Abstract
For explaining the dispersed extreme right movements that are presently flourishing in the online sphere, British historian and political theorist Roger Griffin has elaborated the concept of groupuscular right. The groupuscular right can be characterized by the non-hierarchic and the rhizomatic structure of intra-groupuscular communication. Our study on Estonian groupuscular right complements it with the ideas of cultural semiotics that help to explicate self-descriptions of particular groupuscular nodes (e.g., blog posts) but also to analyze their relations with other extreme right groupuscules and with the radical online sphere as a whole. Although the extreme right’s communication has become more heterogeneous in its form and content, it is still possible to distinguish central and peripheral meanings. Our approach allows us to understand a seemingly paradoxical problem: why, despite of the plurality of different view-points available on the web, are groupuscular communications still dominated by strict and homogeneous ways of modeling information.
Funding statement: This work was supported by Semiotic modelling of self-description mechanisms: Theory and applications [IUT 2– 44]; Marie Curie International Research Staff Exchange Scheme Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme [EU-PREACC project]; Conceptualisations and experiences with public and private in technologically saturated society [PUT 44].
References
Angouri, Jo & Ruth Wodak. 2014. “They became big in the shadow of the crisis”: The Greek success story and the rise of the far right. Discourse & Society 25(4). 540–565.10.1177/0957926514536955Search in Google Scholar
Annual review of the Estonian Security Police. 2012. http://www.kapo.ee/cms-data/_text/38/44/files/kapo-aastaraamat-2012-est.pdf.Search in Google Scholar
Atton, Cris. 2006. Far-right media on the Internet: Culture, discourse and power. New media & society 8(4). 573–587.10.1177/1461444806065653Search in Google Scholar
Auers, Daunis & Andres Kasekamp. 2009. Explaining the electoral failure of extreme-right parties in Estonia and Latvia. Journal of Contemporary European Studies 17(2). 241–254.10.1080/14782800903108718Search in Google Scholar
Auers, Daunis & Andres Kasekamp. 2013. Comparing radical-right populism in Estonia and Latvia. In B. Mral, M. Khosravinik & R. Wodak (eds.), Populism in Europe: Politics and discourse, 235–248. London: Bloomsbury Academic.10.5040/9781472544940.ch-016Search in Google Scholar
Auers, Daunis & Andres Kasekamp. 2015. The impact of radical right parties in the Baltic states. In M. Minkenberg (ed.), Transforming the transformation? The East European radical right in the political process, 137–153. Abingdon, NY: Routledge.10.4324/9781315730578-7Search in Google Scholar
Back, Les. 2002. Aryans reading Adorno: Cyber-culture and twenty-first century racism. Ethnic and Racial Studies 25(4). 628–651.10.1080/01419870220136664Search in Google Scholar
Ballinger, Dean. 2011. Conspiratoria: The Internet and the logic of conspiracy theory. Waikato: University of Waikato dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Barkun, Michael. 2003. A culture of conspiracy: Apocalyptic visions in contemporary America. Los Angeles: University of California Press.10.1525/california/9780520238053.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Bratich, Jack Z. 2008. Conspiracy panics: Political rationality and popular culture. Albany: State University of New York Press.Search in Google Scholar
Caiani, Manuela, Donatella della Porta & Claudius Wagemann. 2012. Mobilizing on the extreme right: Germany, Italy, and the United States. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641260.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Caiani, Manuela & Patricia Kröll. 2014. The transnationalization of the extreme right and the use of the Internet. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 39(4). 331–351.10.1080/01924036.2014.973050Search in Google Scholar
Campbell, Alex. 2006. The search for authenticity: An exploration of an online skinhead newsgroup. New media & Society 8(2). 269–294.10.1177/1461444806059875Search in Google Scholar
Castells, Manuel. 2009. Communication power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Daniels, Jessie. 2008. Cyber racism: White supremacy online and the new attack on civil rights (perspectives on a multiracial America). Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield.Search in Google Scholar
Daniels, Jessie. 2012. Race and racism in Internet studies: A review and critique. New Media Society 10. 1–25.10.1177/1461444812462849Search in Google Scholar
Eco, Umberto. 2003. Vegetal and mineral memory: The future of books. https://www.bibalex.org/attachments/english/Vegetal_and_Mineral_Memory.pdf (accessed 20 February 2018).Search in Google Scholar
Fekete, Liz. 2012. Pedlars of hate: The violent impact of the European far right. London: Institute of Race Relations.Search in Google Scholar
Fenster, Mark. 2008. Conspiracy theories: Secrecy and power in American culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar
Griffin, Roger. 1999. Net gains and GUD reactions: Patterns of prejudice in a Neo-fascist groupuscule. Patterns of Prejudice 33(2). 31–50.10.1080/003132299128810542Search in Google Scholar
Griffin, Roger. 2002a. The incredible shrinking ism: The survival of fascism in the post-fascist era. Patterns of Prejudice 36(3). 3–8.10.1080/003132202128811457Search in Google Scholar
Griffin, Roger. 2002b. The primacy of culture: The current growth (or manufacture) of consensus within fascist studies. Journal of Contemporary History 37. 21–43.10.1177/00220094020370010701Search in Google Scholar
Griffin, Roger. 2003. From slime mold to rhizome: An introduction to the groupuscular right. Patterns of Prejudice 37(1). 27–50.10.1080/0031322022000054321Search in Google Scholar
Hainsworth, Paul. 2008. Extreme right western Europe. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203965054Search in Google Scholar
Kaplan, Jeffrey, Leonhard Weinberg & Ted Oleson. 2003. Dreams and realities in cyberspace: White Aryan resistance and the World Church of the Creator. Patterns of Prejudice 2(37). 139–155.10.1080/0031322032000084679Search in Google Scholar
Kasekamp, Andres. 2003. Extreme-right parties in contemporary Estonia. Patterns of Prejudice 37(4). 401–414.10.1080/0031322032000144483Search in Google Scholar
Kress, Günther. 2005. Literacy in the new media age. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Landow, George P. 2006. Hypertext 3.0: Critical theory and new media in an era of globalization. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.10.56021/9780801882562Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri. 1988. Text within a text. Soviet Psychology 26(3). 32–51.10.2753/RPO1061-0405260332Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri. 1997. Culture as a subject and an object in itself. Trames 1(51/46). 7–16.10.3176/tr.1997.1.01Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri. 2005. On semiosphere. Sign Systems Studies 33(1). 205–229.10.12697/SSS.2005.33.1.09Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri. 2010. “Kultuuri õpetamise” problem kui tüpoloogiline karakteristik. In S. Salupere (ed.), Kultuuritüpoloogiast, 60–72. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus.Search in Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri & Boris Uspenski. 1984. The role of dual models in dynamics of Russian culture (up to the end of the eighteenth century). In A. Shukman (ed.), The semiotics of Russian culture, 3–35. Michigan: Ann Arbor.Search in Google Scholar
Madisson, Mari-Liis. 2014. The semiotic logic of signification of conspiracy theories. Semiotica 202(1/4). 273–300.10.1515/sem-2014-0059Search in Google Scholar
Madisson, Mari-Liis. 2016. The semiotic construction of identities in hypermedia environments: The analysis of online communication of the Estonian extreme right. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus dissertation.Search in Google Scholar
Madisson, Mari-Liis. forthcoming. NWO conspiracy theory: A key frame in online communication of Estonian extreme right. Lexia 23(24). 189–208.Search in Google Scholar
Madisson, Mari-Liis & Andreas Ventsel. 2016. “Freedom of speech” in the self-descriptions of the Estonian extreme right groupuscules. National Identities 18(2). 89–104.10.1080/14608944.2014.995159Search in Google Scholar
Mudde, Cas. 1995. Right-wing extremism analyzed: A comparative analysis of the ideologies of three alleged right-wing extremist parties (NPD, NDP, CP’86). European Journal of Political Research 27(2). 203–224.10.1111/j.1475-6765.1995.tb00636.xSearch in Google Scholar
Mudde, Cas. 2000. The ideology of the extreme right. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Mudde, Cas. 2005. Racist extremism in central and eastern Europe. East European Politics and Societies 19(2). 161–184.10.1177/0888325404270965Search in Google Scholar
Mudde, Cas. 2007. Populist radical right parties in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511492037Search in Google Scholar
Mudde, Cas. 2011. Who’s afraid of the European radical right? Dissent 58(4). 7–11.10.1353/dss.2011.0090Search in Google Scholar
Nakamura, Lisa & Peter A. Chow-White. 2012. Introduction. Race and digital technology: Code, the color line, and the information society. In L. Nakamura & P. A. Chow-White (eds.), Race after the Internet, 1–18. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203875063Search in Google Scholar
Orwell, George 1949. 1984. London: Secker & WarburgSearch in Google Scholar
Poleshchuk, Vadim. 2005. Estonia. In C. Mudde (ed.), Racist extremism in central and eastern Europe, 54–73. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Ryan, Marie-Laure. 2006. Avatars of story. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Search in Google Scholar
Shifman, Limor. 2011. An anatomy of YouTube meme. New Media & Society 14(2). 187–203.10.1177/1461444811412160Search in Google Scholar
Siibak, Andra. 2014. Being publicly private: Extreme nationalist user practices on social networks. In N. Giacomello (ed.), Security in cyberspace: Targeting nations, infrastructures, individuals, 215–230. London: Bloomsbury.Search in Google Scholar
Sommer, Brend. 2008. Anti-capitalism in the name of ethno-nationalism: Ideological shifts on the German extreme right. Patterns of Prejudice 42(3). 305–316.10.1080/00313220802204046Search in Google Scholar
Spark, Alasdair. 2003. New world order. In P. Knight (ed.), Conspiracy theories in American history: An encyclopedia, 536–539. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO.Search in Google Scholar
Sunstein, Cass R. 2009. Going to extremes: How like minds unite and divide. New York: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Torop, Peeter. 2003. Semiospherical understanding: Textuality. Sign Systems Studies 31(2). 323–337.10.12697/SSS.2003.31.2.01Search in Google Scholar
Ventsel, Andreas. 2010. The construction of the Stalinist post-war (1944–1953) “Soviet People”: A concept in the political rhetoric of Soviet Estonia. Applied Semiotics/Sémiotique appliquée 10(25). 73–83.Search in Google Scholar
Virchow, Fabian. 2004. The groupuscularization of neo-Nazism in Germany: The case of the Aktionsbüro Norddeutschland. Patterns of Prejudice 38(1). 56–70.10.1080/0031322032000185587Search in Google Scholar
Wojcieszak, Magdalena. 2010. “Don’t talk to me”: Effects of ideologically homogeneous online groups and politically dissimilar offline ties on extremism. New media & Society 12(4). 637–655.10.1177/1461444809342775Search in Google Scholar
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston