Radicalising the Mainstream in Western Europe: The Far Right and Narratives of Islam in Contemporary and Historical Perspective [Hardcover]

This Open Access book offers a mixed-method approach to analysing anti-Muslim narratives in interactions between the far right and the Western European mainstream. By exploring narratives that portray Islam as inherently other, the essays in this collection interrogate the effects of such narratives on the targeted group and mainstream society. Authors explore mechanisms, such as historical othering, media agenda building, and online mobilization of the far right, and harness historical analysis, media content, social media network analyses and qualitative surveys, to propose that the effects of such media narratives are far from purely symbolic.

1. “Driving on the Right”: The Shameless Normalization of Far-Right Discourses (Ruth Wodak).- 2.Radicalizing the Mainstream: A Research Program (Liriam Sponholz, Anna-Maria Meuth, Sabrina Zajak, Mirjam Weiberg and Stefan Berger).- 3.Beyond Western Civilizationism: Constructing Collective European Identity and the Muslim ‘Other’ on the Far Right. (Max Brunner).- 4.Agenda Setters or Agenda Surfers? The Role of the Far Right in Media Narratives on Islam (Liriam Sponholz).-5. The Transnational Link: Insights on Sociotechnical Mobilization in the Online Far Right on Facebook (Damla Ke_kekci).- 6.Spreading and Preventing Anti-Muslim Narratives and Practices in Communal Space in Britain and Germany (Anna-Maria Meuth).-7.Who or What Radicalizes Whom? (Liriam Sponholz, Anna-Maria Meuth, Sabrina Zajak, Mirjam Weiberg and Stefan Berger)

Liriam Sponholz, a media and communication scientist, is Visiting Professor at the University of Brasília (UNB) and associated researcher at the German Center for Integration and Migration (DeZIM-Institut). Her areas of research include Political Communicatiol3ï