Radical Right and Platforms in the Americas: CPAC as a Transnational Infrastructure of the Digital Culture War

Abstract

This article analyzes the Conservative Political Action Conferences (CPAC) and their digital networks as part of the transnational articulation of the radical right in the Americas. Drawing on a netnographic approach combined with network mapping, it examines the role of ideologues and think tanks in the diffusion of moral, religious, and anti-communist repertoires that structure the so-called culture war across digital platforms. It argues that these actors operate within digital infrastructures, whose visibility dynamics structure symbolic circulation, in which algorithmic visibility and the attention economy favor the amplification of politically oriented content. The study demonstrates that the CPAC function as a transnational political-communicational infrastructure, articulating U.S. conservatism and its Latin American counterparts, and contributing to the organization of digital networks of discursive circulation on a continental scale.