Ex-Muslim’s Digital Dissent. Conveying Influence on X (Consortium ICS)
(2025) From the extremes to the centre and back again? Radicalisation, mainstreaming and reconciliation in (...)context — Location: Universidad de Navarra Spain (2025.June.5AD)
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- In contemporary digital spaces, social actors engage in strategic discourse to negotiate and compete for influence within the public sphere (Adolphsen, 2014 ; Ritzi, 2023). Ex-Muslims on X (formerly Twitter) exemplify this dynamic by leveraging critical discourse to challenge dominant narratives about Islam, contest prevailing religious norms and assert ideological positions. Historically, apostasy has been met with severe social and legal repercussions, compelling apostates to self-censorship (Cottee, 2015 ; Marshall & Shea, 2011 ; Sahad, Chu Abdullah, & Abdullah, 2013). However, the emergence of an online epiphenomenon has allowed ex- Muslims to construct a critical discourse, redefining their relationship to Islam and to their own identity (Mohamad et al., 2017, 2018). By analysing their discourse through multimodal critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, Kress and Van Leeuwen), and enunciative pragmatics (Charaudeau), this contribution explores how three different profile of individuals that identify as ex-Muslims and/or apostate on X engage in multimodal critical discourse about their former religion mobilising the “imaginary of truth” (Charaudeau, 2005) and elements of ideology (Fairclough, 1995 ; Van Dijk, 1998) to gain legitimacy and influence on X.
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Pharès, D. (2025). Ex-Muslim’s Digital Dissent. Conveying Influence on X (Consortium ICS). From the extremes to the centre and back again? Radicalisation, mainstreaming and reconciliation in (...)context, Universidad de Navarra Spain. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/274333