Communication, Social Sciences, General Arts and Humanities
167
Scopus Publications
40566
Scholar Citations
92
Scholar h-index
295
Scholar i10-index
Scopus Publications
Reason and Communication: Jürgen Habermas’s Legacy for Media and Communication Studies Christian Fuchs Triplec, 2026 This essay asks: What is Jürgen Habermas’s legacy for media and communication studies? Jürgen Habermas (1929-2026), a towering figure in critical theory, profoundly shaped media and communication studies by emphasising communication as the cornerstone of social existence. His theory of communicative action, rooted in the interplay between language, culture, and society, redefined communication as both a means of social reproduction and a site of democratic potential. Habermas’s concept of the public sphere – where communicative rationality confronts instrumental reason – remains essential for analysing how power structures, from capitalism to digital authoritarianism, distort democratic discourse. His critique of the colonisation of the lifeworld by systemic forces such as money and power offers a framework for assessing contemporary challenges, including algorithmic control, fragmented digital publics, and the rise of far-right ideologies online. By linking communication to emancipatory ideals, Habermas challenged scholars to interrogate the tensions between economic imperatives and democratic promises. His anti-fascist stance, informed by post-war Germany’s reckoning with Nazism, underscores the urgency of defending universalism and humanism against resurgent authoritarianism. While his dualisms (e.g., lifeworld vs system) invite debate, Habermas’s legacy lies in his insistence that communication is not merely instrumental but inherently normative – a space for contesting domination and imagining alternatives. This article explores how Habermas’s ideas on communication, the public sphere, and (anti-)fascism provide critical tools to navigate today’s mediated landscapes, where digital capitalism and ideological polarisation threaten the very foundations of democratic dialogue. Engaging with Habermas means confronting his blind spots while building on his vision of communication as a recursive process of social transformation. His work compels us to ask: How can we reclaim the public sphere in an era of algorithmic fragmentation and ideological extremism? Habermas’s answers, though provisional, remain indispensable for theorising communication’s role in fostering – or undermining – justice and solidarity.
Digital Fascism and Digital Capitalism Christian Fuchs Triplec, 2026 What is digital fascism? What is digital capitalism? How are they related? This article theorises digital fascism as a contemporary form of right-wing authoritarianism rooted in capitalism and reorganised through digital infrastructures. Building on the Frankfurt School’s analysis of authoritarianism, it reconceptualises fascism as a terroristic, anti-democratic mode of organisation – leadership cults, nationalism, friend/enemy polarisation, and militant patriarchy – whose resurgence is catalysed by capitalist crises. The paper advances a dual framework: fascist practices (cognition, communication, co-production) and digital structures (platforms, algorithms, datafication) recursively produce one another – the tripleC dynamic – enabling user-generated hate, post-truth propaganda, algorithmic targeting, cyber-attacks, and digitally mediated violence. Ten historical hypotheses map shifts from broadcast propaganda to influencer networks, from street militias to partially automated conflict, and from overt anti-democracy to “creeping” authoritarianism that claims democratic legitimacy. Integrating political economy evidence, the article demonstrates how key fractions of digital, financial, and fossil/transport capital fund and legitimise emergent authoritarian projects, crystallising an authoritarian digital capitalism whose boundary with digital fascism is porous. The conclusion argues for a digital democracy that counters the fusion of big business and big power in the digital age.
Digitaler Faschismus und digitaler Kapitalismus Christian Fuchs Triplec, 2026 Worum handelt es sich beim digitalen Faschismus? Was ist der digitale Kapitalismus? Und in welchem Verhältnis stehen die beiden zueinander? Dieser Artikel theoretisiert den digitalen Faschismus als eine zeitgenössische Form des rechten Autoritarismus, der im Kapitalismus verwurzelt ist und durch digitale Infrastrukturen neu organisiert wird. Aufbauend auf der Analyse des Autoritarismus durch die Frankfurter Schule wird Faschismus neu konzeptualisiert als terroristische, antidemokratische Organisationsform – charakterisiert durch Führerkult, Nationalismus, Freund-Feind-Schema und militantes Patriarchat –, deren Wiederaufleben durch kapitalistische Krisen beschleunigt wird. Der Artikel entwickelt einen dualen Rahmen: Faschistische Praktiken (Kognition, Kommunikation, Koproduktion) und digitale Strukturen (Plattformen, Algorithmen, Datafizierung) erzeugen sich wechselseitig, wodurch nutzergenerierter Hass, postfaktische Propaganda, algorithmisches Targeting, Cyberangriffe und digital vermittelte Gewalt ermöglicht werden. Zehn historische Hypothesen zeichnen den Wandel von Rundfunkpropaganda zu Influencer-Netzwerken, von Straßenmilizen zu teilweise automatisierten Konflikten und von offener Antidemokratie zu „schleichendem“ Autoritarismus nach, der demokratische Legitimität für sich beansprucht. Unter Einbeziehung politökonomischer Belege zeigt der Artikel, wie wichtige Teile des digitalen Kapitals, des Finanzkapitals und des fossilen Kapitals/Transportkapitals aufkommende autoritäre Projekte finanzieren und legitimieren und sich so ein autoritärer digitaler Kapitalismus herausbildet, dessen Grenze zum digitalen Faschismus durchlässig ist. Die Schlussfolgerung plädiert für eine digitale Demokratie, die der Verschmelzung von Großunternehmen und Großmacht im digitalen Zeitalter entgegenwirkt. Acknowledgement: Dieser Beitrag wurde zuerst in der Zeitschrift Philosophy & Social Criticism veröffentlicht. Unter Verwendung einer CC-BY-Lizenz wurde der Originalbeitrag ins Deutsche übersetzt und wird auf Basis dieser Lizenz in tripleC veröffentlicht. Originalveröffentlichung: https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537261434922
Digital Fascism and Digital Capitalism Christian Fuchs Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2026 What is digital fascism? What is digital capitalism? How are they related? This article theorises digital fascism as a contemporary form of right-wing authoritarianism rooted in capitalism and reorganised through digital infrastructures. Building on the Frankfurt School’s analysis of authoritarianism, it reconceptualises fascism as a terroristic, anti-democratic mode of organisation – leadership cults, nationalism, friend/enemy polarisation, and militant patriarchy – whose resurgence is catalysed by capitalist crises. The paper advances a dual framework: fascist practices (cognition, communication, co-production) and digital structures (platforms, algorithms, datafication) recursively produce one another – the tripleC dynamic – enabling user-generated hate, post-truth propaganda, algorithmic targeting, cyber-attacks, and digitally mediated violence. Ten historical hypotheses map shifts from broadcast propaganda to influencer networks, from street militias to partially automated conflict, and from overt anti-democracy to “creeping” authoritarianism that claims democratic legitimacy. Integrating political economy evidence, the article demonstrates how key fractions of digital, financial, and fossil/transport capital fund and legitimise emergent authoritarian projects, crystallising an authoritarian digital capitalism whose boundary with digital fascism is porous. The conclusion argues for a digital democracy that counters the fusion of big business and big power in the digital age.
The futures of digital democracy Christian Fuchs, Joel Museba, Kevin Friesch Open Research Europe, 2026 This paper investigates the potential impacts of digitalisation on society and democratic governance through the construction of four realist science fiction scenarios. The study aims to delineate desirable and undesirable digital futures to inform policy discourse and strategic planning. It begins with the outlining of the research basis and methodology, where it employs a methodological synthesis of the Scenario Development Technique from the UN Strategic Foresight Guide and STEEP Analysis. This approach integrates a macro environmental assessment of socio-cultural, technological, economic, environmental, and political dimensions to identify key drivers of change and differences. These are then mapped onto a two-by-two matrix defined by two primary axes. This combination enabled the development of four scenarios examining the impact of digital technologies across these dimensions. The scenarios diverge along two axes. The vertical axis represents the mode of societal organisation and political power (authoritarianism versus democracy). The horizontal axis represents the mode of governance and citizen engagement (representation versus participation). By contrasting these divergent paths, this paper provides a critical framework for analysing how digital technologies intersect with political will and socioeconomic structures.
Antonio Negri, Spinoza, Marx, and Digital Capitalism Christian Fuchs Philosophy and Social Criticism, 2025 This paper asks: How can Spinoza help us to better understand digital capitalism? The article engages critically and constructively with the philosophies of Spinoza, Marx, Hegel, and Antonio Negri in order to combine elements from their works. It focuses on a particular aspect of digital capitalism, namely the antagonism between digital labour and digital capital. Spinoza did not directly analyse class relations. Nonetheless, his philosophy can help us to indirectly analyse contemporary capitalism. This paper undertakes an analysis of digital capitalism by taking Spinoza’s concepts of power as potentia and potestas as a starting point. Antonio Negri has stressed the dialectic of potentia and potestas as part of the analysis of class and capitalism. This paper connects Spinoza to Marx’s and Negri’s analyses of capitalism and the working class. It analyses digital capitalism’s antagonisms between digital labour and digital capital, digital commodities and digital commons, and the networked digital productive forces and the digital relations of production as the antagonism between digital potentia and digital potestas.
Critical Theory Foundations of Digital Capitalism: A Critical Political Economy Perspective Spectacle of Online Life, 2025
A new framework for the analysis of media systems and media organisations Christian Fuchs Communication and the Public, 2025 This article asks: How can we best conceptualise and analyse media systems and media organisations today? A discussion of approaches to media systems and organisation analysis shows that many of them seem to assume the correctness of Francis Fukuyama’s claim that liberal democracy has after the breakdown of the Soviet system been universalised. This article argues that the contemporary world situation shows that Fukuyama’s concept of the end of history is wrong and that we, therefore, need to rethink approaches to media systems and organisation analysis. This article introduces one such approach that is based on a concept of society that argues that all social systems and organisations have economic, political and cultural dimensions and that there is an antagonism between self-management and alienation. The article builds on and extends a typology of media organisations introduced by Colin Sparks. It introduces a systematic model of 12 different types of media organisation and six types of media systems. It stresses the importance of discerning between and analysing the interactions of capitalist media, public service media, civil society media, state media, authoritarian media and democratic media.
WikiLeaks and the critique of the political economy International Journal of Communication, 2014
Anonymous: Hacktivism and contemporary politics Social Media Politics and the State Protests Revolutions Riots Crime and Policing in the Age of Facebook Twitter and Youtube, 2014
Theorising social media, politics and the state: An introduction Social Media Politics and the State Protests Revolutions Riots Crime and Policing in the Age of Facebook Twitter and Youtube, 2014
What is digital democracy? C Fuchs Journal of Information Technology & Politics, 1-21 , 2026 2026 Citations: 4
Digitaler Faschismus und digitaler Kapitalismus C Fuchs tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a … , 2026 2026
Digital Fascism and Digital Capitalism C Fuchs Philosophy & Social Criticism, 01914537261434922 , 2026 2026 Citations: 2
Reason and Communication: Jürgen Habermas’s Legacy for Media and Communication Studies C Fuchs tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a … , 2026 2026
ECREA WEEKLY digest ARTICLES H Register 2026
The futures of digital democracy C Fuchs, J Museba, K Friesch Open Research Europe 6, 49 , 2026 2026
What is and How Do We Achieve a Resilient Digital Democracy? C Fuchs Open Research Europe 5 (387) , 2025 2025 Citations: 3
The Question of Methodology in Critical Political Economy of Communication and the Media C Fuchs Journal of Communication Inquiry , 2025 2025
Antonio Negri, Spinoza, Marx, and digital capitalism C Fuchs Philosophy & Social Criticism 51 (10), 1703-1729 , 2025 2025 Citations: 6
What Is Capitalism? C Fuchs The Spectacle of Online Life , 2025 2025 Citations: 1
Critical Theory Foundations of Digital Capitalism C Fuchs The Spectacle of Online Life, 171 , 2025 2025
INNOVADE Interdisciplinary Knowledge Base on Digital Democracy C Fuchs, K Friesch, J Museba, L Coenen, V Werimo, O Barriuso Varela, ... 2025 Citations: 1
World war and world peace in the age of digital capitalism C Fuchs Michigan Publishing Services , 2025 2025 Citations: 5
Sosyal Medya ve Kamusal Alan C Fuchs Yeni Medya, 466-513 , 2025 2025 Citations: 2
A new framework for the analysis of media systems and media organisations C Fuchs Communication and the Public 10 (2), 125-142 , 2025 2025 Citations: 13
What is Digital Fascism? C Fuchs St Antony's International Review 20 (1), 26-39 , 2025 2025 Citations: 1
Digital Labor and Digital Capitalism: A Critical Political Economy Perspective C Fuchs The Handbook of Digital Labor, 349-371 , 2025 2025 Citations: 1
INNOVADE Deliverable D2.1: Interdisciplinary Knowledge Base on Digital Democracy. C Fuchs, K Friesch, J Museba, L Coenen, V Werimo, OB Varela, ... https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17079016 , 2025 2025
White Paper: The Futures of Digital Democracy. C Fuchs, J Museba, K Friesch https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17747936 , 2025 2025
On the Critique of the Political Economy of Digital Capitalism: The Importance of Manfred Knoche’s Contributions to the Critique of the Political Economy of the Media Today. C Fuchs Critique of the Political Economy of the Media: Foundations and Applications … , 2025 2025
MOST CITED SCHOLAR PUBLICATIONS
Social media: A critical introduction C Fuchs SAGE publications Ltd , 2021 2021 Citations: 5668
Digital labour and karl marx C Fuchs Routledge , 2014 2014 Citations: 2057
Internet and society: Social theory in the information age C Fuchs Routledge , 2007 2007 Citations: 1969
Labor in Informational Capitalism and on the Internet C Fuchs The Information Society 26 (3), 179-196 , 2010 2010 Citations: 1173
Africa and the digital divide C Fuchs, E Horak Telematics and informatics 25 (2), 99-116 , 2008 2008 Citations: 793
Alternative media as critical media C Fuchs European journal of social theory 13 (2), 173-192 , 2010 2010 Citations: 763
Foundations of critical media and information studies C Fuchs Routledge , 2011 2011 Citations: 756
Digital labor C Fuchs The Routledge Companion to Labor and Media, 51 , 2015 2015 Citations: 692
Culture and economy in the age of social media C Fuchs Routledge , 2015 2015 Citations: 677
Social media and the public sphere C Fuchs Culture and economy in the age of social media, 315-372 , 2015 2015 Citations: 621
Dallas Smythe Today–The audience commodity, the digital labour debate, Marxist political economy and critical theory. Prolegomena to a digital labour theory of value C Fuchs Marx and the Political Economy of the Media, 522-599 , 2015 2015 Citations: 560
Web 2.0, prosumption, and surveillance C Fuchs Surveillance & Society 8 (3), 288-309 , 2011 2011 Citations: 523
The political economy of privacy on Facebook C Fuchs Television & New Media 13 (2), 139-159 , 2012 2012 Citations: 522
Information and communication technologies and society: A contribution to the critique of the political economy of the Internet C Fuchs European journal of communication 24 (1), 69-87 , 2009 2009 Citations: 517
Digital prosumption labour on social media in the context of the capitalist regime of time C Fuchs Time & Society 23 (1), 97-123 , 2014 2014 Citations: 491
Theoretical foundations of the web: cognition, communication, and co-operation. Towards an understanding of Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 C Fuchs, W Hofkirchner, M Schafranek, C Raffl, M Sandoval, R Bichler Future internet 2 (1), 41-59 , 2010 2010 Citations: 450
The implications of new information and communication technologies for sustainability C Fuchs Environment, Development and Sustainability 10 (3), 291-309 , 2008 2008 Citations: 432
Critical theory of communication: New readings of Lukács, Adorno, Marcuse, Honneth and Habermas in the age of the internet C Fuchs University of Westminster Press , 2016 2016 Citations: 425
Communication and Capitalism C Fuchs University of Westminster Press , 2020 2020 Citations: 424
Social media, politics and the state D Trottier, C Fuchs Protests, Revolutions, Riots, Crime and Policing in the Age of Facebook … , 2015 2015 Citations: 407
