CALL FOR PAPERS

Cahiers PROTAGORAS n° 14

Political Communication in the Meloni Era: The Post-Populist Transition and Its Global Resonance

OVERVIEW

Since her rise to power as President of the Council of Ministers in October 2022, Giorgia Meloni has embodied a major shift in Italian political communication. This phenomenon, which we propose to explore under the term “Melonism,” more broadly embodies a post-populist turn (Muzergues, 2024), characterized by a strategic recentring that has the potential to inspire beyond the peninsula’s borders. The media narrative of a symbolic rapprochement between Giorgia Meloni and global figures such as Elon Musk (Zelinsky, 2024) or Javier Milei (Ariza, March, & Torres, 2023) suggests that her communicational inflections and axiological embodiment potential now have international resonance.

Melonism follows in the footsteps of other structuring currents (Tarchi, 2015) — such as “Berlusconism” (Ventura, 2024), “Grillism” (Tarchi, 2014; Mosca, Vaccari, & Valeriani, 2015), “Salvinism” (Berti, & Loner, 2023; Bitonti, Marchetti, & Mariotti, 2023), and “Renzism” (Salvati, 2016) — each of which has redefined the contours of political communication in Italy. However, Giorgia Meloni’s distinctiveness as a nationalist female politician leading Fratelli d’Italia (De Giorgi, Cavalieri, & Feo, 2023; Ciarniello, De Blasio & Selva, 2024; Newell, 2024) — a movement with fascist roots, symbolized by the tricolor flame inherited from the Movimento Sociale Italiano (1946-1995) — lies in adding an unprecedented dimension: a potential supranational stature, articulating with the communicational discourses and practices specific to the contemporary digital ecosystem (Froio, & Ganesh, 2019).

Melonism relies on characteristic rhetoric (De Blasio, & Selva, 2024; McLean, Capstick, & Passarini, 2024), adapted to new media formats, particularly TikTok (Pérez Rastrilla et al. 2023), offering “artisanal” content that conveys authenticity — a strategy that establishes a direct channel with Italian citizens while bypassing traditional prescribers and media gatekeepers. In this sense, Melonism evokes a process of disintermediation (Biancalana, 2017), generating content specifically designed to resonate directly with citizens’ emotions and maintain proximity with them. 

Moreover, the construction of Melonism’s identity narrative oscillates between cultural valorisation of Italianness and a global referential corpus, particularly investing in literary pop-culture, as exemplified by the invocation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work (Moulin, 2009; Lavezzo, 2021).

This forthcoming issue of Cahiers Protagoras proposes to analyse Giorgia Meloni’s impact on Italian and international political communication, examining how Melonism follows in the continuity of previous currents while redefining (post-)populist communicational practices on a global scale. Furthermore, it aims to situate this distinctive communicational style in an era marked by the emergence of political leaders who opt for a clear break with traditional media models, favouring strategies of authenticity and disintermediation.

We thus call for interdisciplinary and multilingual contributions (in French, English, or Italian) aimed at enriching our understanding of current communicational practices and strategies.

SUBMISSION AND PARTICIPATION GUIDELINES

Abstract should include : 

– In a separate file: name, professional or academic status, institutional affiliation, contact details of the author(s) (e-mail and postal addresses).

– The title of the paper (maximum 180 characters including spaces).

– A 500-word abstract (excluding references) highlighting the interest of the contribution and including an overview of the problematic.

– Proposals for papers may be presented either as reflective analyses based on recent and completed empirical research, or as analyses of professional communication practises.

Proposals (in Word format) must include : 

  1. In a separate file: the name, professional or academic status, institutional affiliation, and contact details of the author(s) (email and postal addresses).
  2. The article must not exceed 30,000 characters (including notes, spaces, and references).
  3. Title of the article (maximum 180 characters including spaces): Times New Roman, size 12, bold, and centered on the page.
  4. The author’s name should be in regular weight, centered on the page, and followed by a footnote reference. The footnote should provide a 2–3 line biographical note about the author.
  5. The text (including headings) must be entirely in Times New Roman, size 12, justified, and without paragraph indentation.
  6. Please refrain from using any stylistic effects: no page breaks, section breaks, or double line breaks…
  7. Line spacing: 1.5.
  8. Margins: 2.5 cm on all sides. Standard page layout.
  9. Document structure: two levels of headings.
  10. Do not number headings or subheadings.
  11. Main section titles: bold, upright, and left-aligned.
  12. Subsection titles: regular weight, italicized, and left-aligned.
  13. Always specify acronyms when first used.
  14. Remove all bullet points: please use complete sentences instead.
  15. Use synonyms as often as possible.
  16. Minimize the number of footnotes.
  17. Remove double (or triple) spaces between words.
  18. Ensure the correct use of non-breaking spaces before (and after) the following punctuation marks: ? ! ; « »
  19. Verify all quotations in the article, as well as the spelling of proper names.
  20. Numbers up to twelve should be written in full; numbers beyond twelve should be in digits.
  21. Centuries should be indicated as follows: 18th century, 19th century…
  22. Quotations of fewer than four lines should be placed within quotation marks and remain in the body of the text.
  23. Quotations longer than four lines should be set off from the main text, indented, and enclosed in quotation marks. They should remain in Times New Roman, size 12.
  24. Bibliographic references should follow the French APA standards (7th edition, 2019), both in the general bibliography and within the text.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION & REVIEW SCHEDULE

Abstracts must be submitted no later than Sunday, April 27, 2025.

The scientific committee will review the abstracts and provide its evaluation by May 5, 2025.

Final proposals are expected by August 18, 2025. They will undergo a double-blind peer review by members of our scientific committee, with feedback provided by September 15, 2025.

If revisions are required, the modified proposals must be submitted by October 12, 2025 at the latest.

The publication of the Cahier is scheduled for December 2025.

Abstracts and final proposals should be sent to baptiste.buidin@galilee.be.

Download the call for paper in PDF format.

REFERENCES

Ariza, A., March, V., & Torres, S. (2023). La comunicación política de Javier Milei en TikTok. Intersecciones En Comunicación, 2(17), 6–6. https://doi.org/10.51385/ic.v2i17.182

 

Berti, C., & Loner, E. (2023). Character assassination as a right-wing populist communication tactic on social media: The case of Matteo Salvini in Italy. New Media & Society, 25(11), 2939–2960. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448211039222

 

Biancalana, C. (2017). Désintermédiation et populisme. L’emploi d’internet par le Mouvement 5 Étoiles. Studia Politica (Bucuresti), 17(4), 541‑559.

 

Bitonti, A., Marchetti, R., & Mariotti, C. (2023). Did COVID-19 change the political communication of polarizing leaders? The case of Salvini’s campaigning before and after the pandemic. European Journal of Communication (London), 38(4), 380–397. https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231221140697

 

Ciarniello, N., De Blasio, E., & Selva, D. (2024). Neoliberal Feminism and Political Leadership: The Representation of Giorgia Meloni and Elly Schlein in Popular Culture. Cultural Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/17499755241238135

 

De Blasio, E., & Selva, D. (2024). Gender and Culture Wars in Italy: A Genealogy of Media Representations. Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-60110-1

 

De Giorgi, E., Cavalieri, A., & Feo, F. (2023). From Opposition Leader to Prime Minister: Giorgia Meloni and Women’s Issues in the Italian Radical Right. Politics and Governance, 11(1), 108–118. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v11i1.6042

 

Froio, C., & Ganesh, B. (2019). The transnationalisation of far right discourse on Twitter: Issues and actors that cross borders in Western European democracies. European Societies, 21(4), 513–539. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2018.1494295

 

Lavezzo, K. (2021). Whiteness, medievalism, immigration: rethinking Tolkien through Stuart Hall. Postmedieval a Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies, 12(1–4), 29–51. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41280-021-00207-x

 

McLean, N., Capstick, G., & Passarini, B. (2024). Identity work in conservative political discourse: a cross-cultural comparison. Language and Intercultural Communication, 24(6), 558–571. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2023.2269399

 

Mosca, I., Vaccari, C., & Valeriani, A. (2015). An internet-Fuelled party? the Movimento 5 stelle and the Web. In F. Tronconi (Ed.), Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement Organisation, Communication and Ideology (pp. 127-152). Farnham: Ashgate.

 

Moulin, J. (2009). J. R. R. Tolkien l’antimoderne. Etudes anglaises, 62(1), 73‑85. https://doi.org/10.3917/etan.621.0073

 

Muzergues, T. (2024). Post-populisme : la nouvelle vague qui va secouer l’Occident. L’Observatoire.

 

Newell, J. L. (2024). Fratelli d’Italia and Giorgia Meloni at the start of 2024. Contemporary Italian Politics (Print), 16(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2024.2303192

Pérez Rastrilla, L., Sapag M., P., Recio García, A., Pérez Rastrilla, L., Recio García, A., & Sapag M., P. (2023). Fast Politics: Propaganda in the Age of TikTok (1st ed.). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5110-9

Salvati, E. (2016). Matteo Renzi: a new leadership style for the Italian Democratic Party and Italian politics. Modern Italy : Journal of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy, 21(1), 7–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/mit.2015.2

Tarchi, M. (2014). Dieci anni dopo: L’Italia populista e il caso Beppe Grillo. Quaderni Di Sociologia, 65, 31–49. https://doi.org/10.4000/qds.367 

Tarchi, M. (2015). Italy: the promised land of populism? Contemporary Italian Politics (Print), 7(3), 273–285. https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2015.1094224

Ventura, S. (2024). The narcissistic celebrity leader: Berlusconi’s communication style and its impact on Italian leadership. Contemporary Italian Politics (Print), 16(4), 434–451. https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2024.2381336

Zelinsky, D. (2024). “To the moon!”: Elon Musk, Dogecoin, and the political economy of charismatic leadership. Journal of Cultural Economy, 17(3), 297–313. https://doi.org/10.1080/17530350.2024.2302177 

 

SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE

Nicolas Baygert – IHECS-Protagoras, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) & Sciences Po Paris

Baptiste Buidin – IHECS-Protagoras

François Debras – Université de Liège (ULG) &  Haute Ecole Libre Mosane (HELMo)

Thierry Devars – CELSA/Paris-Sorbonne 

Charles Devellennes – University de Kent 

Irene Di Jorio – Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Philippe Dubois – École nationale d’administration publique (ENAP) 

Esther Durin – IHECS-Protagoras

Alexandre Eyries – Université catholique de l’Ouest

Mohamed Fahmi – Paris 8/Paris Nanterre & Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB). 

Catherine Fieschi – Robert Schuman Centre (European University Institute)

Mihaela Gavrila – Università degli Studi di Roma La Sapienza

Mehdi Ghassemi – Institut des Stratégies et Techniques de Communication (ISTC)

Adrien Jahier ­­­– IHECS-Protagoras

Stavros Kaperonis – Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences 

Isabelle Le Breton-Falezan – CELSA/Paris-Sorbonne 

Élise Le Moing-Maas – IHECS-Protagoras & Université Rennes 2 

Philippe Marion – Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL)

Loïc Nicolas – IHECS-Protagoras (Directeur des publications)

Alvaro Oléart – Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)

Gisela Reiter – FHWien der WKW, University of Salzburg & University of Vienna

Kelly Vossen – Université Saint-Louis Bruxelles

Jan Zienkowski – Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)