Description
This paper addresses a key gap in existing scholarship on right-wing political influencers by examining them as foreign policy actors, whose discourses on Islam and Middle East crises since the beginning of the Gaza War(2023-) construct a common story about the region across these elements of the international right. Focusing on the discursive links between prominent British, Finnish, and Swedish YouTube commentators, a transnational agenda is shown to be at play. The study reveals the ways in which evolving communication technologies are used to strengthen inequalities between the Global South and Global North through the production of digital media content. By mapping their interpretations of the West’s engagement with the region, the study contributes to an understanding of the power relations operating within their discourses. Drawing from International Relations (IR) scholarship on race, these commentators are shown to often reproduce racialised narratives via appeals to civilizationist discourses, which help manufacture discontent against Middle-Eastern adversaries and legitimise geopolitical positions. Importantly, the study highlights the preoccupation prominent new media influencers have with questions of world order, and how this contributes to a radicalisation that extends beyond the domestic sphere.