Populism, Propaganda and Pop Culture

Prof. Dr. Marcus Stiglegger teaches film and cultural studies at the university of Freiburg and the Muenster School of Design.  He received his doctorate with the dissertation Sadiconzista - Fascism and Sexuality in Film and habilitated in 2005 with the monograph Ritual and Seduction, in which he developed the seduction theory of film. He writes regularly for film magazines such as film-Dienst and epd Film and founded the magazine Ikonen. He is also a musician, writes screenplays and runs the podcast Projektionen.
Hosted by: Bernhard Winkler, M.A.

Lecture/Discussion 
In our project, we want to analyse and reveal the roots of new right-wing thinking in order to assess and deconstruct the manipulative power of these media that threaten democracy. Our guest Marcus Stiglegger is an expert in film studies and popular culture studies. Since propaganda and populism today are constructed and disseminated particularly through images, memes, films and other pop-cultural products, it is necessary to analyse the myths and methods used by the Identitarian movement, for example, to make their worldview attractive to young people. Awareness of the seductive structures of propaganda and populism should provide guests with politically relevant knowledge in order to question ideologies and to recognize and expose practical pop-cultural propaganda strategies in everyday life. Especially in light of recent political developments, disinformation strategies will be exposed that blur the difference between fact and fiction, thereby appealing to an audience susceptible to the totalitarian structure of such propaganda.

By exposing the pop-cultural mythical roots, the aim is to sensitize the audience to the manipulative tendencies of new-right ideologies that use social media in a global context to recruit followers.