Inari Sakki, D.Soc.Sc., is Professor in Social Psychology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Between 2020-2024 she leads two projects on populism “Populist Attraction” funded by Kone Foundation and ‘Mobilising Populism: its representations, affects and identities’ funded by the Academy of Finland. Inari’s core interests lie in the field of societal and political social psychology, including research on political communication, nationalism, populism, national and European identity, collective memory, social representations, discourse, visual and multimodality. Inari’s work has been published in international peer-reviewed journals in the fields of social and political psychology, nationalism and memory studies, education, qualitative research methods, and discourse studies.
Katarina Pettersson works as associate professor in social psychology at the Swedish School of Social Science at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She holds a PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include nationalist and radical right political rhetoric, hate-speech and political communication and persuasion in the online sphere. Methodologically, her expertise lies in qualitative research methods, particularly in discourse analytical and (visual) rhetorical analysis. Her work has been published in international, peer-reviewed journals in the fields of social psychology, discourse studies, women’s studies, and qualitative research methods. She is lead editor of the book The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Everyday Talk: Reproduction and Contestation in the Nordic Region (forthcoming, 2021, Palgrave Macmillan, with Emma Nortio).
Eemeli Hakoköngäs works as a university lecturer in social psychology at the university of Helsinki. His research focuses on collective memory, social representations of history and politics of history from the social psychological perspective. In addition, his research interests include visual culture studies and visual research methods.
Jari Martikainen works as a university lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences (Social Psychology) at the University of Eastern Finland. He holds a D.Soc.Sc. degree in Social Psychology (University of Eastern Finland, 2020), Ph.D. degree in Art history (University of Jyväskylä, 2011) and M.Ed. degree in Education and Adult Education (University of Joensuu, 2007). His interdisciplinary research combines approaches of social psychology, visual culture studies and pedagogy focusing on social representations, visual representations, visual representations of teachership and leadership, visual and arts-based research methods and pedagogy of art history.
Helena Rovamo is a PhD candidate from the University of Eastern Finland and has been working on this project since 2020. As an early-stage researcher, Helena focuses primarily on the interview material within this project. Helena’s doctoral research studies populism as a social psychological phenomenon that evokes emotions and images. She is interested in the intertwined relation of populist and anti-populist thinking. In general, Helena is excited about ways people build their understanding of the world and their identities as part of social reality.
Prof. Xenia Chryssochoou obtained degrees in Psychology from the University of Athens and the University Rene Descartes-Paris V (PhD 1996). She has worked at different Universities in France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom before moving in 2004 at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences where she is currently Professor of Social and Political Psychology and Director of the Social and Political Psychology lab. Her research interests concern the social psychological aspects of identity construction in liberal societies, issues of migration and multiculturalism and political participation. She has written extensively scientific papers and books and she has directed special issues and collective books on these subjects. She is a member of many international scientific societies and she has been a member of the Executive Committee and Secretary of the European Association of Social Psychology. She is currently vice-President of the Scientific Council of the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (www.elidek.gr).
Nikos Kalampalikis is a Full Professor of social psychology, University Lyon 2 (France). His research interest and publications fit into the field of social thinking, especially social representations in a sociogenetic perspective (anchoring, mythical thought, beliefs, names, gift) throught mixed methods. These past few years, different themes have raised his interest (for ex : national identity, political thought, justice, kinship and gift, health), inspired mainly by research projects and contracts. He is particularly interested in language from a communication point of view and textual analysis. A part of his publications also deals with social psychology history building and narrative.
Christian Staerklé, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
I am a PhD student at the University of Lausanne and I am collaborating on the Mobilising Populism project since November 2021. My main contribution to the study is to collect data in Switzerland and in France. During my academic journey, I have focused my interest on several concepts such as social desirability, negotiation or authoritarianism. In the framework of my thesis, I further explore some themes related to political psychology mainly through qualitative tools and methods (interviews, ethnographic research).
I am Jenni Jaakkola and I am currently working on a Mobilising populism project as a doctoral researcher.
My previous studies further solidified my desire to research contemporary and socially significant topics and to work with multimodal data. I am particularly interested communication, populism, persuasion, political mobilisation, and current societal issues.
In my dissertation, I examine TikTok videos by Finnish right-wing populist politicians and parties, aiming to persuade, mobilise, and influence. I explore what kind of multimodal and rhetorical techniques they use when addressing current societal and political topics, such as immigration or climate change. I explore how they mobilise supporters and what kind of image they construct of themselves, their supporters and political opponents. I also examine how TikTok users share political messages on their own accounts and engage in societal discussions.