The Epistemic Crisis and the Rise of the Far Right: Toward a Conceptualization of Counter-Knowledge Orders in Digital Knowledge Society

Primig, Florian (2025): The Epistemic Crisis and the Rise of the Far Right: Toward a Conceptualization of Counter-Knowledge Orders in Digital Knowledge Society. 75th Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association, Denver, Colorado, USA, 12.-16. Juni 2025.

Abstract

Abstract: Years of global crises since the turn of the millennium and recently the coronavirus pandemic have made the opening fault lines of rationality in digital knowledge society more visible. This paper draws from work on the digital transformation of knowledge societies. It considers how the conditions of this transformation have not only profoundly influenced the established knowledge order but also facilitated the emergence of counter-knowledge orders. Counter-knowledge orders dissolve knowledge contexts, reorganize hierarchies and claim roles in digitalized knowledge societies to create and maintain subversive alternatives freed of the dominant order’s rules and impositions. To exemplify the analytical power of counter-knowledge orders as a concept, this paper considers the far right as a counter-knowledge order. This approach is shown to help reconcile the apparent contradictions and inadequacies that are criticized in the dominant counterpublic framework for studying the far right. For the far right, the allure of counter-knowledge orders lies in the simultaneous assumption of different social power positions that the dominant order grants and withholds, which comprise the nexus of resistance and defensiveness. The paper concludes by stressing the importance of studying the far right as a counter-knowledge order to understand its defensive and resistant practices, as well as its potential impact on liberal democracy. Critical analysis should not follow the agenda established by the far right’s struggle for relevance; rather, analysis should focus on the movement’s underlying strategy of taking over the knowledge process. Finally, researchers should explore counter-knowledge orders’ applications to other contexts.

• Dokumententyp: Konferenzbeitrag (Vortrag)
• Keywords: Konferenz ICA 2025
• Fakultät: Sozialwissenschaften > Institut für Kommunikationswissenschaft und Medienforschung (IfKW)
• Themengebiete: 300 Sozialwissenschaften > 380 Handel, Kommunikation, Verkehr
• Sprache: Englisch