Digital Fascism: Media, Communication and Society Volume Four

This fourth volume in Christian Fuchs’s Media, Communication and Society book series outlines the theoretical foundations of digital fascism and presents case studies of how fascism is communicated online. Digital Fascism presents and engages with theoretical approaches and empirical studies that allow us to understand how fascism, right-wing authoritarianism, xenophobia, and nationalism are communicated on the Internet. The book builds on theoretical foundations from key theorists such as Theodor W. Adorno, Franz L. Neumann, Erich Fromm, Herbert Marcuse, Wilhelm Reich, Leo Löwenthal, Moishe Postone, Günther Anders, M. N. Roy, and Henry Giroux. The book draws on a range of case studies, including Nazi-celebrations of Hitler’s birthday on Twitter, the ‘red scare 2.0’ directed against Jeremy Corbyn, and political communication online (Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, the Austrian presidential election). These case studies analyse right-wing communication online and on social media. Fuchs argues for the safeguarding of the democratic public sphere and that slowing down and decommodifying the logic of the media can advance and renew debate culture in the age of digital authoritarianism, fake news, echo chambers, and filter bubbles. Each chapter focuses on a particular dimension of digital fascism or a critical theorist whose work helps us to illuminate how fascism and digital fascism work, making this book an essential reading for both undergraduate and postgraduate students of media and communication studies, sociology, politics, and political economy as well as anyone who wants to understand what digital fascism is and how it works. Review “In this colossal collection of critical theory and analyses, Christian Fuchs shows off his brilliant expertise by integrating Marxist theories of fascism with its digital articulations across a range of online discourses. His exemplary detailed elaboration of pertinent conceptual roots is complemented by several empirical case studies, including digital discourses of remembering Hitler on Twitter, anti-Corbyn campaigns online, and Trumpian discourses of racism, nationalism, and fascism. In its data analysis, Fuchs makes excellent use of insights from Critical Discourse Studies and provides articulate and compelling contextualisation of the findings.” Majid KhosraviNik, Senior Lecturer in Digital Media & Discourse Studies at Newcastle University, UK “In this highly informative and theoretically grounded book, Christian Fuchs explores the rise of new forms of right-wing extremism online, in the era of Trump, Salvini and Bolsonaro, showing how social media has offered effective avenues for the growth of the populist right.” Paolo Gerbaudo, Senior Lecturer in Digital Culture and Society, King's College London, UK About the Author Christian Fuchs is a critical theorist of communication and society. He is co-editor of the journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. He is author of many publications, including the books Digital Capitalism (2022), Foundations of Critical Theory (2022), Communicating COVID-19: Everyday Life, Digital Capitalism, and Conspiracy Theories in Pandemic Times (2021), Marxist Humanism and Communication Theory (2021), Social Media: A Critical Introduction (3rd edition 2021), Communication and Capitalism: A Critical Theory (2020), Marxism: Karl Marx’s Fifteen Key Concepts for Cultural and Communication Studies (2020), Nationalism on the Internet: Critical Theory and Ideology in the Age of Social Media and Fake News (2020), Rereading Marx in the Age of Digital Capitalism (2019), Digital Demagogue: Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter (2016), Digital Labour and Karl Marx (2014), and Internet and Society (2008).