Violence and the Virtual

Abstract

This article sheds light on the role of social media in the instigation of acts of violence. It identifies and interprets the major forms of interaction emerging from the interplay between page owners and users on German right-wing, anti-asylum Facebook pages, bringing to the fore these pages’ interactional dynamic. Mainly two forms of interaction are identified. Firstly, by condensing news reports about crimes committed by foreigners into a coherent vision of reality, users are to be awakened to this reality. Secondly, by incessantly pointing to the intolerableness of this reality, the users’ continued inactivity is turned into a moral issue that goes to the core of their identities.