2024/01/03 by Catherine Tebaldi, Katie Gaddini · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Gender, Feminism, and Media #Rhetoric and Communication Studies #Social Media and Politics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/1369118x.2023.2289979
openalex publication_date 2024/01/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/19
In this blended ethnography, combining fieldwork with campus conservative organizations/figures and digital ethnography of their social media, we explore how capitalism, Christianity, and conservatism are brought together and branded for youth. We argue that campus conservative organizations like Turning Point USA are important sites for mainstreaming, branding, and circulating an assemblage of conservative, Christian, and racialized discourses aligned with Christian nationalism and against the left. We analyze how this ‘friend enemy distinction’ occurs through gendered social media practices, constructing female ‘cuteservatives’, influencers who sell friendship and t-shirts, and masculine heroes who battle a socialist enemy. We explore how these discourses are produced, marketed, and circulated. And finally, through Turning Point’s celebration of Kyle Rittenhouse, we show the dangerous potential consequences of this violent rhetoric.