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Populist Movements and the Media
Populist Movements and the Media
Wednesday, 13 July 2016: 14:15-15:45
Location: Seminar 34 (Juridicum)
RC36 Alienation Theory and Research (host committee) Language: English
Populist movements are complicated global phenomena – traditional and new, moderate and extreme, movements and parties, etc. – thus hard to conceptualise, as their media multifaceted relationships. Since global neoliberalism causes a widening gap between its benefitted tycoons and impoverished middle and working classes – by ways of a deliberate work decline for capital accumulation – thus this “tyranny of the market”, which increases citizens hardships by ongoing economic crisis, causes dual effects: democratic protests like the Occupy Movements on one side, and the intensification of conservative, nationalistic, hatred and racist ideologies like the USA Tea Party and others, on the other.
Both the 1929 and 2008 vast economic crises were global phenomena, striking many states on different scales. For instance, from 2008 onwards, the EU forced neoliberal austerity measures on its 28 states, through increased unemployment besides ongoing immigration, were raising support of right-wing populist, nationalistic, Eurosceptic, extremists movements and parties; a phenomenon that has been reflected in the May 2014 EU Parliament elections results, in which nationalistic separatists’ ideologies and parties have accumulated popularity in Scotland, Catalonia and elsewhere.
These movements and parties are using public spaces, traditional and new media to gain supporters. Mainstream and traditional cultures are renovated, new symbols and images implemented, while respectable and camouflage maneuvers embed the illegitimate ideas and ideologies into democratic legitimate institutions like parliaments in order to give legitimation to these movements’ illegitimate ideologies.
The session proposes several national case studies of populist movements and media analyses about them in order to comprehend their contemporary and future challenges on democratic societies.
Chair: