this context, followers and supporters conceive of facticity only in terms of its instrumental value – that is, whether it will advance their agendas or reinforce their worldviews. The first kind of post-truth enactment involves the weaponisation of lies for political gain. This can be seen as necessary for achieving a highly partisan version of the ‘greater good’, and consequently, for attaining a greater represented ‘truth’ that reinforces particular worldviews (ibid. 2018: 402; Wodak, 2020, p. 2–3) or, in our language, representational fantasies. The second post-truth enactment is that of delusions. Under this more pervasive dynamic, the deluded group or subject does not reject or adjudicate instrumental value to facticity. Rather, Richards (2018) argues, their beliefs are grounded on specific fantasies (e.g. paranoia, enshrined in a conspiracy theory mindset) that act as an unconscious framing lens through which the subject sees and interacts with the world. The mainstreaming of deceit and delusion by political leaders can thus be understood as two mutually reinforcing consequences of the operationalisation of emotional governance for establishing ontological security.

In a similar vein, Wodak (2020) argues that the normalisation of far-right discourses in mainstream outlets partly stems from a combination of epistemic relativisation (enshrined in e.g. post-truth politics) and increased distrust in liberal democratic institutions and values. Far-right leaders have expertly materialised and exploited these dynamics through the affordances of social media platforms (Åkerlund, 2021). In this instance, emotional governance can be enacted through the provision of grievance platforms, such as Facebook or Flashback communities, and parasocial relationships – that is, the illusion of having a relationship with a high-profile personality (Kelly, Goke, McCall, & Dowell, 2020). These cultural and behavioural shifts in news media outlets and journalism, as well as increased media attention, help to explain how far-right discourses and rhetoric have been gradually normalised in Sweden (Ekström et al., 2020). As such, they have effectively provided the Swedish far-right with a highly legitimised and impactful platform to enact their emotional governance over both followers and detractors. Cammaerts (2020) espouses similar views on far-right normalisation through media (in)action while pointing to the complex relationship between far-right leaders and parties, and mainstream media. The former denounces the latter, yet are highly dependent on the exposition these platforms provide to enact emotional governance.

In a dark symbiotic twist, emotional governance is thus not solely dependent on far-right leaders but is enabled by media outlets and journalists who ‘feed off the emotive spectacle, drama and outrage which [far-right leaders] generate’ (Cammaerts, 2020, p. 250). Here, Cammaerts argues that the spectacular content generated by the far-right, combined with the affordances of complicit attention-seeking media outlets, provoke highly increased levels of engagement on part of their audiences (ibid.), thus effectively generating an ‘ideal’ enactment of emotional governance. This engagement is co-constituted with how far-right leaders exploit pre-existing social anxieties and ‘civilisational scares’ that gradually manifest in what Krzyżanowski (2020) labels ‘discursive shifts’ towards the eventual normalisation of these radical discourses: from ‘enactment’ (introduction of recontextualised discourses), to ‘gradation’ (diffusion, settling and reinforcement of arguments), ending in ‘normalisation’ (new norms of accepted public expression) (ibid.: p. 508–509).

Governing and Normalising Far-Right Fantasies of Ontological (In)Security

The normalisation of far-right discourses and behaviours can also be understood through the more explicit connection between fantasy, imaginaries and ontological (in)security. Under this framework, ‘fantasy’ is a critical component of world-enactment and conceptualisations of political reality, both intrinsically bound to their self-contradictory nature – that is, reality and fantasy can be understood as co-constituted, and thus defined by their intrinsic paradox (Sass, 2015). Stemming from a Lacanian approach, Eberle (2019) points to the relation between fantasy and the generation of a stable ‘sense’ of reality: ‘fantasy is the narrative frame that constitutes and stabilises the subjective sense of reality […]. Therefore, fantasy captures the process whereby subjects (social actors) relate to and reproduce reality (social structures) by outlining the relationship between subjectivity, social order and desire’ (ibid.: 245). Fantasy narratives thus ‘stabilise’ a sense of reality. Such ‘stability’ (understood in this context as social and symbolic orders) is never politically neutral, but rather responds to or replicates power dynamics enacted as the inclusion and exclusion of discourses, actors and structures from the sociopolitical order (Eberle, 2019; see also Wodak, 2020; Kinnvall & Svensson, 2022). In the case of the far-right, the link between stabilisation and normalisation of far-right discourses becomes more apparent when addressing the particular kinds of ontological insecurities that inform (and derive from) fantasies of paranoia, idyllic pasts and ethno-racial supremacy (cf. Bilgic & Pilcher, 2022).

In their work on the political psychology of the far-right, Kisić Merino, Capelos, & Kinnvall (2020) take a Lacanian approach to address the power of fantasy in the exploitation of ontological insecurities by far-right leaders. Fantasy and imaginaries are critical for understanding the appeal – and thus, gradual normalisation – of far-right rhetoric and discourses, especially in the form of permanent crisis narratives (see also Krzyżanowski, 2020; Žižek, 2002). Such fantasies work in tandem with promises of and desires for security that both tackle and reinforce the everlasting oscillation between uncertainty and desire. In the case of the far-right, these fantasies are often incarnated in the fantasmatic discourse of a ‘secure’, ‘stable’, and ‘great’ past which heavily contrasts with an anxiety-inducing present- a present that is often besieged by a fantasmatic projection of the ‘other’ (e.g. immigrants, elites, leftists) (Kisić Merino et al., 2020, p. 78–79; cf. Ozturk & Sandal, forthcoming). Using the case of Poland, Krzyżanowski (2020) argues that far-right leaders capitalise on the identity insecurities and anxieties stemming from the tensions inherent in national imaginaries (see also Bilgic & Pilcher, 2022). These imaginaries should be understood as ideological constructs that frame how people rationalise their social existences and identities (Krzyżanowski, 2020, p. 505, see also Eberle, 2019).

In the framework of far-right fantasies, such rationalised existences necessarily imply the creation and escalation of othering practices, since subjects tend to unconsciously externalise their intrinsic existential contradictions onto outgroups (Sass, 2015). Social existence itself acts as an ontological projection of the self and the other. This projection process is constantly redefined according to intersubjectivities of temporality. In far-right discourse, the past is projected as ‘ideal’, the present as ‘critical’ and the future as ‘imagined’, all of which convey a perennial (re)definition of sociopolitical identities (Krzyżanowski, 2020; see also Steele & Turner, forthcoming). While far-right leaders arguably cause these ontological insecurities, they also claim to hold the solution to them. However, the rationalisation and normalisation of the present as underpinned by a Žižekean-esque ‘permanent crisis’ (Žižek 2002) is also fantasmatic, and crucially, it is precluded by the norms and concepts that predefine our identity and projections. Thus, fantasies, understood as psychological mechanisms for reality-sensing and as political constructs, can be generated, disseminated and exploited by far-right leaders as (i) constructs of longing for the ‘glories’ of the past, anxiety for future uncertainty, and the impossibility of living in the critical present and (ii) as irredeemably attached to the ontological (in)securities stemming from this three-pronged temporal nature.

Here, Richards focuses on two types of fantasies commonly seen in far-right politics: paranoia and narcissism. In the case of paranoia, the conspiracy theory-minded subject believes either that ‘society is at risk from malign and secret forces’ (2018, p. 403), or that the current malign State is already governing us, meaning it has transcended into an active antagonistic hegemon. This fantasy responds to a gradual decline in trust in authorities and democratic systems. Crucially, the paranoid fantasy is symbiotic with the idea of threat and the projection of the ‘ideal and unacceptable aspects of the self’ (Richards, 2018, p. 403; see also Wodak, 2020; Kinnvall & Svensson, 2022) onto fantasmatic and often essentialised enemy figures (cf. Sass, 2015). Here, the relationship between a far-right fuelled paranoid mindset and ontological insecurity becomes apparent. The former president Donald Trump is a case in point, either when dog-whistling or when explicitly endorsing conspiracy theories benefitting his political agenda. In both cases, far-right or right-wing populist leaders validate and reinforce these types of fantasies, effectively gauging the ontological insecurities posited on different sets of social actors. A complementary fantasy that frames how ontological (in)securities are weaponised by the far-right is that of narcissism. Richards (2018) argues that this type of fantasy acts as an active defence against feelings of weakness and vulnerability, as well as against uncertainties and anxieties allegedly provoked by social antagonists. This defence is enacted by behaving as one pleases – transgressing social norms, such as those relating to racism, xenophobia and nativism. To the far-right, this fantasy is closely connected to self-representation as ‘authentic’ and ‘relatable’ which oftentimes transposes into an image of authority and expertise – someone that can effectively provide ontological security.

In the next section, we discuss the role of media and technological affordances, by addressing the normalisation of far-right discourses in relation to these movements, the role of their leaders and new political actors, and the role of the hybrid media system in the era of social media politics.

Normalisation, the Far-Right and the Hybrid Media System

The success of far-right actors in enacting emotional governance in the public sphere relies on their capacity to generate and disseminate information through different media practices (e.g. interviews, posting, tweeting) and platforms (e.g. TV news, newspapers, social media). Hybrid media architectures, affordances⁶ and market incentives have generated and extended (i) a more horizontal, ubiquitous and frequent interaction between citizens, politicians and news media; (ii) the rise of new political actors; that is, the political influencer, who mediates this interaction and blurs the roles of politician, media pundit and citizen, and (iii) the spectacularisation of politics, by which the ontology of politics resides in its entertainment value – that is, political life is negated in favour of a representation of itself (Debord, 1983, paras. 1–7).

This shift in political interaction, mediation and representation invites us to address the interplay between ontological (in)security, emotional governance, and the techno-social architectures and affordances of the hybrid media system. The fantasmatic experiencing and consumption of spectacular politics, as co-constitutive with identities and practices in social life, is deeply rooted in a ‘growing need for ontological security’ (Areni, 2019). These experiences develop in the context of social media, as desire is funnelled through the exchange between uncertainty and self-affirmation narratives, in which the fantasy of self-continuity is the prime form of spectacle (Areni, 2019; cf. Bilgic & Pilcher, 2022; Debord, 1983; Giddens, 1991, p. 53). Here, social media has generated a unique space and form of emotional governance by merging the levels of culture and everyday life with media communications in the public sphere (cf. Richards, 2007). These spaces and forms of emotional governance are heavily shaped and contested by key political actors in the hybrid media system (Chadwick, 2017).

Hybrid media systems theory sees ‘old’ (e.g. written media, TV broadcast) and ‘new’ (e.g. vlogging, posting, tweeting) media practices and logics⁷ as highly interpenetrated and interdependent. While ‘new’ media have gained significance in how we interact with the world and enact politics, they act in a fluid tandem with more ‘traditional’ media and their logics. The interstitial nature of these communicative logics has largely redefined how power is wielded in sociopolitical spheres. Hybrid media affect how information flows are concentrated, manipulated and diffused to enable and constrain the agency of contesting political actors (Chadwick, 2017, p. 3–4). By blurring the borders between media, politics, day-to-day life and facticity, the hybrid media system conjoins diverse spheres of human life – for example, politics, entertainment, markets, culture and labour. This conjunction situates actors from the political communications ecosystem in an interstice between partial reality, human life and recurrent self-representations: an inescapable spectacle of politics (Debord, 1983). Under Debord’s notion of the spectacular, human life is replaced by a representation of itself, owing to the empowerment of mass media and global capitalism (see also Fuchs, 2021, p. 50, 82–85). Drawing on this notion, we argue that the practice of politics falls under this notion of the spectacular, in which the goal and value of politics itself is its spectacle (Debord, 1983, para. 7). This notion of the ‘spectacular’ substantially engages with ‘epistemic crises’ (Dahlgren, 2018), partially caused by an evolving torrent of post-truth, misinformation and disinformation tactics enacted by the far-right. The spectacular and the spectacle are thus powerfully united by representational fantasies of glorious pasts and fearful futures in the hands of far-right leaders and supporters.

The advent of social media and the atomised, individualised, bottom-up media logic they impose over their platforms have allowed for the repackaging of far-right discourse and communication practices. This repackaging has allowed these discourses and practices to become normalised in media debates and, over time, in our contemporary public sphere (Askanius, 2019; 2021; Ekström et al., 2020; Merrill, 2020). Citing the case of the Nordic Resistance Movement in Sweden, Askanius (2021) argues that while there is little new at the core of far-right propaganda strategies, the re-codification (or reframing) of symbols and icons associated with their discourses into modern communicative forms has been effective in reaching younger, high-consumption audiences. However, traditional news media has not been displaced by new media corporations, regardless of the latter’s advance and influence on the public sphere (Chadwick, 2017, pp. 50–51). Rather, their logics have become intertwined and interdependent with much of the information flows that social media actors rely on to engage in the public sphere, and for setting their agendas in traditional media outlets (Barberá et al., 2019).

Accounting for the characteristics of the techno-social context of social media and political influencers allows us to better understand the link between far-right normalisation, ontological (in)security, emotional governance and social media politics. On the one hand, the contextual characteristics of social media illuminate the social, political and technological structures that influence the capacity of far-right leaders to enact emotional governance, and the particular strategies and dynamics that arise from these structures. On the other hand, addressing the characteristics of political influencers in these structures allows us to understand the conveyance of ontological (in)security in social media, the influence cycle between new and traditional media actors, and the shaping of cultural norms of emotional governance in hybrid media spaces.

Affordances for Normalisation: Social Media Politics in the Hybrid Media System

The relationship between traditional and AI-fuelled social media has decidedly affected the development of politics and the (de)formation of public opinion, as well as the normalisation of far-right discourses. The swift rise of social media (Chadwick, 2017; Lewandowsky et al., 2020), low implementation costs, ubiquity (Barberá et al., 2019), pervasiveness (Dubois & Gaffney, 2014; Graham & Wright, 2014), and chaotic transition from market- and entertainment-oriented logics towards the realm of politics have resulted in the formation of a uniquely dysfunctional hybridity (Chadwick, 2017). For instance, Pérez-Curiel and Limón-Naharro argue that former US President Donald Trump maximised the potential of tweet formats by focusing on persuasive language rather than informative/argumentative forms. In turn, traditional media outlets later reproduced, streamlined and normalised these rhetorical choices (2019, p. 72). Similar entanglements can be appreciated in the Swedish case, where political parties have gradually adapted their campaigning to respond to the specific demands of the political cultures in social media (Filimonov, Russmann, & Svensson, 2016).

Media’s catering to the interests of highly engaged partisans and supporters, and the interdependence network that pushes actors to prioritise the generation and consumption of spectacular information, aggravate political polarisation (Cushion & Lewis, 2017; Dubois & Gaffney, 2014). Political polarisation is symptomatic of a larger distrust in democracy and traditional politics, which partly stems from the dysfunctionality of media interdependence. The pervasiveness of AI-fuelled social media, the proliferation of echo chambers (Allen, 2016), and the pre-eminence of far-right discourses in influencer cultures are thus deeply fused with receding feelings of trust in democracy (Dahlgren, 2018), the rise of populism and increase in political polarisation (Lewandowsky et al., 2020), and the proliferation of mis- and disinformation as normalised tactics in contemporary communications environments (Benkler et al., 2018). Social media has substantially aided in deepening the levels, feelings and manifestations of public distrust, effectively strengthening highly partisan and alternative discourses, such as those of the far-right (Dahlgren, 2018; Klein & Robison, 2020). Public distrust is hence itself a key emotional state that opens up for particular emotional fantasies that promise to rectify such distrust and appeal to a public in search of security.

Subjects and groups prioritise the consumption of political discourses based on ideological relatability and discursive reinforcement, but also in consonance with the online performativity that stems from the specific zeitgeist⁸ they feel belongingness to. Political influencers are quintessential online performers in this context, and the cultural frames they adopt are those of entertainment politics, branding and the cult of personality. This stagecraft cascade has affected how traditional politicians adapt to new media logics to increase their relevance in an increasingly competitive political environment (Filimonov et al., 2016; Zimmermann et al., 2020). The architecture and financial motivations behind the design of AI-fuelled social media are dedicated to the exploitation of entertainment and celebrity logics and their related hyper-individualistic engagements (Fuchs, 2021, p. 175–176; Lewandowsky et al., 2020). The adoption of entertainment-framed styles and practices is not dedicated solely to appealing to users through common grievances and shared experiences, but also to establishing expertise and dominance over political competitors (Graham & Wright, 2014). This adoption of new media logics and entertainment-framed styles also play into the normalisation of far-right politics. By projecting emotional fantasies as requiring immediate attention (fixing a ‘state of crisis’, making ‘Sweden great again’ or ‘closing the border to illegal migrants’), a joint entertainment-styled fictional arena is created in which different sides are to provide comparable fantastical solutions.

The Influence of Non-traditional Actors in the Hybrid Media System

The affordances of the hybrid media system and the distortion of borders between roles in the political system (i.e. representatives, experts, authorities and interlocutors) have impacted the mobilisation of groups and subjects around different discourses (Chadwick, 2017). While high-profile traditional actors are still decidedly influential in our contemporary media system (Barberá et al., 2019), their share of power and monopoly have been greatly challenged and occasionally displaced by non-traditional actors (Dubois & Gaffney, 2014; Pérez-Curiel & Limón-Naharro, 2019).

A type of actor that embodies these structural changes in the hybrid media system is the political influencer. In the social media ecosystem, these actors relate to the interplay between ontological (in)security, emotional governance and the normalisation of far-right discourses. Political influencers variably act as opinion leaders, mediators and agenda-setters in the landscape of hyper-mediatised politics. These actors operate in the interstice of opinion-making, ideological representation and identity formation in public spaces where relationships, discourses and practices are shaped by (and shape) the pervasive and decentralised architecture of social media. In an environment where ordinary citizens increasingly distrust traditional politicians, democracy and politics itself, political influencers have gained prominence and authority as vessels capable of funnelling these unfulfilled desires and fantasies into ontological securities. For instance, Zimmermann et al. show that youth display a preference and higher levels of trust for political influencers on YouTube, to the direct detriment of traditional politicians (2022). While populist politicians navigate and operate in similar interstices as political influencers (with the two roles often being conflated in a single actor), the techno-social affordances provided by social media, and the speed of cultural interweaving in these networks create a unique operationalisation of the fantasy of closeness – or the generation of a parasocial relationship⁹ (Kelly et al., 2020; Paravati, Naidu, Gabriel, & Wiedemann, 2020). This kind of relationship can be understood from the framework of celebrity influence, which informs the intersubjective dynamics that media users develop with social media celebrities in the new media ecosystem.

In this context, influencers are defined as ‘vocational, sustained and highly branded social media stars’ who can ‘attract and maintain a sizable following on their social media platforms’ (Abidin, 2018, p. 71; in Fuchs, 2021, p. 174). While followership is disputed as the most important measurement of influence in social media (Dubois & Gaffney, 2014), influencers are nonetheless affected by business models, social media architectures, the interdependence with traditional media, lowering attention spans and technological affordances, all of which incentivise the expansion of followership (Lewandowsky et al., 2020). According to Fuchs, in an intensely secularised and individualistic capitalist society that constantly alienates people from themselves and their relationships, subjects seek ‘worldly substitutes for worship’ that (fantasmatically) entangle with their every-day and increasing confluent spheres of life (e.g. politics, private life, entertainment, markets, media) (2021, p. 174). Celebrities, the cultures of fandom and entertainment, and ultimately influencers incarnate an idea of excessive and transgressive happiness (or jouissance – enjoyment to speak with Lacan (1978)) in an increasingly alienating world. In this context, searching for jouissance and ‘fulfilment’ is directly attached to the idea of recognising an imagined self as part of a larger group and ideology (Fuchs, 2021, p. 174). Accordingly, the fulfilment promised by celebrity capitalism and influencers directly relates to the development of ontological (in)securities, which bestow a fantasy of the continuity of the self. Under the framework of entertainment politics, political influencers can thus be understood as catalysts of emotional governance in the hybrid media ecosystem.

Through ‘commenting’, ‘sharing’ and ‘reacting’, the political influencer becomes more visible in the hybrid media landscape (often by claiming expert knowledge) and can often frame the possibilities for agentic action concerning the perceived or fantasized object. In far-right terms, this means using the culture of entertainment politics (often as a more or less authoritarian kind of ‘worship’) to provide emotional responses to, or salvation from, the distrustful public’s current predicament. This practice of emotional governance also sets the tone of the discussion in which binary voices are to have equal say in the general fantasmatical media spectacle. Departing from the psycho-political, media and techno-social underpinnings of the normalisation of far-right discourses, we turn to the practice of ‘due impartiality’ in hybrid media politics. Based on these frameworks, we look to untangle a specific practice and ‘value’ held by news media actors in Sweden and elsewhere that aids in the operationalisation of far-right normalisation – that of ‘equal footing’, ‘neutrality’ or ‘due impartiality’ provided to far-right leaders in the public sphere.

‘Due Impartiality’, ‘Equal Footing’ and the Normalisation of Far-Right Discourse in News Media

The practices and norms that govern traditional media and journalists have a critical role in the framing and acceptance of far-right discourses. A key norm that characterises most traditional news media outlets (both newspapers and TV broadcasts) is that of ‘due impartiality’. This norm – also referred to as media ‘neutrality’ – generally refers to the media outlet’s reduction or elimination of purported bias in the presentation and interaction with a political actor (de Jonge, 2019; Ekström & Tolson, 2017). This norm translates into several practices affecting far-right leaders, including (i) providing them with generous spaces for exposing their agendas and discourses, (ii) reducing the quality and volume of confrontation or criticism against them and (iii) portraying them as experts by recurrently consulting them on (usually controversial) political topics. The enactment of these practices both enables and constitutes the emotional governance that far-right leaders seek to position in our societies. Enabled by mainstream media and orchestrated by far-right leaders, the ‘legitimacy’ and appeal of these increasingly mainstreamed discourses and actors result from the oscillation between ontological security and insecurity.

Swedish mainstream media – newspapers, tabloids, TV news channels – have been ambivalent in their framing and interaction with far-right leaders and discourses, oscillating between critical and accommodating stances. Much of this focus has been on SD, and some explicit criticism towards them remains by national newspapers like Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet. However, critique of the far-right has been met with gradual sanitisation and outright exposure, enacted by a larger corpus of Swedish media outlets. Still, the process of normalisation of far-right discourses has not been explicit or linear in the case of Sweden. Rather, as Herkman (2017) argues, mainstream media outlets have been superficially hostile towards far-right discourses and leaders, in particular when dealing with open-ended conceptualisations like ‘populism’ and ‘populist’ – which are intrinsically linked to far-right movements in Sweden. Paradoxically, and due to increasing financial, cultural and editorial pressures from the hybrid media system (Chadwick, 2017), media outlets have simultaneously supported and helped foster an environment hostile to politics itself – in effect supporting the discourses and causes of ‘populist’ (far-right) parties, both electorally and in terms of their legitimacy in the political sphere (Herkman, 2017, p. 483–484). Hence, normalisation is entangled with the development of populist fantasies strategically framed to be more acceptable in media, and thus effectively weaponised as tools for emotional governance. The normalisation of far-right discourses and delegitimisation of mainstream parties and politics in Sweden are mutually reinforcing processes, in which media play a critical role at the frontstage level (e.g. openly criticising SD) and backstage level (e.g. by regularly interviewing SD for their controversial standpoints). Along these lines, Herkman’s argument on media’s generation of a hostile environment towards politics in Sweden resonates strongly with our reasoning. We use this approach to understand the contradictory practice of Swedish media towards the far-right as a departure point for discussing the issue of ‘due impartiality’.

‘Due impartiality’, as a practice in the Swedish hybrid media system, crystallises the ambivalence of media outlets towards the far-right and has effectively supported the popularity, legitimacy and normalisation of their discourses and leaders. A caveat is the distinction and connection between the practices of ‘due impartiality’ and ‘equal footing’. The former corresponds to the purported reduction of bias of media actors when engaging with a political actor or discourse. The latter is a form of operationalising the former, presenting two (or more) actors as equally legitimate interlocutors in a particular debate, regardless of their positioning, discourses and facticity of evidence (Cushion & Lewis, 2017; Ekström et al., 2020). Even when ‘due impartiality’ is not fully (or properly) conferred to fringe or extremist political actors, the ever-growing practice of equal footing acts as a subtle yet substantial legitimising articulation in media and political spheres. Hence, framing far-right leaders simultaneously as legitimate interlocutors and antagonistic actors in an environment in which mainstream politics is increasingly delegitimised plays in favour of their emotional governance strategies: far-right leaders receive significant media exposure while simultaneously being ‘alienated’ for confronting the ‘elites’ and defending ‘the people’.

‘Due impartiality’ is part of the professional code of journalists, editors and TV news anchors or interviewers. While this norm formally attempts to establish a fair playing field, its practice entails a differential application according to the political positioning of the subject of interest (e.g. an interviewee on a TV news debate) (Ekström & Tolson, 2017, p. 124). Ekström and Tolson argue that this differential application of due impartiality is noticeable when comparing interviews conducted with mainstream politicians versus fringe/extremist ones (e.g. SD). Here, the latter group tends to experience a comparatively more ‘adversarial’ treatment on part of interviewers, as their discourses are constructed on controversial sociocultural beliefs (see Herkman, 2017; de Jonge, 2019). In the contemporary Swedish media landscape, however, the addition of the practice of ‘equal footing’ towards the far-right (in particular, SD) has been met by their gradual ideological retreat from the political ‘fringes’. Consequently, the conveyance of ‘due impartiality’ to far-right leaders on Swedish news media has been streamlined in the country’s hybrid media system.

Other researchers suggest a more fractious relationship between journalistic or media norms and their application – and consequently, an oftentimes indirect supportive disposition towards far-right leaders and discourses. Citing the cases of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, de Jonge (2019) argues that the relationship between the news media and the far-right is convoluted and generally poorly understood. A ‘neutral’ or ‘impartial’ disposition towards the far-right can be understood from an electoral perspective, as increased support for far-right parties begets conveying more attention and a more accommodating disposition towards these radical parties: ‘…media practitioners justified their strategies by explaining that it would simply be “bad journalism” not to give space to an electorally successful party’ (de Jonge, 2019, p. 202). Among media actors, electoral success is thus conflated with the mainstreaming or normalisation of far-right discourses and emotional fantasies. Focusing on news interviews with SD leaders in Swedish media, Ekström et al. (2020) argue that while adversarial practices towards far-right leaders still exist, the pressures exerted by ‘restricted forms of impartiality’ and the attention-based media business model reduces the capacity of interviewers and journalists to be critical, effectively pinning the practices of ‘due impartiality’ and ‘critical scrutiny’ against each other. Following this clash of practices, Swedish mainstream media outlets have opted to provide significant leeway to far-right discourses and actors. As the border between ‘unacceptable’ discourses (e.g. xenophobia, misogyny) and allegedly innocuous demands and emotions linked to conservative values (e.g. insecurity about crime) is becoming increasingly blurred, the concept of ‘legitimate controversy’ has come to the forefront (Ekström et al., 2020, p. 467–468). In this context, Swedish media outlets hold the practice of ‘due impartiality’ as a priority over that of critical scrutiny to the benefit of the far-right, which can skilfully navigate and govern the blurred border between discursive acceptability and ontological insecurity. Subsequently, the ‘blind’ application of professional journalistic norms in Sweden plays a critical role in ‘validating and normalising the nationalist, nativist and xenophobic agenda [and attached fantasies] of the radical right’ (Ekström et al., 2020, p. 466, 480). Even when mainstream news media take critical approaches toward the far-right in their capacity to hold politicians to account, this same capacity has resulted in the far-right’s gradual legitimisation as valid political interlocutors in the public sphere (Ekström et al., 2020; Ekström & Tolson, 2017).

Hence, while journalists and interviewers have traditionally been tasked with ‘policing’ the boundaries of acceptable political discourse, the existing market preferences and revamped business models (significantly affected by new media logics) often generate insurmountable pressures to avoid scrutiny. This tension is evident in the relationship between journalists and politicians in the framework of news media exposure (Clayman, 2017). On the one hand, journalists are tasked with unravelling the ideological standpoint of politicians, as well as ascertaining and framing the legitimacy of these positions. On the other hand, politicians try to maximise their influence by balancing their appeal to their partisans and political centrists. The ultimate objective of this discursive balancing act is moving the far-right viewpoint into the mainstream. Hence, the behaviours of politicians and normative structures of the hybrid media system cripple the ability of journalists to police and ascertain the boundaries of the ‘political mainstream’, effectively contributing to the legitimation of far-right discourses in the political sphere (Clayman, 2017). The resulting normalisation of the far-right, therefore, does not solely rely on the inability of mainstream media to ‘police’ these borders and to critically scrutinise far-right discourses and leaders. Rather, it relies on the manipulation of these ‘boundaries of normativity’ in their favour (Ekström et al., 2020, p. 481). In addition, journalists and interviewers do not necessarily decide on the practice of their professional norms – specifically, on due impartiality and equal footing. Rather, they are subjected to the decisions of their broadcasters, which are based on their business model and market pressures brought, in part, by social media and new cultures of news media on these platforms (Cushion & Lewis, 2017; Hafez, 2017; Pérez-Curiel & Limón-Naharro, 2019). Hence, ‘journalists are constrained by the operational definition of impartiality adopted by broadcasters’ (Cushion & Lewis, 2017, p. 208).

This impartiality has tended to favour right-wing actors, who see their topic framing, rhetoric and the narratives of news media coalesce in the public sphere (ibid.: 2017). The effects of structural pressures stemming from new media systems and financial constraints can also be seen in the selection of coverage by mainstream news media. These actors increasingly favour the generation and exposure of ‘scandalous and controversial narratives’ that reify the emotions and concerns of allegedly marginalised (far-right) voices, to the detriment of democratic deliberation practices, including fact-checking (Hafez, 2017). This practice has legitimised parties like SD as expert commentators on the controversial issues they frame their rhetoric on – such as crime, immigration and cultural replacement (Hafez, 2017). It is also regarding such topics that emotional fantasies of specific ‘others’ become most evident in far-right discourse. Fantasies of crime, immigration and cultural replacement are woven into homogenous bodies and justified as threats to the nation. To use Ahmed’s (2014, p. 4) terminology, it is about separating ‘bodies that belong’ from ‘bodies as an origin of danger’ through a fantasy spectacle that aims to govern ontological insecurity.

Far-right discourses thus rely heavily on strong emotional appeals to their supporters. Perceived anxieties, fears and threats (ontological insecurities) are intermixed with feelings of pride, shame and anger and brought together through fantasies of homogenous identities governed by their leaders. In this sense, new media compose unique platforms and logics in which emotional upheaval and governance are at the centre of their business incentives, architectures and affordances. In the case of the Nordic countries, these affordances generate high levels of competition between increasingly sensationalist and right-wing alternative media (Ihlebæk & Nygaard, 2021). This provokes the adoption of comparatively narrower topical foci and rhetorical styles strongly linked to representational fantasy narratives of immigration, crime, general unsafety and Islam. Sweden is an outlier in the context of Nordic alternative media, as the country contains the most popular ‘alternative news’ sites that appropriate such xenophobic narratives, and explicitly position themselves as antitheses of traditional media (ibid.: 269). For instance, Fria Tider’s – one of these alternative media – slogan reads ‘Give the Swedish media the finger’; while another one, Samhällsnytt, indicates their motivation is to ‘specialize in the areas where the established media exhibit omissions’ (ibid.: 270).

New media are ubiquitous in different spheres of life in Swedish society, and, more generally, its hybrid media system actively blurs the borders ‘between information and entertainment’, affecting the composition of political dynamics in the country (Nord & Grusell, 2020). The fragmented and individualistic modes of engagement with and consumption of politics via mainstream news media in Sweden, then, are strongly associated with structural changes in what Nord & Grusell label ‘new media habits’ and ‘media diets’ (ibid.). In this context, Swedish far-right political influencers (and far-right politicians using influencer logics) can emotionally govern this competitive environment by side-stepping journalistic forms and practices, and instead engaging with users in highly individualised ways, which respond to the highly mutable yet dominant culture of entertainment politics (Åkerlund, 2020). Far-right actors using influencer logics can both generate and circumvent the challenges and limitations created by the attention economy by projecting representational fantasies of authenticity and relatability that traditional media increasingly struggle to convey. However, similarly to the case of the ‘reformed’ SD, far-right influencers in Sweden tend to use sanitised rhetoric in their exposure style, to disguise their discourses and related fantasies of xenophobia, racism, nativism, sexism and misogyny.

An Eclectic Influence Chain: Sweden Democrats, Ethno-Nationalist Fantasies and the Hybrid Media

The normalisation of far-right discourses in Sweden in relation to emotional governance and hybrid media is directly linked to ethno-nationalist beliefs, fantasies and concepts. This can be appreciated in the instrumentalisation of the term ‘folkhem’ – loosely translated as ‘the [Swedish] people’s home’. The term refers to an ideology centred on the origins of the Swedish welfare system, where the material needs of ‘the people’ were at the frontstage of the civilisational and communitarian project of Sweden (Norocel, 2016). Coined by the Social Democrats during the early 20^th century, folkhem has been appropriated by the far-right over the past decade and weaponised into a tool for emotional governance. Folkhem incarnates a fantasy of a prosperous past of a culturally cohesive group of Swedes (‘the people’) which, the Sweden Democrats (SD) claim, modern-day Swedes (should) long for (cf. Steele & Turner, forthcoming). This discourse of welfare chauvinism has been used by the SD and other right-wing political parties in political rallies, mainstream media outlets and social media. The ideal of folkhem, along with other exclusionary right-wing populist terms, like hjärtlandet (‘heartland’) – used by the Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna) to pin the ‘urban elites’ against ‘the heartlands' people’ (Busch, 2022) – have been normalised or largely unquestioned by traditional Swedish outlets. While some notable criticism remains (e.g. see Eriksson, 2022), the coverage of SD in the 2022 Almedalen conferences of Swedish political parties was mostly devoted to the performance and policy proposals of SD’s leader, Jimmie Åkesson, rather than to the content of SD’s ethno-nationalist discourse (Åkesson, 2022). For instance, traditional outlets focused instead on the new collaborative spirit of SD (Stenberg, 2022), policy proposals for tackling crime (Hansing, 2022), Åkesson’s ‘powerful delivery’ of criticism against the Social Democrats (Holmqvist, 2022), his opinions on coalition configuration and climate change (Nilsson, 2022), energy policy (Svensson, 2022), other parties’ co-opting of SD’s agenda (Expressen, 2022), or standard forms of reporting (Aftonbladet, 2022).

Contrary to previous iterations, the terms folkhem or folkhemmet were not explicitly used in Åkesson’s 2022 speech, yet the ethno-nationalist and exclusionary spirit of this concept are ingrained in his tackling of Sweden’s alleged maladies and grievances. Critically, the ‘normalisation’ of SD and its constitutive fantasies in traditional media are inherently co-constituted and interdependent with the advancement of social media politics in this hybrid media system. For instance, the Moderate party (M) parliamentarian and self-described ‘political influencer’ on Twitter, Jan Ericson, has consistently ‘virtue signalled’ the coalition between M and SD, pinning them against the ‘inefficient’ or ‘incapable’ governing coalition (see e.g. Ericson, 2022a; 2022b). Swedish political actors in social media have used their affordances to sidestep rhetoric and discursive rules found in an increasingly permissive or uncritical traditional media. The use of more direct, aggressive, informal and ‘horizontal’ practices of communication in social media – which are the hallmark of lower-profile influential actors in Swedish social media (Åkerlund, 2021) – showcases the proliferation of political influencer culture in Swedish politics.

Hence, by merging the roles of politicians, media and ordinary citizens, the fantasy of authenticity becomes apparent in how folkhem or hjärtlandet are pinned against ‘those others’ (immigrants, elites, leftists) who do not share SD’s ideals and who, therefore, threaten the future of Sweden and its ontological security.

In Conclusion

Most studies addressing the normalisation of far-right or radical discourses tend to focus on media and political communication approaches, such as formats, structural issues, market and business pressure, and (critical) ideology studies. In comparison, we emphasise the interplay between political psychoanalytical approaches to emotional governance, fantasy and ontological insecurity and that of a hybrid media approach that integrates the roles of ‘new’ technosocial actors and platforms. In doing so, we show how the far-right has successfully weaponised paranoid mindsets and narcissistic fantasies in response to a range of perceived ontological insecurities. Here, the normalisation of far-right discourses is viewed as closely intertwined with the development of populist fantasies as a tool for emotional governance strategically framed to be more acceptable in media. Political influencers have played an important part in this by embodying reified ideas of desire and enjoyment – jouissance – in an increasingly alienating world. By attaching themselves to active practices of representing subjects under specific emotional and political frameworks in the public sphere, political influencers act as catalysts of emotional governance in the hybrid media ecosystem. In this context, searching for jouissance and ‘fulfilment’ is directly attached to the idea of recognising an imagined self as closely tied to an equally imagined larger group and ideology. Social media, with their unique platforms and logics, play a crucial role in such attachments. Not only do social media provide spaces for emotional upheaval and governance, but they are also at the centre stage of business incentives, affordances and representational fantasy narratives of controversial issues. Simultaneously and in complement, ‘due impartiality’ and ‘equal footing’, in Sweden and elsewhere, have become important norms and practices at the heart of hybrid media systems. Not only do they highlight the uncertainty, constraints and indecisiveness of media outlets but they, more fundamentally, support the popularity, legitimacy and normalisation of far-right fantasies. From an ontological security perspective, they are thus able to portray a representative fantasy of authenticity and relatability that is increasingly at the core of what traditional media are set to convey.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program – Humanities and Society (WASP-HS).

ORCID iD

Pasko Kisic Merino

Notes

Author Biographies

Pasko Kisic Merino is a PhD researcher at the Department of Political Science, Karlstad University, Sweden. He holds degrees in Political Science and Global Studies, and is the former Editorial Manager for the journal Political Psychology. His previous work includes research on the psycho-political features of far-right movements and actors, as well as on social media massification and radicalisation processes. His current research focuses on the relationship between far-right discourses, social media technologies and politics, artificial intelligence, and the consequences of the entertainment culture in contemporary politics. His PhD research is funded by the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program – Humanities and Society (WASP-HS).

Catarina Kinnvall is a Professor at the Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden. She is the former Editor-in-Chief of the journal Political Psychology, and the incoming President of the International Society of Political Psychology, as well as the co-editor of the Palgrave Series in Political Psychology. Her research interests involve political psychology, international relations and critical security studies, with a particular focus on gender, migration, radicalisation and populism in Europe and South Asia.

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