Counter-energy or 'cracking the flags': Audience research in times of ideological crisis

Helen Wood

doi:10.1177/13675494261452933

Counter-energy or 'cracking the flags': Audience research in times of ideological crisis

Helen Wood^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

This article makes a pitch for bringing audience studies of the everyday to contemporary research on the rise of disinformation and the far-right. Taking its moment from ‘operation raise the colours’ which saw the proliferation of flags across the United Kingdom in the summer of 2025, it argues for a deeper understanding of mundane techno-social relations within the contemporary conjuncture. This means we need both an understanding of the ‘form’ that this ideological shift is taking online as well as a deeper understanding of the everyday realities which are fuelling a nationalist agenda. Re-calling Stuart Hall’s plea in the ‘great moving right show’ from 1979, we now need to renew our understanding of the contemporary contradictions of far-right disinformation to see beyond the idea of a ‘trick’ in order to channel a less divisive language of hope.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	817-822
Number of pages	6
Journal	European Journal of Cultural Studies
Volume	29
Issue number	4
Early online date	17 Jun 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494261452933
Publication status	Published - 1 Aug 2026

Bibliographical note

Copyright © The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

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10.1177/13675494261452933Licence: CC BY-NC 4.0

wood-2026-counter-energy-or-cracking-the-flags-audience-research-in-times-of-ideological-crisis
Copyright © The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Final published version, 195 KBLicence: CC BY-NC 4.0

Cite this

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Counter-energy or 'cracking the flags': Audience research in times of ideological crisis

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