Up next at IAMCR 2023 is Sabina Mihelj, focussing on populist communication about the COVID-19 pandemic, across the US, Poland, Serbia, and Brazil. Such research is critical given the real potential (and genuine experience) of populists assuming positions of political leadership (as in the US or Brazil) and actively contradicting the health advice of pandemic experts.
Populist divides between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’, and promotes the rule of charismatic, usually male, leaders; it promotes illiberalism, not least also through the skilful use of social media; and this produces populist challenges to expert authority that can fall on fertile grounds …