Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This paper proposes a conceptual model of online mainstreaming. The model emphasizes communication flows and actor trajectories back and forth between center (the mainstream) and periphery (the extreme), identifying a logic of exchange as a key driver of contemporary mainstreaming processes. The model illustrates a perpetual exchange of content, actors, and practices between mainstream and off-mainstream domains. The paper focuses on three under-theorized aspects of mainstreaming in the digital age: (1) the linguistic configuration of the concepts of extremism and mainstreaming, including their inherent spatiality; (2) the possible significance of mundane and arbitrary media practices rather than intentional and strategic engagement of extremists; and (3) the enabling and constraining conditions of online platforms and internet culture. Understanding the exchange logic of mainstreaming can help scholars, media professionals, and security practitioners to better distinguish between controversial and harmful phenomena in a hybrid and fragmented media environment.
Source: Popular Communication
Author: Mikkel Bækby Johansen
Institution: University of Copenhagen
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: European Commission
OpenAlex ID: W4415210532