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[Commlist] Call for papers: Extremism on social media: Nordic perspectives
Mon Sep 09 16:20:34 GMT 2024
*Call for papers: Extremism on social media: Nordic perspectives *
The SMIDGE research project (HorizonEurope), Department of Nordic
Studies and Linguistics at University of Copenhagen, and Nordicom invite
scholars from a broad range of disciplines to submit extended abstracts
for a special issue of Nordicom Review. The issue will focus on
contemporary trends in extremism on social media in the Nordic
countries, including mainstreaming processes, hybrid threats, conspiracy
theories, and social media practices and phenomena, which enable shifts
toward the extremes of the Nordic public cultures.
*Editors: *
Mikkel Bækby Johansen, University of Copenhagen
Line Nybro Petersen, University of Copenhagen
*Contact: *
Mikkel Bækby Johansen: (mikkel.johansen /at/ hum.ku.dk)
<mailto:(mikkel.johansen /at/ hum.ku.dk)>
*Important dates: *
* Deadline for extended abstracts: 11 October 2024
* Invitation to submit full paper: 1 November 2024
* Full paper submission: 17 February 2025
* Peer review process: Spring 2025
* Expected publication (Open Access): Early 2026
*Background and aim *
Recent years have witnessed a growing scholarly interest in emerging
forms of extremism on social media. Extremist content, ranging from
hateful yet ironic and ambiguous memes over misinformation-based
narratives to malicious conspiracy theories and hardcore extremist
ideologies, circulates on mainstream social media platforms on a large
scale (Bryant, 2020; Rothut et al., 2024). Everyday social media users
are exposed to radical and subversive content on the same platforms they
use for the most common practices of catching up with the news and
keeping in touch with their network. On the one hand, mainstream actors
such as influencers, journalists, celebrities, activists, and
politicians use their social media visibility to platform ideas and
opinions previously considered fringe (Baker, 2022). On the other hand,
extremist narratives have become a matter of co-creation, as social
media users accumulate ad hoc convictions, political opinions, personal
grievances and inclinations, conspiracy beliefs, and ideology fragments
to construct new narratives located outside the window of what is
typically considered morally or politically acceptable (Petersen &
Johansen, forthcoming; see also Makinac Center for Public Policy, 2019).
This type of amalgamated and crowdsourced extremism challenges
established classifications of extremism and obfuscates the process of
tracing its origin. In a fragmented digital media landscape, antagonism
against the center of society – that is, the political and institutional
mainstream – may not necessarily originate from the most well-known
extreme positions, for example, the far-right, the far-left, or militant
Islamism. Today, extremist narratives also emerge from diffuse online
communities, which cut across ideological divides. This type of hybrid
extremism has recently caught the attention of security practitioners
and law enforcement in the Nordic region (see PET, 2024; SÄPO, 2023).
Highlighting the ontological connection between extremism and
conspiracism (Cassam, 2021), the hybridisation trend is closely linked
to the online proliferation and increased salience of conspiracy
theories, which accelerated during the Covid-19 pandemic (Brennen et
al., 2020). This, combined with the perpetually ironic and ambiguous
tone of online environments, challenges security practitioners and
scholars alike to distinguish real threats from playful rhetoric.
While Nordic societies are traditionally recognised as relatively
peaceful, homogenous, pragmatic, and consensus-seeking, the recent
pandemic and polarising effects of “the dark side” of social media
culture (Zeng & Schäfer, 2021) are currently unsettling the categories
by which Nordic public discourse may be understood. This includes Nordic
perceptions of extremism vis-à-vis the mainstream and the perceived
presence and influence of conspiracy theories in the Nordic public
cultures. How, for instance, is the QAnon conspiracy theory imported and
adapted to fit a Nordic context? What characterises the sentiments of
anti-authority groups in the Nordic region, and what role do
cross-national conspiracy theories like The Great Reset and The Great
Replacement play in these movements? Are there any patterns,
similarities as well as differences, in the way extremist narratives
emerge through social media use across the Nordic countries?
Further empirical studies of dynamic, ambiguous, and unclear spaces of
online extremism in the Nordic context may help not only security
practitioners and scholars but also a wider public audience to
understand the emerging environments from which new extremist ideas and
potential threats originate.
Focusing particularly on contemporary forms of extremism and
conspiracism in the context of social media, we invite empirical as well
as theoretical contributions to elucidate potential Nordic
particularities within current developments in online extremism. We
prioritise contributions that 1) specifically address social media and
engage with social media theories and 2) have a clear focus on the
Nordic region. We welcome a broad range of methods, both qualitative
and/or quantitative approaches, (comparative) case studies, ethnographic
studies, and so on. Topics may include but are not limited to the following:
* Social media practices and communities, e.g., (co-)creation and
dissemination of extremist narratives and conspiracy theories.
* Social media technologies, affordances, and the communicative
infrastructure of extremism.
* Changing forms of extremist expression: aesthetics and genres.
* Hybridisation processes and the amalgamation of ideologies,
conspiracy beliefs, religious convictions, current events, etc.
* Conditions of mainstreaming and processes of normalisation, e.g.,
conceptualisations of the mainstream-extreme continuum.
* Nordic import of conspiracy theories and extremist narratives from
other national contexts.
* Actors engaged in mainstreaming, legitimating, or promoting
extremism, e.g., journalists, influencers, celebrities, activists,
politicians, and public intellectuals.
* Case studies of extremist phenomena, i.e., movements, incidents.
* Comparisons between spaces of extremist discourse in the Nordic
countries.
*Procedure *
Please send an extended abstract of no more than 750 words to
(mikkel.johansen /at/ hum.ku.dk) <mailto:(mikkel.johansen /at/ hum.ku.dk)> by 11
October 2024. The abstract should outline the main theme and approach of
the intended paper and mention how it fits with the overall theme of the
special issue.
Authors invited to submit a full manuscript (7,000–9,000 words) will be
notified by e-mail when all abstracts are assessed by the editors. All
submissions should be original works and must not be under consideration
by other publishers.
After the initial submission and review process, manuscripts that are
accepted for publication must adhere to our guidelines upon final
manuscript delivery. You may choose to use our templates to assist you
in correctly formatting your manuscript.
Read the full instructions for authors and download a manuscript
template
<https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publications/publish-with-nordicom/instructions-authors>
*References *
Baker, S. A. (2022). Alt. health influencers: How wellness culture and
web culture have been weaponised to promote conspiracy theories and
far-right extremism during the COVID-19 pandemic. European Journal of
Cultural Studies, 25(1), 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494211062623
<https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494211062623>
Brennen, J. S., Simon, F. M., Howard, P. N., & Nielsen, R. K. (2020).
Types, sources, and claims of COVID-19 misinformation. Reuters Institute
for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford.
https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/types-sources-and-claims-covid-19-misinformation
<https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/types-sources-and-claims-covid-19-misinformation>
Bryant, L. V. (2020). The YouTube algorithm and the alt-right filter
bubble. Open Information Science, 4(1), 85–90.
https://doi.org/10.1515/opis-2020-0007
<https://doi.org/10.1515/opis-2020-0007>
Cassam, Q. (2021). Extremism: A philosophical analysis. Routledge.
https://doi.org/10.4324/978042932547 <https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429325472>
Makinac Center for Public Policy. (2019). The Overton window.
https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow
<https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow>
PET (Danish Security and Intelligence Service). (2024). Assessment of
the terrorist threat to Denmark 2024.
https://pet.dk/en/-/media/mediefiler/pet/dokumenter/analyser-og-vurderinger/vurdering-af-terrortruslen-mod-danmark/vurdering-af-terrortruslen-mod-danmark-2024-eng.pdf
<https://pet.dk/en/-/media/mediefiler/pet/dokumenter/analyser-og-vurderinger/vurdering-af-terrortruslen-mod-danmark/vurdering-af-terrortruslen-mod-danmark-2024-eng.pdf>
Petersen, L. N., & Johansen, M. B. (forthcoming). Spaces of hybridized
prefatory extremism.
Rothut, S., Schulze, H., Rieger, D., & Naderer, B. (2024). Mainstreaming
as a meta-process: A systematic review and conceptual model of factors
contributing to the mainstreaming of radical and extremist positions.
Communication Theory, 34(2), 49–59. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtae001
<https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtae001>
SÄPO (Swedish Security Service). (2023). The Swedish Security Service
2023–2024. https://tinyurl.com/4v8yfthd <https://tinyurl.com/4v8yfthd>
Zeng, J., & Schäfer, M. S. (2021). Conceptualizing “dark platforms”:
Covid-19-related conspiracy theories on 8kun and Gab. Digital
Journalism, 9(9), 1321–1343.
https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1938165
<https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1938165>
*About the publisher *
Nordicom is a centre for Nordic media research at the University of
Gothenburg, supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Nordicom
publishes all works under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
licence, which allows for non-commercial, non-derivative types
of reuse and sharing with proper attribution. All works are published
Open Access and are available to read free of charge and without
requirement for registration. There are no article processing charges
(APC), and authors retain copyright.
/Nordicom Review/ is an international peer reviewed journal devoted to
new Nordic media and communication research. In 2023, /Nordicom Review
/recorded a Journal Impact Factor of 2.0, a CiteScore of 2.8, and an
H-Index of 23.
Read more about /Nordicom Review/
<https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publications/nordicom-review>
Read our editorial policies
<https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/publications/publishing-with-nordicom/editorial-policies>
Visit Creative Commons to learn more about our CC licence
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode>
Read the call for papers on Nordicom’s website:
https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/latest/news/call-papers-extremism-social-media-nordic-perspectives
<https://www.nordicom.gu.se/en/latest/news/call-papers-extremism-social-media-nordic-perspectives>
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