Visualising populist identities:
Populist performances on screen(s)
2-3 December 2025
An online symposium organized by the Centre for Mexican Studies, University College Cork (Ireland) and the Centre Interlangues Texte, Image, Langage, Université Bourgogne Europe (France)
in collaboration with
The Populism Specialist Group of the Political Studies Association
Day 1 | Tuesday, 2 December
Microsoft Teams Link: https://tinyurl.com/Day1-Visual-Populism
The times indicated correspond to the Central European Timezone (UTC +01:00)
International Start Times: 06:30 Buenos Aires – 08:30 London/Cork — 09:30 Paris — 10:30 Helsinki – 11:30 Istanbul – 13:00 New Delhi – 19:30 Melbourne
9:30-10:00 | Welcome and opening remarks
Nuala Finnegan (University College Cork, Ireland)
10:00-11:30 | Keynote Speech
Benjamin Moffitt (Monash University, Australia)
The Visual Politics of Populism: Reflections on the (Accidental) Creation of a Subfield
Chair: Théo Aiolfi (Université Bourgogne Europe, France)
11:30-11:45 | Break
11:45-12:45 | Panel 1: Populist memes
Chair: Giorgos Venizelos (Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus)
Performing Populism through AI-Generated Memes and Video: Visual Strategies of Bolsonaro and the Latin American Right
Gabriel Bayarri Toscano (Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain)
Memes and Populist Optics of Hate: Trads and Ontological Insecurity in the Hindutva Digital Sphere
Ananya Sharma (Ashoka University, India)
Performing iconicity: Official images, memes and contestation around populist leadership in Indian social media spaces
Krishanu Bhargav Neog (Jagiroad College, India)
12:45-13:45 | Lunch Break
13:45-14:45 | Panel 2: Gendered performances of identity
Chair: Hannah Oorts (Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium)
Performing the Populist Skirmisher: Visual Extremes, Provocation and Identity in Polish Far-Right Cam-paigns
Karolina Zbytniewska (Warsaw University, Poland & CEU Democracy Institute, Hungary)
Legitimizing Repression Through Masculinity: Anti-Protest Visual Representations on TikTok During Georgia’s 2024 Unrest
Nini Gvilia (Independent Researcher)
Tradition as Transgression: performance of femininity on Michelle Bolsonaro's Instagram Account
Gabriela Caraffini Pretto (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil)
14:45-15:00 | Break
15:00-16:00 | Panel 3: New approaches to visual populism
Chair: Thomás Zicman de Barros (Sciences Po Paris, France)
New Directions in the Study of Populist Visual Communication
Donatella Bonansinga (University of Southampton, United Kingdom) and Mattia Zulianello (University of Trieste, Italy)
Bringing the Performative Politics Back In
Erdoğan Çiftcioğlu (Independent Researcher)
Ketchup or mustard? Both, of course: Populist visuals without the populist logic in Alexander Stubb’s presidential campaign TikToks
Zea Szebeni (University of Helsinki, Finland) and Ilana Hartikainen (University of Helsinki, Finland)
16:00-16:15 | Break
16:15-17:15 | Panel 4: Staging the spectacle
Chair: Camille Marie Fillioux (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg)
“Back to the Studio”: Radical Right Populists’ Strategic Mise-En-Scène and Deploy of Newsrooms Aesthetics.
Petra Meier (UAntwerpen, Belgium) and Eline Severs (Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium)
Broadcasting Contestation: Telesur and the Visual Performance of Venezuelan Foreign Policy
Begum Zorlu (City St. George's, University of London, United Kingdom)
Wearing the Eastern steppe: Pseudohistorical Turanist fashion and as a populist performance of far-right identity in Hungary
Ilana Hartikainen (University of Helsinki, Finland) and Zea Szebeni (University of Helsinki, Finland)
Day 2 | Wednesday, 3 December
Microsoft Teams Link: https://tinyurl.com/Day2-Visual-Populism
The times indicated correspond to the Central European Timezone (UTC +01:00)
International Start Times: 06:00 Buenos Aires – 08:00 London/Cork — 09:00 Paris — 10:00 Helsinki – 11:00 Istanbul – 12:30 New Delhi – 19:00 Melbourne
09:00-10:00 | Panel 5: Campaign performances
Chair: Giulia Evolvi (University of Bologna, Italy)
Performing Populism on Instagram: A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of the 2025 Albanian Election Campaign
Ledia Kazazi (University of Elbasan “Aleksander Xhuvani”, Albania)
Populist Performativity in Small-State Politics: The 'India Out' Campaign and the PNC’s Strategic Mobilization in the Maldives
Mariyam Mohamed Manik (Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong)
10:00-10:15 | Break
10:15-11:15 | Panel 6: Online identities
Chair: Archibald Gustin (University of Liège, Belgium)
“Proud to be a Fascist”: Spain’s Fachatubers and the new populist right
Ruben Perez-Hidalgo (University of Sydney, Australia)
Populism, Space, and Visual Rhetoric in Zelensky’s Instagram Presence during Russo-Ukrainian war
Alina Mozolevska (Saarland University, Germany & Petro Mohyla Black Sea National University, Ukraine)
Performing Populism on TikTok: A Cross-National Analysis of Radical Right Visual Strategies
Anastasia Veneti (Bournemouth University, United Kingdom), Stamatis Poulakidakos (University of Western Macedonia, Greece) and Savvas Voutyras (Bournemouth University, United Kingdom)
11:15-11:30 | Break
11:30-12:30 | Panel 7: Populist lenses
Chair: Federica Formato (University of Brighton, UK)
Performing Populism: A Comparative Video Data Analysis of Two Populist Leaders
Furkan Emiroğlu (Sivas Cumhuriyet University, Turkey)
Performing Far-Right Populism: Exploring Milei’s Transgression through the Lens of the Carnival
Sara García Santamaría (Universitat de València, Spain)
Populist Aesthetics in Pop Culture: Lady Gaga and the Art of ‘Good Bad Manners’
Renato Duarte Caetano (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil) and Théo Aiolfi (Université Bourgogne Europe, France)
12:30-13:00 | Long Break
13:00-14:30 | Keynote Speech
María Esperanza Casullo (Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, Argentina)
Baroque Bodies: Appearance and Performance in Latin American Populism
Chair: Jessica Wax-Edwards (University College Cork, Ireland)
14:30-14:45 | Closing Remarks