Date/Time: Tuesday, December 8, 2026 / 18:00-19:30 (CET)
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Chair & Contributor
“Manufacturing Political Outrage: Disinformation, Propaganda, and Digital Populism in Portugal,” by Dr. Ana Filipa Joaquim (Director of the ECPS Digital Populism Research Program, Adjunct Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre, Portugal).
Speakers
“Curating the Self in Polarized Digital Spaces: Social Media, Political Perceptions, and Youth Engagement,” by Dr. Catharina Vale (Senior Consultant in international cooperation working at the intersection of public affairs, institutional strategy, and sustainability governance).
“The Politics of Affect and Identification: Discourse, Antagonism, and Brazil’s Presidential Elections,” by Dr. Bianca Alighieri Luz Monteiro (Discourse Analyst and Journalist; University of Stavanger (PhD).)
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Panel Overview
Digital political communication presents a central democratic tension. Emotionally charged populist messages may foster visibility, political identification, and public engagement, while polarized information environments can also encourage selective exposure, conversational restraint, or withdrawal. This panel explores how political outrage is strategically produced, discursively articulated, and negotiated in everyday digital practices.
Drawing on research from Portugal and Brazil, the discussion brings together three complementary analytical perspectives. Dr. Ana Filipa Joaquim examines the construction of political indignation through disinformation, propaganda, and populist political marketing, with particular attention to the Portuguese party CHEGA. Dr. Catharina Vale investigates the relationship between social media, political perceptions, polarization, and young people’s practices of self-curation, including decisions about what to encounter, share, or silence. Dr. Bianca Alighieri Luz Monteiroexplores how affect, identification, and antagonism are constituted through political discourse, drawing on discourse theory, psychoanalytic political theory, and social semiosis in the context of Brazil’s 2022 and 2026 presidential elections.
Together, these contributions consider the connections and tensions between political mobilization and individual agency. The panel asks how outrage acquires political meaning, how emotionally resonant narratives shape collective identification, and how citizens respond to contested political information. Rather than assuming uniform effects or a direct causal progression from polarization to disengagement, it foregrounds the importance of sociopolitical context, mediated discourse, and differentiated forms of democratic participation.
Brief Biographies
Dr. Ana Filipa Joaquim
Ana Filipa Joaquim is a researcher and higher education lecturer whose work focuses on digital populism, political communication, disinformation, propaganda, political marketing, media literacy, and artificial intelligence in communication. She holds a PhD in Global Studies from NOVA University Lisbon. Her doctoral research examined the strategic use of disinformation in radical-right populist political marketing, focusing on the Portuguese party CHEGA across the 2019, 2022, and 2024 legislative elections.
Her current research extends this work through longitudinal and comparative approaches, including the 2025 electoral cycle and wider European cases. She teaches in Portuguese higher education and is the author of The Age of Digital Populism: How Disinformation and Propaganda Are Transforming Politics. Her contribution to this panel considers the ways in which political actors construct indignation and antagonistic identities through propaganda and platform-mediated communication.
Dr. Catharina Vale
Catharina Vale holds a PhD in Communication Sciences from Universidade Católica Portuguesa, awarded magna cum laude, a master’s degree in Intercultural Education from Freie Universität Berlin, and an MBA in Corporate Communication. Her research focuses on social media, political communication, interculturality, and youth, particularly the relationships between polarization, political perceptions, and the curation of digital experience.
She has more than 20 years of experience in strategic communication for international cooperation, including work with the United Nations, GIZ, the International Climate Initiative (IKI), and the Brazilian government. Her writing seeks to connect research and professional practice through accessible, journalistic language, building bridges between academia, public policy, and everyday life. Her panel contribution examines how individuals, especially younger users, negotiate political content and participation through self-curation in polarized digital environments.
Dr. Bianca Luz Monteiro
Bianca Alighieri Luz Monteiro is a Brazilian journalist and discourse analyst based in Texas, United States. She holds a PhD in Social Science and an MSc in Energy, Environment and Society from the University of Stavanger, Norway, as well as an MA in Media Processes from Unisinos, Brazil. Before entering academic research, she spent more than a decade working in Brazilian journalism and media, including the editing of consumer magazines and digital content.
Her research combines Essex School discourse theory, psychoanalytic political theory, and Eliseo Verón’s theory of social semiosis to examine affect, political identification, and antagonism, with particular attention to Brazil’s 2022 and 2026 presidential elections. She is affiliated with the CEL research group (Political and Electoral Discourses) at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) and works as an independent consultant in discourse audit. Her contribution explores the discursive and affective processes through which political narratives construct belonging and opposition.
