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In this piece, which frames the special issue "Technocultural worldings," we build on previous editions of commentary and criticism in this journal. We propose a theoretically anchored way to systematically approach the dynamic, multidimensional, and heterogeneous technocultural communities that have created their own worldings and are engaged in complex dialectical dynamics within the contemporary media landscape. The technocultural communities that are part of these dialectical dynamics are constituted, on the one hand, by the complex collective sense-making of the emancipatory political programs of feminist and LGBTI+ initiatives and, on the other, by the retrogressive mobilizations of far-right and anti-gender movements. Hence, we argue that these worldings come into being due to the ability conferred by digital spaces to incorporate both material and virtual components in performances of gender and sexuality, in all their complex diversity. These issues are explored in more detail in eight articles, grouped into two discretely separate sections, one exploring emancipatory technocultural worldings, while the other describes retrogressive technocultural worldings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a reaction to previous appeals to widen the conceptual remit of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS). It proposes research bricolage as means for critical engagement with conceptual constructs originating from adjacent social science disciplines. Borrowing such concepts as far-right metapolitics from political science, superordinate intersectionality from gender studies, and Web 2.0 sociotechnical affordances from digital sociology, the proposed CDS innovation is better equipped to examine the digital identities that are discerned in the far-right metapolitical project. The article provides an innovative manner to undergird a specific methodological approach, namely Discourse Historical Approach (DHA), with a feminist ethics of capacious reflexivity, which enables researchers to triangulate successfully research ethics legislation at both EU and national level, and the guidelines for ethical internet research. The article illustrates the suggested research bricolage and the methodological articulations by focusing on an important European far-right entity, which has significant transnational and national connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue collects articles, which aim to re-envision integration, dislodging the previously monodirectional conceptual flow sourced in the Global North. Jointly, the articles pursue a critical scholarship contributing to multicentric knowledge production, disrupting binaries of integrated/nonintegrated, inclusion/exclusion, citizen/non-citizen, or indeed self/other. They evidence ambivalent subject positions, neither fully-included nor fully-excluded, and engender forms of belonging to the places immigrants are momentarily located in, albeit without a steadfast position granting them rights. The collected articles also emphasize the various scales of integration, be it wider global or regional flows, as well as more localized, zoomed-in, and ephemeral manners of integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We approach critically the assertion that a referendum ultimately defends the "traditional family," by examining the articulation of anti-gender politics in Romanian parliamentary debates. We contribute theoretically by employing the concept of retrogressive mobilization in plebiscitary circumstances. We show that in Romania the contours of retrogressive mobilization transgress both the ideological left–right cleavage, and even party loyalty. We demonstrate how the ideological work done for the fantasmatic logics of retrogressive mobilization articulates two antithetical narrative scenarios, both centering on the Orthodox "nature" of the Romanian nation, whose existence and survival are said to hinge on the protection of the "traditional family" from "LGBT ideology." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine here how issues of gender and religion are employed for ideological purposes in the discourses of radical right populist parties in Sweden and Finland. We begin with the complexity of these societies as paragons of social welfare and gender equality, within which Lutheran Christianity discreetly underpins their largely secularised character. Employing a poststructuralist methodological approach, we analyse the key political speeches of the chairpersons of the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna) and Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset/ Sannfinländarna). We unveil a complex interplay between gender and religion; gender equality is used strategically to strengthen and legitimise the separation between 'the people' and racialised Others, while references to religion are employed to rank the racialised Other as 'less than' the secular and modern 'people', and to oppose alleged inquisitorial attempts on the part of progressive left and liberal parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finland and Sweden share the ideal of a Nordic welfare state, with gender equality as a central tenet. In both countries, right-wing populist parties have gained prominence in mainstream politics. Despite similar political agendas at the moment, these parties have different political histories, and different modes of expressing their anti-immigration pleas. In this comparative study, we examine how the distinction between 'us' and the 'other' is performed intersectionally in terms of gender, social class, ethnicity and 'race', and sexuality. For this purpose, we examine empirical material collected from the party newspapers of the Finns Party and the Sweden Democrats, because their content most closely reflects the ideological tenets of these parties. The chosen timeline stretches from 2007 until 2014 and entails the qualitative close reading of 16 issues of each newspaper. We evidence the dynamic between the intersectional analysis that fleshes out the reproduction of categories of difference, and the comparative analysis with its interest in temporal change and the resulting convergence between the two parties' ideologies. We conclude that, although the Finns Party previously had a more pronounced anti-elitist rhetoric and resorted to class-based antagonism as a means to garner electoral support, it subsequently moved closer to the anti-immigration agenda around issues of protecting national identity and the welfare state that has characterised the political platform of the Sweden Democrats over the past decade. This temporal awareness allowed us to document the Sweden Democrats' ideological consistency over the examined timeframe, emphasising the party's quest to rebuild the (Swedish) 'people's home' and to exclude the racialised Muslim 'other'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using superordinate intersectionality as a theoretical framework, this article explores notions of men and masculinities within right wing populism. It is attentive to how the right-wing populist media in Finland and Sweden construct white Nordic masculinities through discursive interactions across several axes of difference: gender (masculinities); sexuality (heterosexuality); social class (elites); and race (whitenesses). Employing Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as methodological approach, we show how the discursive constructions of white Nordic masculinities are context contingent, rendering them subject to constant reinterpretation and repositioning, at times privileging some axes of social structuring over others. By drawing out the subtle similarities and discrete differences embedded in the discursive constructions of right-wing populist media, our approach gives a more fine-grained understanding of the nuance to men and masculinities in the study of right wing populism. By focusing on the European Nordic semi-periphery, our comparative analysis makes an original contribution, not only to the masculinities literature in general, but also to the growing scholarship concerned with the 'crisis of masculinity' in the wider context of neoliberal globalizing tendencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the discursive opportunities for radical-right populist politics in Hungary and Romania. We argue that it is important to assess whether the discursive activities of radical-right media are reflected and included in the chains of discussion in the public sphere. The involvement and visibility of radical-right media in news coverage is considered a cue for their acceptance as legitimate actors in the wider media ecosystem, even when other media may not accept their interpretations. Our findings tell two different stories in the compared countries. In Hungary, we note that radical-right media are to a certain degree incorporated into the wider media networks, while in Romania, radical-right media are observed to be in isolated positions in both of the media networks we examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores the validity of the media visibility thesis in a cross-country comparative framework, concentrating on the position of media outlets sympathetic or affiliated to the populist radical right parties in the public spheres in Hungary and Romania. The visibility of such media outlets in the public sphere is considered crucial in the context of discursive opportunities for political mobilization, whereby the presence of discursive elements of populist radical right communication in mainstream media is understood as empirical evidence for the visibility of populist radical right politics. We analyze first the characteristics of media discourses. We then identify the positions of radical right media products in relation to mainstream media. Using network analysis as a methodological approach, we evince the differences and similarities pertaining to the location of radical right media in the wider network architecture of the public spheres in Hungary and Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines how the desirable ideals of femininity for the ethno-nationalist project are framed in populist radical right media in contemporary Romania. The study examines the editorials of populist radical right party leader (Corneliu Vadim Tudor) published at election times between 2000 and 2012 in the weekly party publication. It explores the inventory of media frames, which provide the panopticon of femininity performances coming forth in Tudor’s editorials, and the disciplining endeavours these depictions enable. In the first step, the femininity performance of Romanian women seen as nationalist ideal of submission and childbearing is juxtaposed with the portrayal of women who forsake such expectations, and that of Roma women described as promiscuous and overly fertile. In the second step, the roles afforded to women in the public arena are evidenced, either as selfless heroines or their antithetic depiction, the power-hungry women. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]