The Social Semiotics of Populism

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, Sebastian 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, T 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.>

Product details

• Authors: Sebastian Moreno Barreneche, Sebastián Moreno Barreneche, Sebastian Moreno Barreneche, Sebastián Moreno Barreneche
• Assisted by: Paul Bouissac (Editor)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 22.08.2024
• EAN: 9781350205437
• ISBN: 978-1-350-20543-7
• No. of pages: 224
• Dimensions: 150 mm x 229 mm x 13 mm
• Series: Bloomsbury Advances in Semioti; Bloomsbury Advances in Semiotics
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Political Ideologies, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Sociolinguistics, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Semiotics & Theory, Nationalism, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Semantics, Sociolinguistics, Semiotics / semiology, Semantics, discourse analysis, stylistics, Political ideologies and movements, Semantics, discourse analysis, etc, nationalism; semiotics; discourse analysis; politics