„UND WER SCHÜTZT UNS BÜRGER????“

Über das Verhältnis von Ideologie, Affekt und Politik am Beispiel des Facebook-Wahlkampfes der FPÖ

Abstract

Amid today's controversial discussions about the relationship between politics and truth our paper aims at demonstrating some of the main principles of establishing this relationship in right-wing populist discourse. Therefore we analyze an example of constructing a political antagonism on the facebook page of the far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) leader Heinz-Christian Strache during his election campaign for the Austrian legislative election in 2017. The concept of antagonism we refer to stems from Ernesto Laclau. In combination with Louis Althusser´s concept of ideology it provides valuable insights into the process of the interpellation of subjects as enemies and also victims. To describe this process we address the question how emotionalization works within the Facebook-Postings by means of text and pictures, which, according to Link, can take the form of collective symbols. These collective symbolic orders contribute to deepen the understanding of the relations between the ideological, emotional and the political.