The Making of the Licitness of Right-Wing Rhetoric: A Case Study of Digital Media in the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, the challenges of the multicultural society are high on the political agenda. At present 24.4% of the Dutch population has an immigration background of which 13.9% has a non-western migration background and almost 50% of all the people with a migration background are second-generation migrants born in the Netherlands. However, today's Dutch multicultural society is associated with a complex range of challenges linked with cultural and religious diversity. This article investigates how news media in the Netherlands facilitated the making of the licitness of xenophobic rhetoric of the two main Dutch populist right-wing parties Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) and Forum voor Democratie (FvD) during the Provincial Elections in March 2019. I conclude that these rising political extremist movements dominate the immigration debate and are accountable for the making of the licit social resentment against particularly non-western immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]