Pathologies of the public sphere and fascist agitation

The presence of far-right movements and parties on the current political scene urges us to return to Critical Theory studies (of the Frankfurt School) on fascist agitation and communication processes. The “pathologies of the public sphere” are the fruit of objective unresolved contradictions in capitalist modernity. By draining the public sphere, its political nature and the practical reason deployed within it, fascist agitation instead promotes a fictive community that eliminates any autonomous subject by turning culture into a field of acclamations. This approach enables us to resituate the study of information and communication techniques and of mass media and journalism within a conceptual framework in which communication activities are embedded in the social, economic and political field. Various “lessons” are drawn from this research of Critical Theory to analyse the Internet of extreme right-wing movements.