Date of Award
8-1-2022
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Communication Studies
First Advisor
Auxier, Randal
Abstract
After Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto, Industrial Society and its Future, was published it hasbegun a small, but growing movement of people who support his ideas. After beginning my research, I have seen a rise in the visibility of Kaczynski’s ideas online. This thesis focuses on the Anti-Tech Collective (ATC) who, as a radical online community has begun promoting his ideas. This thesis has used communication phenomenology as a method to see how the ATC views their relationship with Kaczynski and his writings. In further analysis I then used Freudian defense mechanisms, repurposed as account structure as a way for the ATC to maintain social acceptability while promoting a radical ideology. In this research, I identified ways that the ATC views Kaczynski and his ideas and where this fits in online radicalism. These methods can be employed in looking at any radical online community where its members desire to maintain some level of social acceptability.
Access
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