Digital Tools, Radical Views, Appealing Aesthetics. Comparative Approaches to Popular Culture from Eastern Europe

Digital media and practices have fundamentally changed our understanding of the public sphere and play an increasingly important role in the formation of political opinion. Especially populist movements and authoritarian governments are using digital tools to spread their often right wing rhetoric and symbols. However, radical views are not only shaped in the political field. Popular culture is also crucial for the dissemination and normalisation of radical or populist narratives: not only among a broader public, but also among protest movements or alternative cultures. Its different formats and products are often the means by which collective desires and trends as well as social unease and civic upheaval find an appealing form and come to play an often over-looked part in the formation of political opinion.

But what is the relationship between technological progress (‘digital tools’), political opinion-forming (‘radical views’) and popular culture (‘appealing aesthetics’) in specific historical and cultural contexts? Are certain trends in popular culture only characteristic of populist and authoritarian regimes, or are they rather a symptom of a more general social transformation? The workshop aims to explore these questions from a comparative perspective, looking at the recent past and present of Eastern Europe.

The admission is free, no registration required.