The aim of the BIP project is to provide an informed and deep understanding of the concepts of populism, Euroscepticism and hate-speech and their impact on EU democracy. By the conclusion of this course, students will possess the capacity to identify global traits and local aspects of populism across Europe, discern between various types of Euroscepticism and to typologies hate-speech that is frequently associated with them and increase on their account.

3 – 7 March 2025

Face-to-face courses which will consist of lectures and class discussions on the following topics:

• Grasping the field: definition of populism, Euroscepticism, nationalism, and hate-speech
• The rules of political propaganda: proposed regulation on transparency of political advertising and to the role of digital intermediaries in combating the spread of illegal content, including disinformation and hate speech, according to the Digital Services Act.
• The analysis of communication flows during European election campaigns, both from the point of view of the communication produced by leaders and candidates and from the point of view of media coverage. 
• The discursive practices of right-wing extremism in social networks (Twitter and Instagram) within the general framework of Social Media-CDS
• Anti-gender politics and radical right populism: An analysis of the entanglement between anti-gender politics and radical right populism, comprising country case studies that explore both the actors and narratives within political parties, media, civil society, and religious entities (as chosen by the students)
• Manipulation techniques in the digital environment (cognitive hacking, social hacking, para-social hacking, symbolic actions, disinformation, and fake news, counterfeiting and information leakage, "Potemkin villages" type evidence, mistaken identities, bots, "puppets", botnets and cyborgs, trolling and flaming, humor and memes, malicious rhetoric, etc.)

30 January - 27 February 2025

• 30 January - Introduction - Adriana Ștefănel
• 6 February -  Populism, Euroscepticism and hate speech as challenges to democracy - Adriana Ștefănel
• 13 February - Analysis of communication flows during European election campaigns - Christian Ruggiero
• 20 February - Regulation on transparency of political advertising and to the role of digital intermediaries in combating the spread of illegal content - Maria Romana Allegri 
• 27 February - Hate speech, honour right and liability in case of damages referred to fake news - Sebastian Lopez Maza and Gemma Minero Alejandre