[Commlist] CFP - "The Populist Screen"

*The Populist Screen:
The Production and Distribution of Politics in Contemporary European 
Film and TV*

_CFP Deadline: 30th April 2025_

Department of Communication, Humanities and International 
Studies University of Urbino Carlo Bo
Urbino, Italy

7-8 July 2025

Conference organization: Stefania Antonioni, Giorgio Bottini, Paola 
Brembilla, Valerio Coladonato, Luana Fedele, Dom Holdaway & 
Matteo Marinello.

The aim of “The Populist Screen” is to think through the role of screen 
media in the contemporary wave of mainstream nationalist, often 
extreme-right-wing populist movements. Tied to the PRIN 2022 
project “Circulating Populist Sentiments in 21st Century Film and TV 
Fiction in Italy”, the main focus of the conference will be 
on contemporary populist politics in Europe.

With the sweeping growth and electoral successes of nationalist 
movements over the past two decades, challenging the legacy of liberal 
democracies, populism is a consolidated reality of our times. The use of 
polarizing narratives of nationhood, leadership and the people by many 
European parties – from Fratelli d’Italia and Vox to Alternative 
für Deutschland, from Prawo i Sprawiedliwość to the Partij voor 
de Vrijheid and Reform UK – have consolidated the importance of these 
techniques, even in the toolbox of non-populist parties. Our aim is 
to unite studies of *how these political events interact with screen 
media cultures in general*, with a particular (but not exclusive) 
emphasis on fictional narratives within them.

While, quite understandably, much scholarship has been dedicated to the 
use of news and social media by populists, only a small (but growing) 
fraction of academic work has been dedicated to the influence 
of cultural narratives. This is all the more surprising, since populism 
relies on narratives to pose the alternative worldviews that it promises 
to deliver and since film, television and OTT series are among the most 
powerful and efficient vehicles of narratives.

During this conference, we seek to question *where populism meets visual 
culture and the entertainment industry in the present*. To what extent 
does screen narrative media fuel populist politicians, their campaigns 
and their ideas? What visual tools and grammars do film and television 
offer to political messages? How does screen media represent, 
fuel, challenge populist feeling? And what kinds of political histories 
can be traced in the production, distribution and circulation of 
audiovisual images?

For this event, we welcome papers that address these interrogatives from 
any perspective, within *the context of Europe and in relation to film, 
TV, (streaming) video or any other audiovisual screen media*. We are 
particularly interested in the contemporary period, though historical 
and especially comparative approaches are welcome.

What follows are the *broad areas of interest* of the event, though we 
are open to any other questions and methods and happy to talk through 
potential ideas (contact details below).

  * *Images* of populist politics and politicians; the *genres and
    visual grammars* used to narrate populism; the role played by
    *emotions*; the *characters and identities* that are vehicles for
    these narratives.
  * *Theoretical studies *of populist screens, for instance employing
    affect theory; theories of gender, race, queer or other identities;
    decolonial or postcolonial theory; cultural and media/mediatization
    theory; sociological, historical or philosophical studies.
  * Studies of *European politics*, populist ideologies or broader
    populist discourses that intersect with film/tv cultures.
  * *Popular culture studies*, and the potential overlaps and spaces
    between *popular and populism*.
  * The role played by audiovisual culture (films, TV shows, characters,
    genres and registers) by *political movements, as cultural
    references *or as shared grammars that are pushed into political aims.
  * *Production and distribution studies* and cultures, that trace the
    political dynamics behind the creation of culture; the role of
    funding bodies and of specific mandates and ideologies; the role of
    distribution strategy in the dissemination of political content.
  * *Reception studies*: what audiences make of populist narratives, in
    physical and digital consumption spaces.

The main working language of the conference will be English, but 
speakers are also welcome to propose papers/panels in Italian.

We invite proposals in the form of max *350-word abstracts *(excluding 
any bibliography), together with a 50-word bio. Please send these to 
*(popit.prin /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(popit.prin /at/ gmail.com)>* by* 30 April 
2025*. We will communicate the results of the selection by mid May. For 
any questions, please write to the above email address.


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