The Ultra-Right: Media, Discourses, and Communicative Strategies| “Our Only Weapons are Good Arguments and Dissemination”—The Austrian Identitarians Taken at Their Word

Abstract

This article takes the Austrian Identitarians as an example to investigate (modernized) right-wing extremist use of language, making codes of the Far Right decipherable. The Identitarians’ strategies for influencing public discourse will be analyzed in regard to a culture war of the extreme Right, propagated by the Identitarians themselves. To facilitate a deeper understanding of Identitarian language and discourse strategies, the concept of metapolitics will be clarified. Taking critical discourse analysis as a starting point, the group’s self-descriptions in 2017 and 2021 from its website will be analyzed; the modernization of language as well as the strategy of reinterpreting certain terms and ideas will exemplified by the terms “remigration” and “Great Replacement.” Following Victor Klemperer’s linguistic and social criticism, the analysis shows that Identitarians’ use of language functions as a “ferry” into political and media discourses, where it takes root in public awareness.