Populist practices and discourses have shaped contemporary politics in profound ways in every corner of the world. Populist rhetoric has flourished in some corners of public opinion and become ubiquitous in recent elections while populist forces have imposed important policy shifts in many issue areas, from immigration to reproductive health. While multiple definitions of populism exist, two defining features of populism are largely shared across perspectives. First, populism has at its core a belief in an authentic, righteous people – be it defined by class, race or other markers. Second, populism is defined by a profound distrust of elites, although who these elites are varies by context and by the ideological positions of its proponents.
Populism can also be thought about at multiple levels: public opinion can espouse populist beliefs, populist discourses can dominate both traditional media and social media coverage, and parties, leaders and movements can carry populist agendas. Populism is polysemic and full of empirical contradictions, not to speak of the theoretical debates surrounding it.
Through direct contacts between the leader and “the people”, promoting confrontations with traditional media, using fake news and “alternative facts” or harnessing elements of social media, populist movements and leaders—be they Trump and Bolsonaro or Orbán and Duterte— systematically call into question the very nature of media and journalism and their role in politics. These changes are visible on both a discursive level and in socio-political dynamics.
In this special issue of the Brazilian Journalism Research Journal, we seek contributions that engage with the complex relationships between populism, media and journalism on each of these levels, and we are particularly interested in papers that explicitly seek to explore populism across these levels. How does the media cover populist parties and what role do journalists play in (de)legitimizing populist ideas? How do populist discourses shape and reshape party competition in hyper-mediated environments? How do we understand the nature of populist rhetoric in a given context, in terms of its evolution, the way in which elites are constructed, and the way in which the authentic people is defined? How have populist movements constructed the media and journalists?
We welcome submissions from researchers across the social sciences who are interested in the interstice populism, media and journalism. Submissions that focus on specific research questions or contexts, as well as contributions from a variety of disciplinary and methodological approaches are all welcome. Historical or contemporary contributions focused on any geographic area that contribute to the theoretical and empirical study of populism are encouraged to apply for this special issue. Qualitative, quantitative and mixed approaches will be considered. Case studies should be original and clearly show how they contribute to our understanding of the intersection of media, populism and journalism. Articles should clearly present and discuss their epistemological, theoretical and methodological approach and, if applicable, the extent it generalises beyond the cases studied.
Without privileging any particular approach, our ultimate goal is a special issue that offers readers a theoretically and methodologically rich discussion that will further our understanding the broader phenomenon of populism. Articles should be 40,000 to 55,000 characters (about 30 pages) and should be submitted by March 31, 2021. BRJ accepts manuscripts in Portuguese, Spanish, French and English. Authors who submit their articles in Portuguese, Spanish or French will be required to provide an English translation within one month of acceptance of the final version.
Manuscripts are only accepted via the journal’s online platform.
Any questions should be directed to bjreditor@gmail.com
Submission deadline: March 31, 2021
Notification of acceptance: August 30, 2021
Expected publication date: December 30, 2021
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