The New World Order Metanarrative in Translation on Twitter: A Cross-Cultural and Cross-Linguistic Approach

Abstract

This paper examines the social role of translation and mediation in propagating a New World Order metanarrative on Twitter. This metanarrative is constructed through various narratives, ranging from true statements--often decontextualized or distorted--to alternative information, dissenting voices, fake news, and extreme conspiracy theories. Drawing on culturalist approaches to conspiracy theories and fake news, the study uses the concept of ‘uncertain knowledge’ to view these phenomena as cultural constructs. Using narrative theory and critical discourse analysis related to translation and far-right discourse, this paper investigates the profile(s) of these online activists and how translation is used to foster transnational activism, mobilize like-minded individuals with primarily far-right values, and challenge the so-called globalist elite. It explores a trilingual corpus with tweets in Greek, French, and English. The corpus includes bilingual texts, translated tweets, videos, memes, and hyperlinks, shedding light on their content, sources, mediators' profiles, translation accuracy, and social functions.