Global Populism: Its Roots in Media and Religion| The Ghosts in the Machine of Contemporary Scholarship on Media and Communication—Afterword

Abstract

This brief article examines some of the intersections between racial and religious commitments in many manifestations of populism. Using the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion in Dobbs to frame some of the stakes of this debate, I ask us to think about a few of the ways in which race and religion, far from being “primitive” forms of social connection transcended by the “modern” subject, continue to configure and constitute the fault lines of our political debates. The piece asks communication and media scholars to keep religion and race in mind as they analyze our contemporary political moment.