The Circular Circulation of a Standstill: Obituaries and the Radical Right Mainstreaming By/Through the Established Press

Abstract

The established mass media have often been seen as mainstreaming the radical right by focusing their news agenda on the vocal activists and ideas of this political family. However, there is limited research on how this process occurs when media interest in the radical right is approached from another perspective: obituaries dedicated to its historical figureheads. The current research explores this phenomenon by examining news articles dedicated to Jean-Marie Le Pen in the established French and Italian print press the day after his death in January 2025. It reveals how diachronic sequences constitutive of obituaries can form key components that participate in the mainstreaming of the radical right by and through mass media. The article concludes with a discussion of the media ethics issues associated with this type of mainstreaming.