This essay introduces the theme of the special issue. While elections across the globe today are mediated in the sense of being pervaded by the ambient presence and explicit deployments of varied media, the Indian national elections of 2014 showcase a specific logic of mediated populism that has become globally influential of late. To understand this logic, we examine the contexts and lineages of the present moment of mediated populism, i.e. the wider political-economic dynamics and contexts that shape and embed the Modi phenomenon. We focus on the changing relationship between privatized media across platforms, political elites and conceptions/productions of “the people” that these particular political historical dynamics have effected and enabled.
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