Visualising the ‘British Red Scare’ Through Media Coverage of Jeremy Corbyn

This article analyses the visual and multimodal aspects of what I define as the ‘British Red Scare’, manifested through coverage of Jeremy Corbyn during his time as Labour leader. I define the British Red Scare as the construction of danger from the alleged threats posed by leftist political ideologies, and built on uniquely British anxieties of a domestic and international nature. I argue that the British red scare is made up of three interconnected themes: the fear of the ‘enemy within’, the ‘loony left’, and a return to the past. Corbyn’s Otherness is articulated by visually and multimodally constructing him as unpatriotic, stupid and deranged, and regressive. The increased prevalence of visual cues in political communication means that these visual signs offer important glimpses into how the power to construct worlds and subjects operates, and the consequences this carries for a rapidly evolving world order.