Conference Program

Panel submission
Panels: 5.c. Media: The Challenge in the Digital Age
Keywords: fandom, digital governance, populism

Populism, Affective Mediatization, and Digital Governance: Reconfiguring Leadership and Democracy in Europe

Elena Varotto

UCAM UNIVERSITY/SISP MEMBER, Italy; ELE.VAROTTO@GMAIL.COM

This panel addresses a central question: How is political leadership reconfigured in a context marked by polarization, citizen disaffection, and affective mediatization? From the consolidation of Vox to the ascent of Fratelli d’Italia, we witness a mutation of political language where emotional appeals, symbolic enemies, and the aestheticization of leadership play a decisive role. Digital platforms are crucial in this transformation: social media amplify populist messages and enable the creation of affective communities around leaders who increasingly operate as celebrities. Concepts such as political fandom, asymmetric intimacy, and parasocial interaction provide analytical tools to understand how legitimacy is constructed today.

The hypothesis guiding this panel is that contemporary populism is not merely a discursive strategy or a permanent campaign, but also a form of emotional and symbolic participation deeply mediated by spectacle and digital culture. Case studies such as the “Bimbe di Giuseppe Conte” or Giorgia Meloni’s visual narrative on Instagram exemplify this transformation.

At the same time, these dynamics intersect with the fragmentation of digital governance in Europe. The EU’s Digital Services Act represents an ambitious attempt to regulate platforms, protect rights, and ensure algorithmic transparency, yet its effectiveness is constrained by uneven competences, divergent national models, and epistemic vulnerability.

By combining comparative analysis with EU-level governance debates, this panel invites contributions on how populism, affective mediatization, and fragmented regulation converge to challenge democratic quality, public deliberation and social cohesion.

References
Laclau, E. (2005). On Populist Reason.
Chadwick, A. (2017). The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power.
Varotto, E. (forthcoming). Strategic Coherence in Crisis: The EU’s Response to Global Disorder Across Energy and Digital Governance.

This article examines epistemic vulnerability as a structural condition affecting all individuals across the lifespan and argues for its recognition as a critical educational object. Epistemic vulnerability refers to susceptibility to distorted or oversimplified representations of reality, arising from both internal cognitive biases and external narrative ecosystems (Bueter, 2022). We define this concept and distinguish it from other forms of vulnerability, then introduce the Large Ethics Model (LEM) as a comprehensive framework for addressing interpretive distortions, particularly in the context of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (Pisano, Crispni & Rossi, 2025). The LEM integrates the PAIA model of AI risks—Pervasiveness, Autonomy, Invisibility, and Adaptivity—with a multi-stakeholder approach to ethical responsibility, encompassing policymakers, funders, programmers, and users (Pisano, 2025).

We propose that ethics education, grounded in philosophical dialogue and critical literacy, offers the most potent response to these challenges. Empirical evidence from a recent AI & Ethics Literacy pilot study demonstrates that targeted educational interventions can improve ethical awareness, bias recognition, and critical thinking across different ages and educational tracks.

Building on this analysis, we outline a set of good practices through which the epistemic care-giver—performing what is, in essence, a genuinely philosophical task—can intervene operationally on multiple planes (Tronto, 2013). First, on the plane of social sustainability, through the epistemic-representational process of anthropomorphization, understood here in a constructive sense: this means attributing non-neutral intentions to digital platforms, thereby foregrounding the purposes of those who design and fund them, and recognizing as forms of silent enslavement the labour disguised by gamification mechanisms such as likes, comments, and reposts (Casilli, 2021). Second, on the plane of environmental sustainability, by materializing the virtual—revealing that digital space is not ethereal, but grounded in the exploitation of human labour and raw materials, rendered invisible to the end user (Crawford, 2020). Third, by relocating responsibility onto the human agent, supporting arguments that refuse to treat the machine as an autonomous moral agent and instead frame it as a tool of interaction with human beings (Holmes, 2023).

These proposals represent a mode of deploying the virtues of care ethics, triggering a positive paidetic circle in which the moral (epistemic) patient progressively becomes a conscious moral agent, thereby avoiding the perpetuation of disinformation and distorted representations of reality.

We conclude that addressing epistemic vulnerability through lifelong education, guided by frameworks like LEM and enacted through the care-based practices outlined above, is essential to preserving democracy and human agency in an era of pervasive information manipulation. The epistemic care-giver, far from being a marginal figure, emerges as a pivotal actor in the cultivation of critical awareness—one who can translate philosophical inquiry into concrete educational interventions capable of confronting the ethical challenges posed by digital technologies and artificial intelligence.

In the context of socio-cultural transformations driven by the digitalization of communicative processes, schools are increasingly called upon to rethink their role as public spaces for democratic education. Educational communication can no longer be understood as a mere transmission of contents, but rather as a complex pedagogical device that structures educational relationships, participatory processes, and the shared construction of knowledge (Dewey, 1916; Rivoltella, 2012). In everyday classroom practices, this shift often translates into concrete difficulties in sustaining genuinely dialogical and participatory spaces of communication. From this perspective, the quality of communication in school settings becomes a decisive variable for sustaining the educational pact and for enabling the exercise of conscious democratic citizenship (Biesta, 2011).

This paper proposes a re-interpretation of educational communication as a practice of didactic and cultural mediation, capable of supporting processes of inclusion, dialogue, and mutual recognition within educational contexts increasingly shaped by digital languages, hybrid environments, and technological platforms (Rivoltella & Rossi, 2019). Communication is interpreted here as the symbolic infrastructure of educational democracy: it shapes power relations in the classroom, students’ forms of participation, and the conditions for building genuinely inclusive learning communities (Habermas, 1981).

Within this framework, digital environments and emerging technologies – including artificial intelligence systems – redefine modes of interaction, access to knowledge, and the negotiation of meanings, raising new challenges for the educational responsibility of teachers and school institutions (Floridi, 2019; UNESCO, 2023). The risk is that communication may be progressively colonized by algorithmic logics, communicative simplifications, and transmissive models that weaken critical thinking and students’ democratic participation (Selwyn, 2019).

Drawing on contributions from pedagogy, didactics, and communication studies, the paper analyses the school as a laboratory of communicative democracy, in which the quality of communicative practices becomes a condition for the construction of dialogical, equitable, and participatory learning environments (Biesta, 2011; Rivoltella, 2012). This calls for continuous reflective work on teachers’ communicative practices, often taken for granted yet decisive in shaping processes of inclusion and exclusion. Particular attention is paid to how conscious educational communication can counteract phenomena of exclusion, relational fragmentation, and communicative poverty, fostering students’ agency and shared educational responsibility (Rivoltella & Rossi, 2019).

Finally, the contribution argues for the need to renew education for communication in school contexts, understood as a transversal competence for democratic citizenship, capable of integrating critical, ethical, and participatory dimensions. Only through communicative practices oriented towards dialogue, reflexivity, and shared responsibility can the school’s role as a public space for democratic formation be strengthened within the contemporary communicative ecosystem (Dewey, 1916; UNESCO, 2023).

The introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) into schools represents one of the most significant transformations in contemporary education, with profound effects on teaching, learning, and assessment processes. AI does not simply provide new teaching tools; it also helps redefine the organization of knowledge, educational practices, and the very role of those involved, within a broader framework of the digitalization of society and education. Intelligent tutoring systems, educational data analytics, and generative applications promise to support the personalization of learning paths and improve inclusion, in line with a conception of education as an active and democratic experience (Dewey, 1916). From this perspective, schools can become spaces for pedagogical experimentation where intelligent technologies support, rather than replace, teaching mediation processes and the educational relationship.

However, the introduction of AI into schools also raises critical ethical, social, and political questions. The use of data-driven systems entails risks related to privacy protection, surveillance, and student profiling, as well as the potential reproduction or amplification of inequalities through algorithmic biases (Zuboff, 2019). Furthermore, with automation, some cognitive and evaluative functions can reduce the complexity of learning to mere measurable indicators, weakening the critical and reflective dimension of education. Within this framework, it becomes crucial to recover a pedagogy oriented toward emancipation and awareness, capable of training individuals who are not simply users of technologies, but citizens capable of critically questioning the devices that structure the educational experience (Freire, 1970).

Major international organizations have emphasized the need to develop and use AI in a "trustworthy" manner, based on principles of equity, transparency, accountability, and respect for fundamental rights (OECD, 2019; UNESCO, 2021). The European regulatory framework, with the adoption of the Artificial Intelligence Act, also proposes a risk-based approach that has direct implications for education systems, particularly regarding the use of applications with a high impact on student rights and automated decision-making processes (European Union, 2024). These references indicate that the issue of AI in schools cannot be addressed solely in terms of educational innovation but requires educational governance that is attentive to the ethical and democratic dimensions of technology.

The paper therefore proposes considering AI in schools as a lever for renewed digital citizenship, in which education in technology is intertwined with education in democracy. From this perspective, schools are called to become laboratories of critical skills, capable of integrating digital literacy, ethical reflection, and informed participation in social life. Training students and teachers to critically use AI means not only improving the effectiveness of educational processes but also contributing to the construction of a democratic culture capable of consciously governing ongoing technological transformations, preventing them from translating into new forms of inequality or cognitive dependence.

Bildung has historically been a central educational aim in the Nordic countries (Burman, 2014; Sjöström et al., 2017), grounding education in democratic participation, ethical awareness, and the development of autonomous, socially engaged citizens. In today’s post-digital societies, where digital technologies permeate economic, political, and social life, the boundaries between humans and technologies are increasingly blurred (Knox, 2019). We collaborate with digital systems as epistemic partners (Lund & Aagaard, 2020), a dynamic intensified by the rapid diffusion of generative AI (GenAI). These developments challenge democratic education systems to critically reconsider how knowledge is produced, mediated, and valued, and also what it means to be and develop as humans.

Bildung entails understanding oneself as a social and civic actor (Hegel & Elster, 1967), cultivating ethical responsibility, and contributing to democratic development (Kant & Zehbe, 1975). Yet recent decades have seen the diminishing status of Bildung in favour of qualifications, labor-market relevance, and measurable learning outcomes in Nordic curricula (Biesta, 2020; Erstad & Voogt, 2018). This shift risks narrowing education’s democratic and relational dimensions.

GenAI forces a renewed reckoning with these tensions. On the one hand, GenAI destabilizes outcome-focused pedagogies by producing traditional educational artefacts, such as essays, with minimal student engagement. This underscores the need to refocus on learning processes, critical inquiry, and collaborative meaning-making. In doing so, GenAI paradoxically re-opens space for Bildung-oriented educational goals.

On the other hand, GenAI also presents substantive risks to democratic Bildung. Its capacity to generate misinformation and authoritative-sounding but inaccurate content challenges students’ and citizens’ ability to navigate truth, trust, and public discourse. Established models of critical thinking, democratic deliberation, and epistemic agency therefore require re-examination in a technological landscape where information is abundant, ambiguous, and automated.

Teacher education becomes crucial in addressing these democratic and pedagogical challenges. Teacher educators must navigate GenAI’s opportunities and risks while supporting student teachers in cultivating both their own Bildung and Bildung in their future pupils. Teacher educators’ understandings of educational purposes, digital technologies, and democratic responsibility shape how GenAI is integrated, or resisted, within schooling.

This paper presents findings from a reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021) of semi-structured in-depth interviews (Morris, 2015) with 20 teacher educators across five Norwegian teacher education institutions. We ask: How can teacher educators promote Bildung in a world of generative AI?

We explore how these educators understand Bildung today and how they perceive and address the challenges following the rise of GenAI through a discursive approach (Edley, 2001). Our aim is to contribute to a deeper understanding of how to rethink education and democratic responsibility in an AI-driven society.

In contemporary society, characterized by rapid technological transformations, the expansion of digital environments, and the growing influence of Artificial Intelligence, the relationship between education and democracy has become increasingly central to pedagogical and political debate. Digital technologies have profoundly reshaped access to knowledge, forms of social participation, and democratic processes, generating both new opportunities and significant challenges. In this context, schools play a fundamental role in preparing informed, responsible, and active citizens capable of critically understanding the complexity of contemporary society. From a theoretical perspective, democratic education represents an essential dimension of the educational process. Drawing on John Dewey’s pedagogical thought, democracy can be understood not only as a political system but also as a form of associated living grounded in participation, dialogue, and shared responsibility. Education thus becomes the primary means through which democratic values, critical thinking, and civic responsibility are cultivated. Schools are therefore not only institutions for the transmission of knowledge but also environments in which democratic culture is experienced and developed through participation and dialogue. Italian Law no. 92 of 2019, which reintroduced civic education as a compulsory and cross-curricular subject across all school levels, represents a significant pedagogical and normative development. This law constitutes an important educational reform, as it recognizes civic education as a central element in the formation of democratic citizens and assigns schools a key role in promoting constitutional values, social responsibility, and active participation. Particular emphasis is placed on digital citizenship, highlighting the need to develop students’ critical, ethical, and participatory competences in order to navigate digital environments increasingly shaped by algorithmic systems and the influence of Artificial Intelligence. The pedagogical value of Law 92/2019 lies in its capacity to position civic education as a structural component of the school curriculum and as a key instrument of democratic education. By integrating civic, social, and digital dimensions, civic education contributes to the development of critical thinking, ethical responsibility, and active participation, which are essential for democratic life in contemporary societies. In a context marked by the growing pervasiveness of digital technologies and Artificial Intelligence, civic education provides students with the cognitive and ethical tools necessary to understand, critically evaluate, and responsibly engage with ongoing technological transformations. This paper offers a theoretical interpretation of civic education teaching in Italian schools, highlighting the contribution of Law 92/2019 to strengthening democratic education. It argues that civic education represents a fundamental pedagogical response to the challenges posed by digital transformation and Artificial Intelligence, contributing to the formation of citizens capable of conscious, critical, and responsible participation in contemporary societies.