Infowars.com is the virtual home of the ‘infowarrior’ movement, the official leader of which is Alex Jones, a radio host based out of Austin, Texas. Along with the website and radio show, Jones is a documentary filmmaker and activist. Infowars.com, along with it’s sister-site, Prisonplanet.com, provide live audio as well as recordings and video of the daily radio programs, Jones’ video documentaries (including ‘The Obama Deception’, ‘Endgame: Blueprint for Global Enslavement’, and the recently released ‘Fall of the Republic’), message boards, and a news section which primarily features stories involving the United States, but also Canada and the other parts of the planet, especially the West. Stories primarily come from traditional media sources, but they are placed alongside exclusive Infowars pieces. All of them feed into the Infowars metanarrative. Jones’ trans-media content provides a constitutionalist, populist unification of a series of conspiracy theories into a metanarrative of truth that often runs in opposition to the portrait of reality painted by the mainstream media. The infowarrior metanarrative involves control of the masses by the oligarchic and financial elite, who use governments and individual politicians and the structures under their power to bring their eugenically-driven policies of societal control through both latent means (media manipulation) and overt action (police/military force) in the name of the rise of a global ‘New World Order’ and the near-universal enslavement and exploitation of the human population. To infowarriors, current policies are rooted in logic of Orwellian ‘doublespeak’, where American anti-bullying legislation is designed for surveillance and oppression, the flu pandemic was staged to impose martial law, and the environmental movement is being used to enslave the poor and middle-class through carbon taxation. Rooted in a Jeffersonian patriotism, Jones and his followers feel the United States Constitution has been subverted and want an uprising similar to the original American Revolution to take place against what they consider to be similarly tyrannical forces. The left-right paradigm is under constant attack by infowarriors, who believe it is a sham which cloaks the reality of an oppressive class-based system perpetuated by hegemonic media practices and corrupt government, which has led to the middle and lower classes becoming virtual share-croppers, tethered by increasing expenses, declining prospects, and mounting debt to the same financial elite who they purport to be in control. Infowars.com provides voice and space for people ranging from those disenfranchised and frustrated with the government, to more populist members of the right and left, to militias and conspiracy theorists who believe in the imminent arrival of their worst fears.
Infowars.com is set up like a traditional news website. There are featured stories and archives, as well as links to multi-media content, the discussion forum, contact information and a merchandise shop. News is currently grouped under the following themes: Media, Police State, Big Brother, Science & Technology, Border Control & Illegal Immigration, War on Terror, Iraq, Iran, World at War, Economic Crisis, and 9/11 Activism, as well as a featured archive of pieces related to the flu pandemic. There are some stories that are attributed to Infowars.com, whose authors are presumably either Infowars staff, or volunteer/citizen journalists. A number of stories come from blogs as well as mainstream news sources. Stories featured on the site were predominantly American or involved U.S. interests under the aforementioned categories. Infowars.com often featured international reporting on events. The range of information and perspective in the international media about the U.S. is used by Infowars to oppose and contradict mainstream American news. Their examination of international reporting of American events often displays the differences in dissemination and interpretation of information that exists between American mainstream media and their counterparts around the world. This is used as partial evidence of the mainstream media’s collusion with the elite in producing coercive messaging as well as to reaffirm preexisting repressive theories or notions. Infowars.com has three other associated sites, Prisonplanet.com: which offers more global news, as well as the main online forum for infowarriors, and subscription-based access to superior-quality audio and video, as well as Truthnews.us: an alterative news site, and Jonesreport.com: a low-production news amalgamator. Alex Jones also has his own channel on YouTube that features most of his documentaries as well as video recordings of recent radio broadcasts. With an entire counter-hegemonic trans-media metanarrative behind them, Infowars takes an oppositional role against the establishment, with particular aim at the misrepresentation and manipulation done by the mainstream media.
Public distrust of mainstream media among the public is at increasingly high levels and as the Internet provides new sources for news and perspective, the mainstream media’s prestige is weakened. With independent news sites, amalgamators, and blogs given similar priority online to the established news corporations’ sites, as well as the niche news available for individuals’ preferences, the mainstream media no longer possess the audience, nor the control over their audience, that they enjoyed in the days of newspapers, radio, and television. Established news organizations in the United States are seen as partisan, slanted, and largely a communicative appendage of political parties and industry. This aligns with the Infowars metanarrative, which engages its’ audience by providing an alternate accounting for almost all major and some relevant minor events that can be fit into its conspiracy of elite global control. This frames the media as subservient to elite interests and complicit in the oppression and domination of the middle and lower classes. In this way Infowars.com works as a media watchdog, as the community will leap all over stories and statements that seem to be supporting the ‘elite agenda’. The site also fights the mainstream media’s control of the knowledge economy online by providing access to news that was slanted, filtered, ignored, or otherwise marginalized. Conspiracy theorists have traditionally been marginalized because their work is largely speculative, and cannot be confirmed by established institutions of power and knowledge. Infowars.com attempts to subvert this marginalization by providing established news and perspective that exist outside established power structure, as well as through the production of their own news and perspective. In this way the information is made accessible to even the moderately disaffected citizen, from one who is sick of the lies coming from their elected representative, to those who believe in the Illuminati. This makes the potential Infowars community extensive. By encouraging any criticism or conspiracy that fits into their metanarrative, they create space for a large, and largely marginalized portion of the population. They then encourage their audience to engage themselves politically, but in a subversive way. An essential feature of the content throughout the Infowars universe is the promotion of agency in their audience. The audience is compelled and prodded by Jones and his associates into action, primarily through becoming informed and aware, but also through grassroots campaigns of awareness raising, boycotts, and vocal or written opposition to government policy. As well as instigating a variety of non-violent political action, Infowars encourages the audience to prepare themselves, including through armament, to defend themselves, their families, and their property from insurgent government oppression. As the site grows in popularity and awareness, the communities’ collective efforts to watch over the U.S. mainstream media, as well as their unified oppositional voice towards government and corporate culture, it holds the potential to shape coverage. With more people becoming disaffected with the established media, they may begin to move closer to Infowars’ perspectives in order to appeal to a wider audience while re-establishing their own projections of agency. In doing so though, Infowars would risk succumbing to the fate of many counter-hegemonic movements, as they are absorbed into the hegemonic domination they initially opposed.
As a counter-hegemonic movement, Infowars is walking perilously close to regressing into another facet of the hegemonic edifice it professes to be attempting to disassemble. One problem is the unabashed consumerism of the site. Infowars alleges to be out of the mainstream, but Infowars.com contains many characteristics similar to commercial-based websites. Running down each page, parallel to the news on the right side of the page, there is a great deal of peripheral advertising for commercial products primarily intended for self-sufficiency and preservation. These ads do not link to typical consumer goods, instead they are products like solar panels, commercial espionage equipment, health supplements, and discounted arms training. The rhetoric used in these advertisements is often populist and conspiratorial, targeting the same fears perpetuated by the sites’ content. The framing of the circumstances within the Infowars metanarrtive as immediate and dire prioritize the need for complete self-sufficiency for preservation in the face of elite oppression. And Jones is able to deliver to his advertisers an audience who potentially have a perceived need and see immediate value in their product as a result of the perpetuation of the sense of impending catastrophe by the sites’ content. These same products are judiciously advertised on Jones’ radio and online broadcasts with glowing, individual, and personal recommendations. Then there are Jones’ own Infowars branded products. There are similar numbers of advertisements for Infowars products on the site as there are for the other consumer goods. All the advertisements link to the Infowars shop, which does not offer a link back to the actual website. Jones has t-shirts, hats and posters with various images and slogans for sale, as well as books, music, and DVD’s. Jones also sells his own self-preservation gear directly through the site, including short-wave radios, antennae, and water purifying equipment. In a sense Jones has created an economy of conspiracy. Those who feel compelled by the Infowars metanarrative can seemingly increase their participation, take control of an increasingly unfathomable situation, and by take part in engagement by association; purchasing consumer goods that will ensure they are prepared as they wait with baited breath for their government to come and oppress them. Though no one can fault Jones for trying to earn a living from his work, the overt consumerist nature of the site encourages consumption more than action. By aligning consumer goods with his message, he is aligning audience with advertisers, a key tenant of the cultural industries that infowarriors are sworn enemies of. The sources of Infowars.com’s news content are also problematic. Though they do produce some of their own, original news content, the majority of their news is imported from blogs or mainstream sites. Positioning themselves against mainstream media, Infowars frames the press as an elite appendage of oppression. In linking to mainstream news, even handpicked stories, for their content, they are in fact contradicting their counter-hegemonic values. Linking stories to mainstream media sites also works against Infowars. The metanarrative is constructed in part by the same forces it opposes. The site claims there is a “war on for your mind,” and that the mainstream media is one of the battlegrounds for this war, yet it regularly uses the same media as a base source for their information. Not only does the foundation of their argument that the media as a whole is working in collusion with the elites to coerce and oppress society lose validity when they then use them as sources when the situation merits it, in linking back to news stories the site is not merely supporting, but reifying the media power structure. Though the news stories are placed alongside original Infowars stories as well as blog entries, this works to normalize and subsequently legitimize the established media within the counterhegemonic metanarrative of Infowars. Furthermore, the directly oppositional, alarmist, and hyperbolic rhetoric used throughout Infowars.com and the rest of the Infowars metanarrative makes it an echo chamber for the disaffected. The blatant subjectivities at work feed into the beliefs of the audience, but make it difficult to appeal to those with moderate views. The other effect of the Infowars echo chamber is that it is really perpetuating established hegemonic controls through the promotion of scare tactics. In constructing their metanarrative of eugenically driven, deeply ingrained corruption and increasing oppression and topping it up daily with more examples of the same thing, Infowars is reinforcing existing hegemonic discourse. Despite encouraging action, they are continually framing the world as unchanging and unchangeable, normalizing class distinctions and their associated notions of power while trying to fight them.
In this way Infowars.com is a confounding site for civic engagement. It proclaims to be empowering its’ audience, but in its use of cultural industry tropes makes the empowerment look like another wrinkle within the existing hegemonic cycle. If Infowars was indeed started as a counter-hegemonic movement then it appears to have lost it’s footing and positioned itself within the oppressive cycle it opposes. By unraveling layers of government and corporate collusion and corruption they are confirming their audiences existing beliefs while affirming their helplessness in the situation outside of a few grassroots efforts. Even the activism promoted on Infowars.com is rooted in the use of their material, purchasing and sharing their documentaries, printing and disseminating their posters, wearing their shirts, subscribing for their video, and purchasing the products advertised. In this way the activism is just consumption of niche products, and actual engagement is subverted by the same hegemonic powers Infowars stands in opposition to. If the audience is satisfied with merely consuming Infowars products and sharing them with people, they are not likely to increase their efforts as citizens, especially given the constant reminders of their oppression at the hands of the elite. The false activist movement in reality appears to be rooted in Jones’ own financial and personal benefit. This, along with the endless topping up of alarmist rhetoric on the immediacy and inevitability of impending doom increases the anxiety of its’ audience and has the potential to lull them into a civic stupor. Alex Jones may be the face and voice of the conspiracy movement, but his approach to engaging the public in what he asserts are issues of absolute importance and consequence is more alienating than inclusive with it’s alarmist and oppositional posture. As well, the commercial nature of Infowars.com and the whole Infowars movement appears to be little more than commercial exploitation of a niche market. Using the time honoured tradition of appealing almost solely to the emotions of his audience, Jones draws them into a world constructed on paranoia where consumption replaces engagement. Less hypocritical than misguided, in terms of political engagement, Infowars.com has its’ audience pointed in the wrong direction.
Note: This paper was writen for COMS 627 - Identity & Politics in New Media
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