Watch the recorded public lecture Populism and the dangers Populism and the dangers of anti-liberal communication (February 1, 2017) with Silvio Waisbord.

The upsurge of populist candidates, parties and movements on both sides of the Atlantic reflects the crisis of a democratic model of communication grounded in the public use of information and rationality, the pursuit of truth, the centrality of fact-based arguments, the importance of scientific expertise, and other features.

Although the rise of populism is grounded on multiple causes, Waisbord argues that certain transformations in the architecture of public communication and particular attributes of the digital media ecology are conducive to the kind of segregated, anti-rational, post-fact, post-truth communication championed by populism.

Organized by the Leading Research Environment in Global Media Studies and Politics of Mediated Communication, Department of Media Studies, and co-sponsored by the Institute of Latin American Studies, Stockholm University.

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Who is professor Silvio Waisbord?
Silvio Waisbord is Professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University and Guest Professor at Stockholm University’s Department of Media Studies, hosted by the Leading Research Environment in Global Media Studies and Politics of Mediated Communication, during the Fall 2016 semester. His books include (with Soledad Segura) Media Movements: Civil society and media policy reform in Latin America (Zed, 2016), Media Sociology: A Reappraisal (editor, Polity, 2014), Reinventing Professionalism: Journalism and News in Global Perspective (Polity, 2013). He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Communication and former editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Press/Politics. Dr. Waisbord has published on news and politics, journalism, global health communication, communication and social change, and media policy. He has lectured and worked in more than 30 countries, has written or edited 10 books, and published more than 100 journal articles, book chapters, and newspaper columns.