Racist Propaganda in the Digital Eraby Jessie Daniels, PhD

DECIDIS IT University Copenhagen | 15 May 2017

Twitter: @JessieNYC

<where we are now>

Richard Spencer: White Nationalist

Cassandra Fairbanks | Mike Cernovich

Cassandra Fairbanks | Mike Cernovich

Source: The Independent, 29 April 2017

Source: Buzzfeed | Tech 30 April 2017

White Supremacists with Torches Gather at Confederate-era Statue

Source: The Daily Progress, 2017

“blood and soil”

“Russia is our friend”

<three parts to one story>

<1. racist propaganda>

White.Grey.Black.

Source: Howard Becker, American Sociological Review, 1949

(1933-1945) (1934-1939)

200+ deaths linked to Turner Diaries

Jo Cox, MP (1974-2016)

<2. my earlier research>

WS Before & After the Internet

(2009)(1997)

Source: Tom Metzger, White Aryan Resistance (W.A.R.) Newsletter, ca. 1980

racism is changing because of digital

technologies

(2009)

WS rhetoric is easier to access, global and more

participatory

“Ladies Only” Forum: white women make white supremacy

compatible with feminism

The key issue: making hard-won moral, political & legal victories once

again up for debate.

<3.changing media ecosystem>

“one-to-many” “many-to-many”

elevates racistpropaganda

Since the 1970s, a small group of billionaires committed to the radical right has financed and organized an interlocking

network of

think tanks, front groups, academics,

universities, &

news media outlets

[I no longer want to just support politicians who are]

“actors playing out a script” [now I intend to]

“supply the themes and the words for the scripts.” - Billionaire Charles Koch, 1981

“the robber barrons are the real heroes” –

Charles Koch funded “Freedom School”

Rebekah Mercer | Robert Mercer

“First Lady of the Alt-Right” | Cambridge Analytica

2017: vast network of hate radio

Talk radio meets YouTube

Roger Stone, Alex Jones 8 Nov 2016

Source: Buzzfeed, 3 December 2016

Source: New York Times, 5 March 2017

bots accelerate & amplify

convergence of news & reality TV

“most readers don’t approach the news as a clinical exercise in absorbing facts,

but experience it viscerally as an ongoing drama, with distinct story lines, heroes, and villains.”

“Our whole mindset is looking for these rolling narratives. The big ones won’t surprise you –immigration, ISIS, race riots, and what we call ‘the collapse of traditional values.’ But I’d say Hillary Clinton is tops.” – Steve Bannon

“Birtherism”

National Prominence via Reality TV

“Successful” “Self-Made”

DJT as ‘Uber Influencer’

Reads print-outs from Brietbart

Mainstream News Reports on his Tweets & Memes

<the threat to democracy>

Source: V. Polonski, World Economic Forum, 04 August 2016

is this “polarizing” or dangerous ?

some ideas are dangerous

some ideas are dangerous

racist propaganda is dangerous

“[Bannon] mused about limiting the vote to property owners….such a law would exclude a lot of African Americans, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”

racist propaganda is intended to put

political & moral victories up for debate

we must resist!

Twitter: @JessieNYC

Thank you!

#resist

53% of white

women

“Ladies Only” Forum:

white women make white supremacy compatible

with feminism

“I didn’t mean to

offend the black

stretch pant

wearing women of America…”

“Go to any mall or

airport in America,

they don’t wear

anything that zips, buttons or fastens…”

“Ivanka’s poise and polish artfully mask just

how closely her

ideologies align with

her father’s.”

“The same women who

hate Hillary

Clinton as ‘unfeminine’ flock to Ivanka, whom they

call “classy”

and “regal.”

(White) feminism is an effective shell for white

nationalist goals.

“most of those Lean In women [are] high-IQ

whites”