Visual Boundary Making in the European Far-Right: the Making of a Political Identity in Sweden, Germany and Austria

This paper presents the key findings from a cross-European research project studying the visual boundary making and identity politics of far right movement parties and associated grassroots networks. Constructing a novel data set and combining visual and interpretive methods to study large-N digital communication, we investigate how right-wing political actors in Sweden, Germany and Austria use visual storytelling strategies in constructing an exclusionary conception of the nation and its citizens while taking over new policy fields such as climate change. Focusing on the growing popular appeal of anti-immigrant far right parties in Sweden, Germany, and Austria, we look at converging and diverging visual images of citizenship and “otherness” communicated simultaneously by over 100 Facebook accounts representing radical right populist party actors, exploring how digital images visually communicate the party’s notion of citizenship and the nation.