Chapter 2

A dialogue on populism?

Most works on populism framed in a discourse-analytic perspective focus on the features of populist discourse itself, contributing greatly to the understanding of the phenomenon. However, a full understanding of populism should also consider the ways in which notions of populism are constructed, negotiated, reproduced, and popularised in public discourse, as this contributes to forming public opinion at large and people’s responses to populism itself. For this reason, the chapter addresses discourses about populism, with a focus on editorials dealing with Brexit in the British and Italian press. Although their position of supremacy in orienting public opinion has been partly mined by talk shows, blogs, and social media at large, opinion pieces remain one of the most important sites in which intellectuals (generally senior journalists) publicly share their views trying at the same time to influence the opinion of the readers. Based on an original framework integrating categories from critical discourse studies, argumentation theory, and the study of heteroglossia/dialogism, the analysis focuses on the ways in which editorialists define and evaluate populism and populists, the argumentative topoi they employ to support their standpoints, and whether and how they engage alternative viewpoints. In our view, all these aspects concur to expand or reduce the space of dialogue created by the text, and hence, we claim, the ability of the readers to feel included, and see their positions represented, in the broader discussion. The risk is that if no dialogue is opened at all with the people who uphold populist views, intellectual discourse will fail to involve them as interlocutors in a critical discussion, thus making them more receptive (or vulnerable) to populist propaganda.