Plenary speakers | Influence, Manipulation, Seduction 3

Charlotte Taylor

Professor of Discourse and Persuasion (University of Sussex)

Charlotte Taylor is Professor Discourse & Persuasion at the University of Sussex. Her research is concerned with how language is used to effect change in our evaluation, understanding and action. Her projects have included analyses of the language of mock politeness, the representations of migration and people who move, the rhetorical functions of water metaphors, and the persuasive use of nostalgia in discourse. She combines the framework of corpus linguistics with (critical) discourse studies and pragmatics and has a long-standing methodological interest in the impact of the researcher on the researched and the role of absence and silence in discourse.

Plenary title: Nostalgia and Persuasion

Abstract

Legitimation lies at the heart of discursive persuasion because, as Van Leeuwen (2007: 93) put it, legitimation essentially “adds the answer, sometimes explicitly, sometimes more obliquely, to the question ‘Why’ – ‘Why should we do this?’ and ‘Why should we do this in this way?’”. In this plenary paper, I discuss nostalgia as a powerful rhetorical device which can orient social actions through a) mythopoetic legitimation, understood as “a form of legitimation through history or, more specifically, through narratives of history that are taken as truth and accepted as canonical stories that are the bedrock of social groupings” (Bennett 2022: 371), and b) affective legitimation which recognises that “emotions are key in the legitimization process, because they condition and prepare the audience to receive proposals and courses of actions. Emotions skew the audience towards accepting and supporting the proposal of the social actor, who has triggered the emotions in the first place” (Reyes 2011: 785). I argue that the power of nostalgia comes from this dual legitimatory function, and the dual nature of nostalgia itself. Existing research on nostalgia is largely split between positive views of the individual nostalgia as a coping mechanism which generates positive affectivity, enhances self-regard and strengthens social bonds (Wildschut et al. 2006), and more negative views relating to the impact of collective nostalgia, as for instance in Smeekes (2015) who finds national nostalgia correlates with out-group prejudice.

References

Bennett, S. 2022. Mythopoetic legitimation and the recontextualisation of Europe’s foundational myth. Journal of Language and Politics 21(2): 370–389. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21070.ben

Reyes, A. 2011. Strategies of legitimization in political discourse: From words to actions. Discourse & Society 22(6): 781–807. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926511419927

Smeekes, A. 2015. National nostalgia: A group-based emotion that benefits the in-group but hampers intergroup relations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations 49: 54–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2015.07.001

Van Leeuwen, T. 2007. Legitimation in discourse and communication. Discourse & Communication 1(1): 91–112. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750481307071986

Wildschut, T., Sedikides, C., Arndt, J., & Routledge, C. D. 2006. Nostalgia: Content, triggers, functions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 91: 975–993. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.5.975

Massimiliano Demata

Professor of English Linguistics (University of Catania)

Massimiliano Demata is Full Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Catania. He has published articles and book chapters on political and media discourse in the UK and the USA, conspiracy theories, computer-mediated communication, the language of populism and discourses of borders, nationalism and immigration. His latest single-authored monograph is Discourses of Nation and the Borders in the USA (Routledge 2022) and in 2023 he co-authored Voices of Supporters. Populist parties, social media and the 2019 European elections(John Benjamins). He co-edited Conspiracy Theory Discourses(John Benjamins 2022) and the Routledge Handbook of Discourse and Disinformation(2024). He has lectured or has been visiting professor in universities in Austria, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, Sweden, the UK and the USA. He is also the Editor of the Journal of Language and Discrimination, published by the University of Toronto Press.

Plenary title: From the Great Replacement to Remigration: The Political Recontextualisation and Legitimation of Conspiracy Discourse

Abstract

Conspiracy theories are often considered false beliefs circulating at the margins of rational political or scientific debate. Yet they have long been regarded as inherently political because of their anti-systemic character and have frequently been exploited by populist parties and leaders (e.g., Bergmann 2025). More recently, however, some have acquired a new political significance as they are transformed and recontextualised within apparently legitimate programmes of political action.

This plenary examines this transformation through the Great Replacement conspiracy theory (Demata 2025b) and its relationship with the growing prominence of ‘remigration’ in European far-right politics. Drawing on a corpus of recent public texts issued by European right-wing parties and politicians, it explores how deliberate demographic substitution is constructed as a key existential problem to which remigration is presented as a reasonable, even necessary, solution. The conspiracy does not disappear: its assumptions are selectively reformulated through seemingly pragmatic language about national survival and demographic management. This shift from conspiratorial diagnosis to political prescription gives exclusionary ethnonationalist objectives the appearance of policy rationality and common sense.

The plenary builds on research into the mainstreaming of far-right narratives (Ekman 2022, Hernández Aguilar 2026, Langer et al. 2026) and on an understanding of conspiracy theories as self-sustaining discourses constructing alternative accounts of social reality (Demata et al. 2022). It investigates how conspiratorial claims are recontextualised within party-political discourse and remediated across media environments. Central to this process is epistemic masquerade (Demata 2025a), through which conspiratorial claims assume the appearance and authority of legitimate knowledge. The talk explores how framing demographic change as an existential threat makes exceptional measures seem defensible, while linguistic moderation obscures continuities with more openly extremist formulations.

Finally, the plenary addresses the relationship between conspiratorial discourse and political violence. Great Replacement narratives have figured in ideological justifications of racist terrorist attacks (Davis 2025). Although their circulation cannot be equated with a direct cause of violence, conspiratorial constructions of threat may facilitate radicalisation and widen the boundaries of politically acceptable exclusion. The danger, I suggest, is not simply that conspiracy theories persuade believers, but that their recontextualisation can make conspiratorial assumptions persuasive within apparently ordinary democratic debate.

References

Bergmann, E. 2025. The strategic exploitation of conspiracy theories by populist leaders. Genealogy 9(2): Article 41. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy9020041

Davis, M. 2025. Violence as method: The “white replacement”, “white genocide”, and “Eurabia” conspiracy theories and the biopolitics of networked violence. Ethnic and Racial Studies 48(3): 426–446. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2024.2304640

Demata, M. 2025a. Fighting (for) truth? Alex Jones, the WHO and the legitimation of conspiracy discourse. M. M. Roslyng, A. Rantasila & A. M. Jönsson (eds), Communicating Science, Climate Change and the Environment in Hybrid Media: Constructed Facts, Contested Truths. Routledge. 91–111. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003479550-8

Demata, M. 2025b. Reconfiguring borders: The role of conspiracy theories in shaping knowledge and information flows in online discourse. A. C. Diener & J. Hagen (eds), Oxford Intersections: Borders. Oxford University Press. n.p. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780198945222.003.0059

Demata, M., Zorzi, V. & Zottola, A. (eds). 2022. Conspiracy Theory Discourses. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.98

Ekman, M. 2022. The great replacement: Strategic mainstreaming of far-right conspiracy claims. Convergence 28(4): 1127–1143. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221091983

Hernández Aguilar, L. M. 2026. Conspiring a conspiracy theory, from Umvolkung to remigration and the Alternative for Germany’s political mobilization of population replacement conspiracy theories. Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics First View: 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1017/rep.2026.10094

Langer, A., Hartleb, F. & Schiebel, C. 2026. Dog-whistle politics in far-right discourse: Analyzing ethnonationalism in Martin Sellner’s book ‘remigration’. European Journal of Political Research First View: 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1475676526101467

Katarina Pettersson

Assistant Professor of Social Psychology (University of Helsinki)

Katarina Pettersson is Assistant Professor of Social Psychology and Academy Research Fellow (2025–2029) at the University of Helsinki. Her research explores how persuasive language shapes political identities, gendered ideologies, and processes of polarization in contemporary societies. She examines right-wing populist rhetoric, anti-feminist discourse, and online hate, with particular attention to how collective identities and moral boundaries are discursively constructed and legitimized. Methodologically, her work draws on critical discursive, rhetorical, and multimodal approaches, combining social psychological theory with fine-grained analysis of language in political speeches, media texts, and digital platforms. Pettersson leads the Research Council of Finland-funded YOPO project on gender polarization among young people, investigating how polarizing narratives circulate across social and digital contexts and how they influence belonging, participation, and democratic engagement. She also directs the MOSH project on urban micro-segregation, examining how everyday spatial and communicative practices reproduce or challenge social divisions.

Plenary title: The Seduction of Victimhood: Persuasion, Identity, and Polarisation

Abstract

How does persuasive language move from influence to polarisation? This talk argues that victimhood can be a powerful persuasive resource because it offers groups innocence, moral authority, and entitlement to act. Rather than treating persuasion primarily as the transmission of arguments, I approach it as identity work accomplished through language.

Drawing on Reicher et al.’s (2008) Social Identity Model of Collective Hate, I trace five processes through which intergroup divisions can escalate: defining an ingroup, defining an outgroup, constructing the outgroup as a threat, representing the ingroup as uniquely good, and representing harm to the outgroup as a virtue.

I illustrate these processes across a discursive ecosystem encompassing political elites, social media influencers, everyday discourse, and radical online communities, drawing particularly on contemporary debates around gender, misogyny, and polarisation. Examples include political rhetoric, manosphere discourse, incel communities, and interviews with young adults.

I argue that persuasion is not simply about changing what people think, but about who they are persuaded to become. Across different levels of discourse, victimhood can transform individual grievances into collective identities, reshape moral boundaries, and make hostility appear reasonable or necessary. The talk illuminates how victimhood can provide a pathway from persuasion to polarisation.

Reference

Reicher, S., Haslam, S. A. & Rath, R. 2008. Making a virtue of evil: A five-step social identity model of the development of collective hate. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2(3): 1313–1344. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00113.x