Description:
<jats:p>This article analyzes the New Fascism Syllabus private Facebook discussion group, which came into being in the months following the 2016 US presidential election. Through the use of several scraping, data mining, and visualization programs and Facebook’s own platform analytics software, the article posits ways we might analyze Facebook fora as a mediated digital public sphere. It argues that digital spaces like these, however fraught, help users craft arguments and points of contention around how to oppose resurgent authoritarianism. Online discussion creates affective communities that help bond participants, who in turn shape the construction of popular memory around the history and legacy of fascism.</jats:p>