From performance to infrastructure: Governing political fear in the platform age

Norbert Merkovity

Internet Policy Review: Journal on Internet Regulation, 2026, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-25

Abstract: Political fear increasingly operates as an infrastructural feature of digital governance. The article conceptualises fear as an affective and socio-technical condition that becomes durable through platform design, engagement metrics, and regulatory blind spots. Building on media logic and attention-based politics, with Goffman's dramaturgical perspective used as a micro lens, the analysis traces how fear moves from staged performances to recurrent amplification in ranking, recommendation, and political advertising systems. Two illustrative cases suggest convergent patterns under different institutional contexts. Donald Trump's post-2021 mobilisation highlights portable threat routines that travel across platform environments and interact with moderation settings. Viktor Orbán's long-term governing strategy illustrates how threat frames become routinised through state-aligned media infrastructures and platform-facing campaign formats. The discussion relates these dynamics to European policy debates around the Digital Services Act and the European Media Freedom Act and outlines the limits of content-focused approaches in addressing affective amplification. Policy directions emphasise systemic-risk assessment and independent auditing, procedural transparency, and structured access for qualified researchers, alongside resilience measures that integrate affective literacy, platform literacy, evidence-oriented reasoning, and support for public-interest media.

Keywords: Political fear; Platform governance; Algorithmic amplification; Media logic; Attention-based politics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:iprjir:343599

DOI: 10.14763/2026.2.2099

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