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“I just want to be the friendly face of national socialism” Cover

“I just want to be the friendly face of national socialism”

By: Tina Askanius  
Open Access
|Mar 2021

Abstract

This article is based on a case study of the media narratives of the neo-Nazi organisation Nordic Resistance Movement (NRM) and situates this particular actor within the broader landscape of violent extremism in Sweden today. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis informed by narrative inquiry, I examine various cultural expressions of neo-Nazi ideology in NRM's extensive repertoire of online media. Theoretically, I turn to cultural perspectives on violent extremism to bring to centre stage the role of popular culture and entertainment in the construction of a meaningful narrative of community and belonging built around neo-Nazism in Sweden today. The analysis explores the convergence between different genres, styles, and content into new cultural expressions of national socialism which bleed into mainstream Internet culture and political discourse in new ways. In the online universe of NRM, the extreme blends with the mainstream, the mundane and ordinary with the spectacular and provocative, and the serious with the silly. In this manner, the analysis lays bare the strategies through which NRM seeks to soften, trivialise, and normalise neo-Nazi discourse using the power and appeal of culture and entertainment.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2021-0004 | Journal eISSN: 2001-5119 | Journal ISSN: 1403-1108
Language: English
Page range: 17 - 35
Published on: Mar 3, 2021
Published by: University of Gothenburg Nordicom
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 2 issues per year

© 2021 Tina Askanius, published by University of Gothenburg Nordicom
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.