Between hegemonic fiction and islamophobic fringe

Abstract While many studies have recently addressed and deconstructed rightwing online language aggression and strategies of Othering, it is seldom considered how such bellicose messages are rendered culturally plausible and, as such, “recognizable” to mainstream publics. This article addresses the issue by comparing how the Norwegian extreme-right media outlet the Human Rights Service (HRS) discursively constructs Muslim and so-called non-Western immigrant identities in relation to Self/Other distinctions frequently encountered in Hollywood war cinema. Identifying three shared framing patterns — (a) differential allocation of (de)humanizing characteristics, (b) regulation of facial recognition, and (c) restricted perspective-taking — it argues that a structurally similar framework for Manichean conflict perception extends from popular war culture into public political discourse. Attention is directed to how the HRS’s representations play into, and draw tacit plausibility from, broader interpretive frames and how political rhetoric about incomprehensible, evil “Others” may assert their discursive effects by resonating with hegemonic backgrounds of meaning.