Introduction

Abstract

The introductory chapter summarises the book’s argument and sets it in the context of the global political climate. It encapsulates populism as a communicative process characterised by three aspects. The first is an ideological process. This absorbs and voices the grievances of citizens who feel misrepresented. It also filters these through the storytelling principles of identification with the people, moral essentialism and exceptionalism. The second aspect is the performance of the resultant account of political reality. Populist performances project a people deprived of political agency. They are acts of disruption that display institutional norms as illegitimate obstacles to sovereignty. The performance of populism also anticipates the third aspect of the populist communication process—mediation—by creating performative assemblages that strategically address interconnected parts of the media ecology.