This article highlights how the recent discourse of ‘the new normal’ – re-initiated and widely used in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in national and international media and political discourse – marks the advent of a new approach to ‘crisis’ in the normalisation of far-right populist politics. Drawing on the example of the analysis of ‘policy communication’ genres pre-legitimising the Polish right-wing populist government’s recent actions aimed at curtailing media freedom and controlling opposition media, the article shows that, in the context of an undisputed crisis such as the recent pandemic, the right-wing populist imagination has gradually and strategically altered its usual, highly ambivalent approach to crisis. However, the latter’s new, (quasi) ‘factual’ imaginary has, as is shown, become a tool in the further escalation and normalisation of far-right political strategies and policies, especially with regard to new far right strategies of media control aimed at the systemic colonisation of the wider public sphere. Therein, as the article shows, far-right actors often resort to a very peculiar – and by now common – adoption of many pro-democratic arguments while ‘flipsiding’ them in favour of far-right arguments and pre-legitimising their own undemocratic politics of control and exclusion.

中文翻译：

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讲述“新常态”还是预先将媒体控制合法化？COVID-19 和极右翼想象中的“危机”作为正常化策略的话语转变

本文重点介绍了最近关于“新常态”的话语——在 COVID-19 大流行的背景下在国内和国际媒体和政治话语中被重新发起并广泛使用——如何标志着一种新的“危机”方法的出现极右翼民粹主义政治的正常化。文章以分析“政策传播”流派的例子为波兰右翼民粹主义政府最近旨在限制媒体自由和控制反对派媒体的行动预先合法化，文章表明，在无可争议的危机背景下，例如在最近的大流行病中，右翼民粹主义的想象力逐渐从战略上改变了其通常的、高度矛盾的危机处理方式。然而，如图所示，后者的新的（准）“事实”想象具有，成为极右翼政治战略和政策进一步升级和正常化的工具，特别是在旨在对更广泛的公共领域进行系统殖民化的新的极右翼媒体控制战略方面。其中，正如文章所显示的那样，极右翼演员经常诉诸一种非常特殊的——现在很常见的——采用许多支持民主的论点，同时“颠倒”他们支持极右翼的论点，并预先使他们自己的不民主政治合法化控制和排斥。