The dramaturgy of incivility: Political incorrectness and its threat to democratic life

This article examines the transformation of the dramaturgical principles that structure political behaviour in contemporary democracies. It distinguishes between two models of self-presentation: the authenticity model, which privileges self-expression, emotional proximity and the blurring of public and private boundaries − a model consolidated through the rise of television as a dominant medium, and the model of political incorrectness, which emerges in the twenty-first century and radically reconfigures the previous dramaturgical order by enabling incivility, verbal aggression and disregard for democratic norms. This displacement undermines the institutional, moral and epistemic mediations that sustain liberal democratic life. The consolidation of this model is closely linked to the expansion of social media.