CANSES Webinars

CANSES is proud to partner with the Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) to produce a webinar series focused on the ethical, methodological, political, personal, practical, and professional challenges involved in researching violent extremism and terrorism. C-REX has previously partnered with the Reactionary Politics Research Network (RPRN), the Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities (CASEI), and the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab (PERIL) to support similar initiatives.

The next C-REX/CANSES webinar will be hosted by Adrienne Massanari (American University) on Wednesday, March 18, 2026, 5:00-6:00pm CET | 8:00-9:00am PST | 11:00am-12:00pm EST.

“What Happens when Everyone Else is an NPC? How Gaming Publics Welcomed the Far Right”

In this talk, Dr. Massanari discusses how gaming spaces have become fertile soil for far-right recruitment and mobilization. Tracing the connections between 2014’s Gamergate and the current surge of populist movements globally, she demonstrates that concepts borrowed from gaming culture are increasingly part of far-right discourse. However, because games are “just play” it’s easy for outsiders to overlook the troubling implications of the vernacular and memes shared in gaming spaces. Ultimately, Dr. Massanari argues that researchers need to take games and other pop cultural products seriously, as they have become a kind of habitus for many within the far right.

Adrienne Massanari is an Associate Professor in the Communication Studies division at the School of Communication (American University, USA). Her research interests include digital culture, online communities, platform politics, game studies, pop culture, and gender and race online. Massanari’s new book for MIT Press (October 2024), Gaming Democracy: How Silicon Valley Leveled Up the Far Right, discusses how Silicon Valley’s culture and politics contributed to the rise of the far-right. Her 2015 book, Participatory Culture, Community, and Play: Learning from Reddit (Peter Lang), explored the unique culture of Reddit.com. Massanari’s work has appeared in New Media & Society, Feminist Media Studies, Social Media + Society, Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, and First Monday.

Upcoming Webinars!

Thursday, April 16, 2026, 5:00-6:00pm CET | 8:00-9:00am PST | 11:00am-12:00pm EST.

“Researching Far-Right Mothers as a (Leftist) Mom”

This talk recounts the author’s research, for her recently published book Alt-education, on conservative and far-right women and the use of motherhood and maternity in right-wing media and digital organizing. It concludes with a reflection on how the author’s own research changed as she became a mom, and the ethical and methodological consequences of this.

Catherine Tebaldi is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Luxembourg. She is PI of the Marie Speyer excellence project Digital Traditionalism which looks at anti-gender discourse in Luxembourg and Switzerland.