Counter-energy or ‘cracking the flags’: Audience research in times of ideological crisis

This article makes a pitch for bringing audience studies of the everyday to contemporary research on the rise of disinformation and the far-right. Taking its moment from ‘operation raise the colours’ which saw the proliferation of flags across the United Kingdom in the summer of 2025, it argues for a deeper understanding of mundane techno-social relations within the contemporary conjuncture. This means we need both an understanding of the ‘form’ that this ideological shift is taking online as well as a deeper understanding of the everyday realities which are fuelling a nationalist agenda. Re-calling Stuart Hall’s plea in the ‘great moving right show’ from 1979, we now need to renew our understanding of the contemporary contradictions of far-right disinformation to see beyond the idea of a ‘trick’ in order to channel a less divisive language of hope.