Media of Fascistization

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jasmin Degeling
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 578217464

Fascism is currently emerging (again) from the center of society: from election victories of right-wing popu­list and fascist parties (in Europe, USA, India, Japan, etc.) to the strengthening of supranational ethno-nationalist movements, a broad social and democratically legitimized empowerment of the far right has become visible. "Fascistization" as a process raises genealogical questions about sources and influences, as well as perspectives on how the media have worked as central channels and catalysts of this development: networked activities on social media platforms and colonial-capitalist business models of the tech industry are involved in the organization of societal support for a spectrum of right-wing, authoritarian to plainly fascist parties and movements. Media create synergies between political economy, technological infra­structures and fascistization. Digital phenomena such as #GamerGate, conspiracy movements, the manosphere and incel movements are just some aspects of a broad development in digital spaces showing the urgency to find new terms for new fascisms. The symposium aims to contribute analytically grapple with the changed media conditions of fascistization and to grasp the media formations of differential violence along axes of social inequality such as race, gender, sex, ability and poverty. The concept of digital fascism, introduced between the murders in Christchurch (New Zealand) and Halle (Germany) - both broadcast via livestream - shed light on digital cultures as opportunity structures in the spectrum of hate speech, networked organization and terror, but falls short when it comes to clarifying the term "fascistization". Media studies need to correct this by taking into ac­count the fundamental relationality of people, things, ideologies, affects and media. Fascisms in their em­beddedness within socio-technical structures have been theoretically and empirically differentiated in vari­ous fields of media studies, which has brought the media-related conditionality of contemporary fascisms to the fore.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigators: Professorin Dr. Christine Hanke; Professor Dr. Katrin Köppert; Dr. Simon Strick