Visual Analysis and the Contentious Politics of the Radical Right

ABSTRACT Although images are very important for political actors and social movements, including the radical right (RR), empirical studies still rarely integrate visual material as relevant data for understanding radical right politics. This article outlines this new and growing field of research (i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sociology compass Vol. 18; no. 9
Main Author: Caiani, Manuela
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01.09.2024
Subjects:
Case studies
contentious politics
Frame analysis
Imagery
online images
Politics
qualitative methods of social research
radical right politics
Radicalism
Social activism
Social movements
Two dimensional analysis
Visibility
visual analysis
Visual fields
Visual perception
ISSN:1751-9020, 1751-9020
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:ABSTRACT Although images are very important for political actors and social movements, including the radical right (RR), empirical studies still rarely integrate visual material as relevant data for understanding radical right politics. This article outlines this new and growing field of research (i.e., visuality and the RR), critically reviewing existing studies from the perspective of both visual studies of social movements and contentious politics, which are rarely applied to the RR, and the methodology of working with images, offering empirical case studies (European and beyond) to illustrate the argument. The findings reveal the main functions of the use of visuals for the radical right, as well as the benefits (but also the challenges) of studying radical right politics through the lens of visual analysis. A conceptual framework is proposed to capture this dominant visual politics of the radical right. As shown, two dimensions emerge as the most theoretically relevant for the radical right: The discursive meaning of images (the story itself, telling the story, eliciting the story) and the communicative function of images (visual expression by the movement or others, visibility), which combine agency and addressee.
Bibliography:Funding
The author received no specific funding for this work.
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ISSN:1751-9020
1751-9020
DOI:10.1111/soc4.13267