Digital Memory and Populism: Introduction

For the Special Section “Digital Memory and Populism,” we invited contributions by academics addressing the uses of digital memory by populists, their supporters, and their opponents online. With the possibility to bypass traditional media and reach networked audiences, populist actors are increasingly active in digital publics to negotiate the role of the past with their supporters while being challenged by their opponents. In this process, personal and collective memories become a contested field in digital discourses on identity, belonging, and political ideology and are used to mobilize for or against populist agendas. The contributions in this Special Section shed light on how digital memory is shared, represented, constructed, and exploited to promote or tackle populism in different contexts and countries.