Fanatic Politics: Fandom, Polarization and Economic Distortions in the Digital Era

This paper introduces the concept of fanatic politics to describe a growing mode of political engagement shaped by platform logics, affective identification, and the cultural grammars of fandom. In contemporary digital environments, political leaders and parties are increasingly consumed as symbolic brands, while policy debates are reframed through aestheticized narratives, emotional intensification, and algorithmic amplification. Building on mediatization theory (Strömbäck 2008; Couldry & Hepp 2017), affective polarization research (Iyengar et al. 2019; Huddy et al. 2015), and fandom studies (Jenkins 2006; Sandvoss 2013), the paper argues that political participation is progressively reconfigured as a form of affective consumption rather than deliberative engagement. The central research question is: How does the fanatization of politics reshape economic priorities and democratic resilience in European political systems? To address this question, the paper adopts a qualitative, multi‑layered methodology combining frame analysis, narrative reconstruction, and visual‑aesthetic coding. It examines how political actors mobilize symbolic repertoires, emotional grammars, and platform‑specific aesthetics across Instagram, TikTok, and Telegram. Particular attention is given to the construction of polarizing dichotomies, the personalization of conflict, and the transformation of political identity into a form of digital belonging. Through case studies from Italy and Spain, the paper shows how fan‑driven narratives—such as anti‑taxation frames around property levies or crisis‑centered energy discourses—can influence fiscal debates, redirect political attention, and undermine long‑term industrial strategies. These dynamics are situated within broader debates on platform governance (Gillespie 2018; van Dijck, Poell & de Waal 2018), digital capitalism (Fuchs 2014; Zuboff 2019), and geopolitical vulnerabilities, including European dependencies on private data‑analytics infrastructures, cyber‑security incidents, and the political consequences of algorithmic opacity. Pedro Sánchez’s call at the World Economic Forum for greater transparency in algorithmic decision‑making provides an institutional anchor for discussing democratic resilience under conditions of platform power. The paper contributes to digital politics scholarship in three ways. First, it conceptualizes fanatic politics as a hybrid formation that integrates affective, aesthetic, and algorithmic dimensions of political communication. Second, it demonstrates how fan‑based political narratives can shape economic policy agendas, producing distortions that privilege short‑term symbolic gains over long‑term strategic planning. Third, it offers a framework for assessing the vulnerabilities of democratic systems exposed to platform‑mediated polarization, highlighting the need for institutional mechanisms capable of counterbalancing the emotional and economic pressures generated by digital fandoms. Couldry, N., & Hepp, A. (2017). The Mediated Construction of Reality. Esser, F., & Strömbäck, J. (2014). Mediatization of Politics. Fuchs, C. (2014). Digital Labour and Karl Marx. Gidron, N., Adams, J., & Horne, W. (2020). American Affective Polarization. Gray, J., Sandvoss, C., & Harrington, C. L. (2017). Fandom: Identities and Communities. Huddy, L., Mason, L., & Aarøe, L. (2015). “Expressive Partisanship”. Iyengar, S., Lelkes, Y., et al. (2019). “The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization”. Jenkins, H. (2006). Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers. Strömbäck, J. (2008). “Four Phases of Mediatization”. van Dijck, J., Poell, T., & de Waal, M. (2018). The Platform Society. Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.