Do the Urban Activists Want to Kill Us? Forces of Altermodernization and the Making of Conservative Moral Panic
The article offers an analysis of discursive reactions to the altermodernist patterns developed by urban social movements, present in right-wing and conservative-liberal narratives and journalism. These reactions are clearly backlash. The main thesis of the article is that they meet the conditions of moral panic. Therefore, the following elements of moral panic have been identified: excessive concern for the established order, false representations based on exaggeration and distortion, and the construction of deviation through the negative stereotype of the urban activist. The crucial element of the latter is the construction of the political enemy by means of “communization”.
