ABSTRACT
This chapter situates Stormfront within the long academic debate on the relationship between digital media and political life. A key question within this literature is whether the internet should be understood as primarily offering a “public sphere” – a space where we can come together to debate and form a shared view of the world – or as an “echo chamber” – a closed system where ideas and opinions are amplified and made extreme through repetition. While these notions have been treated as opposites, we contend that both are founded on a shallow understanding of both the internet and political life: they reduce politics to opinions and political standpoints, arrived at through rational discussions based on shared knowledge. Drawing on the social movement literature on free spaces and counterpublics, we challenge this fundamental conception and present a view on politics as rooted in intimate and intricate social processes. The social spaces within politics are more than mere venues for rational deliberation; they offer spaces for storytelling and emotional resonance that mold identities and foster communities. This more social understanding of politics suggests a fundamental rethinking of the ongoing debates around the impact of social media on political life: the effects of digitalization on radicalization and polarization must be studied not through opinions and arguments but within the realms of collective identity, emotions, and discourse.
