The Social Semiotics of Populism

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The concept of populism is currently used by scholars, the media and political actors to refer to multiple and disparate manifestations and phenomena from across both the left and the right ends of the political spectrum. As a result, it defies neat definition, as scholarship on the topic has shown over the last 50 years. In this book, Sebastin Moreno Barreneche approaches populism from a semiotic perspective and argues that it constitutes a specific social discourse grounded on a distinctive narrative structure that is brought to life by political actors that are labelled populist. Conceiving of populism as a mode of semiotic production that is based on a conception of the social space as divided into two groups, the People and the Other, this book uses semiotic theory to make sense of this political phenomenon. Exploring how the categories of the People and the Other are discursively constructed by populist political actors through the use of semiotic resources, the ways in which meaning emerges through the oppositions between imagined collective actors is explained. Drawing on examples from Europe, North America and South America, The Social Semiotics of Populism presents a systematic semiotic approach to this multifaceted political concept and bridges semiotic theory and populism studies in an original manner.

Reviews

The book provides an innovative approach to the study of populism, mixing social semiotics with political science and discourse analysis. It is the first book adopting a solid semiotic framework to explain the narrative and discursive basis of populist styles of communication. -- Francesco Mazzucchelli, University of Bologna, Italy
Moreno Barreneche's book tackles populism in a clear, direct and rigorous way. It shows not only what populism is, but also, and more importantly, how it works. Bringing together semiotics and political science, Moreno Barreneche sheds light on a complex and everchanging phenomenon. -- Paolo Demuru, Paulista University, Brazil

Author Bio

Sebastin Moreno Barreneche is Associate Lecturer at the Faculty of Management and Social Sciences of Universidad ORT Uruguay, Uruguay, and an active researcher of Uruguays National Research System (SNI).