Keynote Speaker

On the one hand, the interest here is in deconstructing the seemingly novel logic of the ‘new normal’ narrative by showing that, as such, it is largely based on well-established tendencies of production of a new ‘normality’ (Krzyżanowski 2020a) and wider normalisation of exclusion in/via mediated and political discourse. Hence, as the paper shows, the often-ambivalent imaginary of ‘crisis’ (Krzyżanowski 2019) –deployed in relation to such recent European and global events/processes as, inter alia, the ‘Refugee Crisis’ (Krzyżanowski 2018a, 2018b, 2020b; Krzyżanowski & Ledin 2017; Krzyżanowski, Triandafyllidou & Wodak 2018), or ‘Brexit’ (Krzyżanowski 2019; Zappettini & Krzyżanowski 2019, 2021) – has remained central as well as being further ‘recontextualised (Bernstein 1990; Krzyżanowski 2016) in the public argumentation of European right-wing populist actors. On the other hand, however, the article emphasises a vital, parallel ‘discursive shift’ (Krzyżanowski 2013, 2018a, 2018b, 2020b) in the conceptualisation of ‘crisis’ by the European far right during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper argues, namely, that the very acute and real as well as tangible character of the Coronavirus has forced the populist political actors to abandon their usual strategies of ‘imagining’, ‘mis/constructing’ or even ‘performing’ (Moffitt 2016) crisis and instead saw them turning towards descriptions of the COVID-19 crisis in terms of various types of ‘facts’. However, those quasi-factual descriptions of crisis, have, at the same time, been very skilfully re/packaged and ‘used’ as well as ‘operationalised’ as tools that helped the far right ‘pre-legitimise’ (Krzyżanowski 2014) its political strategies and policies. These, as the paper shows, have allowed the far-right political actors – and especially the European right-wing populists in power – to solidify the hegemonic position of their ideologically-driven discourse by not only symbolically but also formally gaining control over competing voices in the public spheres including, very notably, those of the media that used to be critical of far-right politics and actions (see Krzyżanowski, forthcoming).

References

Bernstein, B. (1990). The Structuring of Pedagogic Discourse (Class, Codes and Control Vol. IV). London: Routledge.

Krzyżanowski, M. (2013). Policy, Policy Communication and Discursive Shifts: Analysing EU Policy Discourses on Climate Change. In: P. Cap & U. Okulska (eds) Analysing New Genres in Political Communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 101-135.

Krzyżanowski, M. (2014). Values, Imaginaries and Templates of Journalistic Practice: A Critical Discourse Analysis. Social Semiotics 24(3). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10350330.2014.930607

Krzyżanowski, M. (2016). Recontextualizations of Neoliberalism and the Increasingly Conceptual Nature of Discourse. Discourse & Society 27(3). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0957926516630901

Krzyżanowski, M. (2018a). Discursive Shifts in Ethno-Nationalist Politics: On Politicisation and Mediatisation of the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Poland. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 16 (1-2). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15562948.2017.1317897

Krzyżanowski, M. (2018b). ‘We Are a Small Country that Has Done Enormously Lot’: The ‘Refugee Crisis’ & the Hybrid Discourse of Politicising Immigration in Sweden. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 16 (1-2). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15562948.2017.1317895

Krzyżanowski, M. (2019). ‘Brexit’ and the Imaginary of ‘Crisis’: A Discourse-Conceptual Analysis of European News Media. Critical Discourse Studies 16(2). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17405904.2019.1592001

Krzyżanowski, M. (2020a). Normalization and the Discursive Construction of ‘New’ Norms and ‘New’ Normality: Discourse in/and the Paradoxes of Populism and Neoliberalism. Social Semiotics 30:4, 2020. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10350330.2020.1766193

Krzyżanowski, M. (2020b). Discursive Shifts and the Normalisation of Racism: Imaginaries of Immigration, Moral Panics and the Discourse of Contemporary Right-Wing Populism. Social Semiotics 30:4, 2020. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10350330.2020.1766199

Krzyżanowski, M. (forthcoming). Narrating the ‘New Normal’? COVID-19 Pandemic and the Discursive Continuities/Shifts in (Right-Wing) Populist Framing of ‘Crisis’. To appear in Discourse & Communication.

Krzyżanowski, M., A. Triandafyllidou & R. Wodak. (2018). The Politicisation and Mediatisation of the ‘Refugee Crisis’ in Europe. Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies 16 (1-2). https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15562948.2017.1353189

Krzyżanowski, M. & P. Ledin. (2017). Uncivility on the Web: Populism in/and the Borderline Discourses of Exclusion. Journal of Language & Politics 16(4). https://benjamins.com/catalog/jlp.17028.krz

Moffitt, B. (2016). The Global Rise of Populism. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Wodak, R. & M. Krzyżanowski. (eds.). (2017). Right-Wing Populism in Europe & USA: Contesting Politics & Discourse beyond ‘Orbanism’ and ‘Trumpism’. (Special issue of Journal of Language & Politics 16:4). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://benjamins.com/catalog/jlp.16.4

Zappettini, F & M. Krzyzanowski. (2019). The critical juncture of Brexit in media & political discourses: from national-populist imaginary to cross-national social and political crisis. Critical Discourse Studies 16:4. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17405904.2019.1592767

Zappettini, F & M. Krzyzanowski. (Eds.)(2021). Brexit as a Social and Political Crisis: Discourses in Media and Politics. London: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Brexit-as-a-Social-and-Political-Crisis-Discourses-in-Media-and-Politics/Zappettini-Krzyzanowski/p/book/9780367764111

 He joined Uppsala University after a distinguished international career and after holding a number of academic and leadership positions at the Universities in the UK, Sweden, Poland and Austria. He has also held a number of prestigious visiting and honorary posts, most recently as Albert Bonnier Jr. Guest Professor in Media Studies at Stockholm University, Sweden, or as Affiliate Research Chair in Communications & Media at the University of Liverpool, UK. Michał is one of the leading international scholars working on critical discourse studies of normalisation of politics of exclusion in the context of communication, media and social change, with special focus on Europe. His main research areas include political discourse, digital media and journalism – which he analyses with focus on anti-immigration rhetoric, racism, social inequality and other challenges to democracy in the context of global rise of right-wing populism and neoliberalism. He is also, inter alia, the Editor-in-Chief of the international Journal of Language and Politics and a co-editor of the Bloomsbury Advances in Critical Discourse Studies book series as well as sitting on a number of boards in various journals in critical discourse studies and wider qualitative social research. He is also widely known for his teaching of qualitative methods and critical discourse studies to students across social and political sciences and humanities across Europe, USA, China and Australia. He is also a recurrent convenor of widely attended classes in Critical Discourse Studies organised within Summer Schools in Methods and Techniques and Virtual Methods Schools of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). More information: https://katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N20-1042