The Dark Side of the Internet Public Sphere: An Analysis of the Alt-right in Cyberspace

• Main Authors: Nicholas Barkdull, 白洛克
• Other Authors: Chu, Yuan-Horng
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/zncydj

博士 === 國立交通大學 === 社會與文化研究所 === 107 === This dissertation conducts a series of case studies on “Alt-right” (alternative right) Internet communities. The case studies are conducted through the lens of public theory to problematize the Internet as a technology capable of facilitating a healthy, transnational public sphere. The Alt-right is an extremist political movement that gained momentum in the English-speaking world and peaked around the 2016 United States presidential election. Until now, it has been a common, techno-deterministic assumption of both politicians and scholars that the Internet facilitates democratic values by providing an opportunity for assembly in cyberspace, free from body-connected limitations like class, gender, and race. In other words, they believe the Internet provides a digital, global public sphere. However, the prominence of the Alt-right is an important challenge to classic Habermasian public sphere theory since the political movement aims to shift social norms toward white supremacy and misogyny by manipulating speech and truth.