Instances of populist performance continue to proliferate around the world, a phenomenon witnessed in tandem with the increasing mediatisation of politics. Public figures are now subject to 24-hour multimedia news cycles, they voluntarily show their private lives on social media, share constant photo and video updates on their feeds and might at any moment be the subject of mass popular memeification. Populist actors are noted for their pioneering use of digital media to bypass traditional channels and connect with audiences (Albertazzi & Bonansinga, 2023; Villaplana & Fitzpatrick, 2024).
Despite this obvious connection, there remains a lack of significant and wide-ranging studies into the relationship between populist performance and its visual representation. Recent work attempts to address this dearth in areas such as fiction television and film (Coladonato, Holdaway, Pilipets and Valera-Ordaz, 2024), social media communication (Mendonça & Duarte Caetano, 2020; Mazzoni & Mincigrucci, 2022), analogue and digital campaign strategies (Baldwin-Philippi, 2019; Dessewffy, 2023), alongside thematic focuses around bodily representation (Casullo, 2020), embodiment (Diehl, 2017) and identification (Ostiguy & Moffitt, 2021). Nonetheless, there is still a need for more scholarship devoted to the aesthetic, theatrical and visual elements of this performance.
In the lineage of recent work that has acknowledged the emergence of a visual turn in the scholarship on populism (Moffitt 2022; Melito & Zulianello, 2024) and embracing the framework of the discursive-performative approach to populism (Ostiguy, Panizza & Moffitt, 2021), this symposium aims to explore the significance of visual forms, in dialogue with their discursive content, in forging populist identities at both the collective and individual levels. Given the diversity of forms populism has taken in different historical and sociopolitical contexts, shifting attention to its articulation over its ideological content encourages us to consider the way populism is ‘framed, performed, enacted or broadcast’ (Moffitt 2016, 40). Helping to take understanding beyond the boundaries of single disciplines we encourage theoretical and methodological approaches from social sciences and the humanities.
This event aims to bring together scholars working on populist actors and audiences throughout history and around the world to examine how visual representations contribute to the construction and perpetuation of populist identities. This includes but is not limited to documentaries, television shows, televised political appearances, visual social media platforms (such as YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram), news imagery, memes, posters etc.
We invite contributions (including visual formats) dealing with, but by no means limited to the following perspectives on populist performance of identity:
Performing and reading populist identity in digital or visual media
Populist performances across the political spectrum
The visual iconography of populist identities
Intersectional and critical approaches to populism and political performances
Performances of self from populist leaders, embodiment and identification
Transgressive aesthetics and style
Visual representations of the people and/or the elite
Audiences and participation in visual populist narratives
Reaching different audiences – the staging or mediums for performance
Affects, emotions, storytelling and image-making
Stardom, celebrity, and parasocial relationships
Theatricality and mise-en-scène: staging, gestures, make up, tone, costumes
Given the focus on form over content, this symposium encourages papers or contributions that use visual methodologies as well as traditional papers. The conference is therefore open to both short papers and video essays (up to 10 minutes)
Please submit a 250-word abstract, 150 word bio, and indicative bibliography by 31 July 2025 using this form.
Abstracts for video essays are encouraged and should follow the same guidelines. The bibliography should include anticipated sources for moving images.
For any questions, please write to Jessica Wax-Edwards (jwax-edwards@ucc.ie) and Théo Aiolfi (theo.aiolfi@ube.fr).
