13th Annual International Conference of the European Society for Periodical Research (ESPRit)
3–5 September 2025
Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Málaga, Spain
This year’s conference explores the theme “Periodicals as Cultural Assemblages”, with a focus on the periodical as a dynamic form composed of diverse textual, visual, material, and social elements.
See here for the full program and registration...
Friday, September 5, 11,00-12,30
Panel: Periodicals of the New Left and New Right as Counter-Media (1960s to 1980s)
The 1960s not only saw the emergence of a New Left that distanced itself from the traditional labour movement and Soviet communism. In the wake of the 1968 youth protests, a New Right also emerged that sought to distance itself from the old conservative elite and the crimes of fascist regimes. Both political movements identified themselves as marginalised groups whose voices were excluded from bourgeois public discourse. In response, they sought to create their own counter-public spheres, to disseminate their disruptive ideas, to form new communities and strengthen their collective identity as revolutionary groups. The most important medium for establishing these counter-publics were periodicals.
This panel examines the role of New Left and New Right periodicals as counter-media. In contrast to the often-used term 'alternative media', the concept of counter-media emphasises the politically dissident nature of these publications. The periodicals analysed were part of a wider strategy of protest – from both the left and the right – against the dominant structures and ways of thinking and living in bourgeois society from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Using multimodal discourse analysis, this panel will discuss how the interplay of text, image and design not only articulated and visualised critiques of political, economic and social conditions, but also allowed both the New Left and the New Right to develop practical counter-models and utopian visions for the future. It explores which elements of established society and politics they adopted, where they demarcated themselves from the mainstream, and where there was exchange or mutual appropriation between the New Left and the New Right. The aim is to uncover previously overlooked links, interactions and circulation dynamics between these political rivals.
- Ahmet Köken & Franca Schaad: Critiques of the mainstream media and the construction of counter-publics in the periodicals of the New Left and New Right in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1970s
- Stefan Rindlisbacher: Adaptation, Manipulation, Infiltration: Periodicals of the Ecological Right
- Baldassare Scolari: Imaginaries of the Good Life - Utopian Representation in New Left Periodicals