“Signs of Times” – A Semiotic Content-Analysis of ‘Apocalypticizing’ Rhetoric on Hungarian Conspiracist Websites  Cover Image

“Signs of Times” – A Semiotic Content-Analysis of ‘Apocalypticizing’ Rhetoric on Hungarian Conspiracist Websites
“Signs of Times” – A Semiotic Content-Analysis of ‘Apocalypticizing’ Rhetoric on Hungarian Conspiracist Websites

Author(s): László Attila Hubbes
Subject(s): Social Sciences
Published by: Scientia Kiadó
Keywords: apocalypticizing rhetoric and iconography; conspiracy theory; alternative historicism; xenophobia; topical Internet communities

Summary/Abstract: There is an ever stronger interconnection between various forms of social anxieties, be they religious, political, national or even environmental and online forms of expression. People’s fears and resentments (along with hope) precipitate in mythical narratives structured on the ancient oppositions of Good and Evil. Apocalyptic rhetoric represents the most crystallized form of verbal warfare against the evil forces (mundane or supernatural). In the processes of secularization and globalization these narratives have somewhat lost their religious character, but at the same time penetrated new reaches of the Irrational, and impregnated many beliefs and ideologies, from academic and philosophic heights down to popular mythology and urban legends. The easiest way for ancient sacral stories of antagonisms to get into the modern narratives was through symbols, mainly purported by visual signs. Although anxieties have always been present, showing certain patterns of rise and decrease, the electronic media of the past century have definitely contributed both to the perpetuation of a higher tension and to the wide spreading of such story-bearing visual symbols. Today, the Internet offers an excellent hotbed for both processes mentioned above: not only through unidirectional web pages but also, or even better, through the self-organizing virtual net-communities. There are countless such groups, religious or ethno-political, each with its own symbolic iconography, but most of these signs are quasi universal, same as the stories they bear. I have chosen some Hungarian websites through which I wish to present these symbols and narratives at work, with a hint to their universal character.

  • Issue Year: 2/2010
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 176-192
  • Page Count: 17
  • Language: English