Abstract
Criticizing mainstream media for their ‘lies’ or ‘fake news’ has become a common political practice on the radical right. Further empirical research is needed to better understand the intricacies of these attacks on media, in particular for the way they relate to criticism of the political system as a whole and to matters of political representation. How do radical right actors construct a sense of political misrepresentation through their critique of media, and how does this allow them to make representative claims? This is what we explore in this article through a discourse analysis of the Flemish radical right youth movement Schild & Vrienden. Drawing inspiration from constructivist theories of representation, we explore the entanglement in empirical practice between two dimensions of representation: 1) between its literal meaning (as ‘portrayal’) and its political meaning (as standing or speaking for), and 2) between representation and misrepresentation. With our analysis, we shed light on the increasing politicization of the media as a non-electoral space of representation and misrepresentation, and on the role played by media criticism in the radical right’s broader (meta)political strategies.
Highlights
Whilst there is nothing new about the radical right criticizing the media, such attacks have certainly gained visibility, especially since Donald Trump’s campaign for the US presidency in 2016
In Belgium, a Flemish radical right youth movement—Schild & Vrienden (Shield and Friends, S&V)—has recently made a noticeable entry in the political scene amongst others for its aggressive discourse on media and pretension to ‘speak the truth’ that the media are said to ‘hide’
This is what we explore in this article through a discourse analysis of the Flemish radical right youth movement S&V
Summary
Whilst there is nothing new about the radical right criticizing the media, such attacks have certainly gained visibility, especially since Donald Trump’s campaign for the US presidency in 2016. Attacks on the ‘lying press’ are not merely denunciations of how media portray radical right leaders, movements, parties They are fundamental criticisms of how these media represent the world; of their portrayal of migration, Islam, the nation, and of masculinity, femininity and the traditional family, to name just a few issues. In the current context of a so-called ‘crisis’ of representation, further empirical research is needed to better understand how media criticism enables radical right actors to construct a sense of political misrepresentation and profile themselves as representative actors This is what we explore in this article through a discourse analysis of the Flemish radical right youth movement S&V. We conclude by providing a summary of our key findings and reflect on their broader implications for the study of the relation between the media, the radical right and democracy
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