Psychology OppAttune Full-time PhD Studentship – Everyday Extremism.

Democracies and the European project are under threat by extremism and lack of political and social dialogue. Existential insecurities arising out of economic and refugee-related crises have been exacerbated by Covid-19 to create re-bordering e.g., xenophobic-nationalism and re-shoring e.g., the localisation of production. Oppositional worldviews, narratives and dissensus within public debate are all vital to a functioning democracy. However destructive polarisation of oppositional us/them logic is at the core of the rise of extremist narratives. Disruptive actors polarise oppositional logic using disinformation, emotions, hot cognitions, conspiracy theories and mistrust to create new forms of direct action. This direct action is understood to many as direct democracy. This direct action cultivates unlikely coalitions creating attractive alternative on-line/off-line worlds which spread extreme narratives into the mainstream via deep rooted sociological and historical pathways. OppAttune is a new Horizon-Europe project that will track, attune and limit extreme narratives to foreground EU transnational freedoms and multilateralism. Specifically, it will track the evolution of oppositional extreme ideologies and protectionist decision-making, develop an innovative attunement model and tests a series of interventions at the national and transnational levels which limit the spread of extremism. OppAttune revitalises trust in key democratic institutions, promoting transnational freedoms and multilateralism.  

The PhD will examine (i) the influence of identifications and narratives on the evolution of everyday extremism (ii) the factors which influence political decision-making amongst citizens and publics when engaged in political dialogue within Europe and beyond. This innovative PhD studentship will involve the creation of a set of films as well as contributing findings and analysis to the building of an Attunement Model. It will require significant public-facing work as well as knowledge of the wider social landscape regarding social media (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram & TikTok, etc.).

The PhD is supervised by Professor Kesi Mahendran (Open University) and Dr Evangelos Ntontis (Open University).

For pre-submission enquiries, prospective applicants may write to Professor Kesi Mahendran (kesi.mahendran@open.ac.uk) and Dr Evangelos Ntontis (evangelos.ntontis@open.ac.uk)