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Inspires a passion for knowledge and growth.
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About Elena
Dr. Elena Block serves as Senior Lecturer in Strategic Communication/Public Relations in the School of Communication and Arts within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Queensland. She earned her PhD in Political Communication from The University of Queensland and an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to her academic career, Block had an extensive professional background as a journalist, media relations executive, and public affairs specialist. Her research centers on two primary strands: populist communication and the emergence of disruptive, uncivil, and divisive discourses that challenge political dialogue and modern democracy, as well as the influence of virtual and human influencers compared to traditional strategic communication, government public relations, and propaganda. Key interests include political communication, strategic communication, populist styles, civility in society, the mediatisation of politics, CGI and virtual influencers, pandemic communication, and strategic silence.
Block's PhD thesis, completed in 2013, examined Hugo Chávez's political communication style through a case study of Venezuelan media from 1997 to 2007, highlighting mimetisation as a participatory form of populism. She has authored influential books, including Political Communication and Leadership: Mimetisation, Hugo Chavez and the Construction of Power and Identity (Routledge, 2015) and Discursive Disruption, Populist Communication and Democracy: The Cases of Hugo Chávez and Donald J. Trump (Routledge, 2022). Notable journal articles comprise 'The Populist Communication Style: Toward a Critical Framework' with R. Negrine (International Journal of Communication, 2017), 'A Culturalist Approach to the Concept of the Mediatization of Politics: The Age of “Media Hegemony”' (Communication Theory, 2013), 'Discordant storytelling, “honest fakery”, identity peddling: How uncanny CGI characters are jamming public relations and influencer practices' with R. Lovegrove (Public Relations Inquiry, 2021), and 'When communist propaganda meets western public relations: Examining Vietnam’s government pandemic communication' with T. L. Le (Public Relations Inquiry, 2024). Additional contributions include book chapters such as 'The Latin American political discourse' in The Routledge Handbook of Political Communication in Ibero-America (2024) and supervision of PhD projects on crisis communication, electoral discourse, and environmental governance. Recognized as an expert, she provides commentary on populism, political communication, and strategic communication.
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