Symbiotic Extremisms and Reactive Radicalization: The Algorithmic Combat Theater of Citizenship’s Transnational Crisis Scarcely three decades into the twenty-first century, techno-utopian discourses of “social media democratization” that accompanied 2011’s so-called “Arab Spring” now appear fundamentally bankrupt, replaced by anxieties about the proliferation of conspiracy theory, nation-state influence campaigns, and the spread of online “disinformation” that have accompanied the global rise of far-right populism, authoritarian ethno-nationalist movements, and the pervasive threat of transnational terrorism.From Narendra Modi’s BJP and China’s anti-Uigher crackdown, to the Western recruits of ISIS and internationalist Neo-Nazi fighters in Ukraine, nation-state actors and non-state armed groups alike exhibit an increasingly pervasive concern for communitarian-based (re)definitions of the citizen that challenge pluralistic conceptions of belonging. This contemporary geopolitical zeitgeist is often identified as “political polarization,” but how do such trends operate, mobilize, and spread?Taking as primary case study the paradoxically parallel objectives of so-called Islamic State and transnational Neo-Nazi accelerationists (each seeking “purified” territories of unitary identitarian affiliation), this talk examines the ways in which new media’s fear-based political economy enables symbiotic extremisms and reactive radicalization, embodying the contemporary geopolitical zeitgeist: transnational citizenship(s) in crisis.Dr. Amanda E. Rogers is a Fellow at the Century Foundation, where her research focuses on transnational political violence and non-state armed groups, and serves as a consultant to the U.S. Department of State and United Nations on the media and propaganda strategies of extremist groups, ranging from Neo-Nazi accelerationism to the so-called Islamic State. Her photojournalism, cultural commentary, and political analysis routinely appears in such forums as the Brookings Institution, Al-Jazeera, the New York Times, the Atlantic Council, The Intercept, CNN, and the BBC.This public lecture is part of the Peace and Conflict Studies program's 24-25 Digital War speaker series.