ABSTRACT
The relationship between populism and culture runs very deep, not only as an effect of social causes but also because the transformations of political structures in populist terms are often matched by deformations in populist terms of the public sphere and the cultural processes linked to it. As Jim McCuigan stressed, the theoretical premises of cultural populism can be traced back to the debate that started in the twentieth century with the advent of mass culture and the opposition to elitist culture. This chapter provides a list of some typical traits of cultural populism, such as, cultural polarizations, delegitimization of cultural institutions, glamourization of intellectuals, infotainment, and post-truth. Cultural populism is characterized by a strong delegitimizing and devaluing tendency towards traditional cultural institutions, especially the scientific and academic ones. Post-truth is a cultural operation that serves top-down forms of populism, which artfully use some strategies to strengthen their direct consensus among their popular base.
