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The power of the alt-right multitude: how and why alt-right conspiracy theories have been legitimised in online spaces

Cyber Politics
Extremism
Media
Security
Critical Theory
Internet
Post-Structuralism
Race
Beatriz Lopes Buarque
The London School of Economics & Political Science
Beatriz Lopes Buarque
The London School of Economics & Political Science

Abstract

Since 2016, the alt-right and the proliferation of conspiracy theories in online spaces, further eroding the authority of science, have captured the attention of a growing number of scholars. Some of them have observed a concomitance between the emergence of the alt-right and an online industry devoted to spreading conspiracy theories. The white genocide, ‘the great replacement,’ cultural Marxism, and the ‘deep state’ are some examples of conspiracy theories that can be easily found in alt-right circles, not rarely under the guise of truth. In this paper, I examine how and why alt-right conspiracy theories have been legitimised in online spaces. By examining fifteen YouTube/BitChute videos conveying the aforementioned conspiracy theories as ‘objective truth’ and their circulation across different platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, websites, and forums), I demonstrate that they have been legitimised through authoritative performance and visibility. Furthermore, while analysing the affective dynamics expressed by alt-right conspiracy theories, I shed light on the racist and sexist fantasies projected by them that have allowed such discourses to operate as a refuge to the perceived dread associated with the growing presence of non-whites, non-westerners, women, left-leaning individuals, and globalists in positions of power. My main argument is that while encouraging collaborative authorship and promising the liberation of the self, neoliberal affective capitalism has allowed alt-right conspiracy theories to be performed and circulated as ‘truth,’ triggering a regime of conspiratorial ‘truth’ that ultimately aims at consolidating white, western and male supremacy.