Paper Short Abstract:

This paper looks at the mnemonic practices of the far-right in Germany on social media platforms, particularly on Instagram. The contribution aims at examining how digital platforms are leveraged to construct, disseminate, and normalize contested historical narratives.

Paper Abstract:

Memory activism is not exclusively used to promote pluralised histories or to foster democratic interpretations of the past for the present. Far-right groups also engage in past-presencing to advance their own values (Macdonald 2012, Bevernage et al. 2024). Building upon empirical case studies, this paper looks at the mnemonic practices of the far-right in Germany on social media platforms, particularly on Instagram. The contribution aims to examine how digital platforms are leveraged to construct, disseminate, and normalize contested historical narratives. Far-right groups use visual, textual, and symbolic content here in a particular way to engage in memory activism to shape collective memory and identity. These actors reinterpret Germany's past, invoking nationalist myths, glorifying selective historical episodes, and challenging established narratives of guilt and reconciliation tied to World War II and the Holocaust (Valencia-García 2020). The platform’s visual and interactive affordances, including stories, reels, and hashtags, enable the curation of affectively charged and easily shareable content that resonates with diverse audiences. Through a mixed-methods approach combining digital ethnography and content analysis, the research highlights the interplay between nostalgia, visual culture, and far-right ideology in a digital age.