Delegitimizing the media?

Abstract

A growing literature on the impact of “fake news“ accusations on legacy news outlets suggests that the use of this term is part of a much larger trend of increased and delegitimizing media criticism by political actors. However, so far, there is very little empirical evidence on how prevailing politicians’ delegitimizing media criticism really is and under which conditions it occurs. To fill these gaps, we present results of a content analysis of media-related Facebook postings by Austrian and German politicians in 2017 (N = 2,921). The results suggest that media criticism, in general, is actually rare and that about half of it can be described as delegitimizing (i.e., characterized by incivility or absence of argumentation). Most often, media criticism is used by populist politicians, who accuse “the media” in general of bias and falsehoods.

How Politicians’ Attacks on Science Communication Influence Public Perceptions of Journalists and Scientists

“…Of course, criticism of science and journalism is not destructive per se; it is even necessary to ensure that these institutions fulfill their democratic functions (e.g., Wyatt, 2018). However, many political actors increasingly discredit science and media strategically to undermine narratives that contradict their political agenda (Corbyn, 2019;Druckman, 2017;Egelhofer et al, 2021). While politicians' criticism of science or media is nothing new (Oreskes & Conway, 2011;Watts et al, 1999), social media enable the dissemination of attacks that otherwise would not have passed through journalistic gatekeeping.…”

“…While politicians' criticism of science or media is nothing new (Oreskes & Conway, 2011;Watts et al, 1999), social media enable the dissemination of attacks that otherwise would not have passed through journalistic gatekeeping. Especially populist politicians frequently use social media to spread anti-media and anti-science criticism and highlight their opposition to elite institutions (Egelhofer et al, 2021;Engesser et al, 2017;Hameleers & Van der Meer, 2021).…”

“…Political actors regularly attack media and science when it contradicts their political agenda (Druckman, 2017;Krämer & Klingler, 2020;Smith, 2010), frequently portraying them as a source of "fake news" and disinformation. This disinformation discourse is particularly popular among populist politicians, who argue that scientists and journalists are part of an "evil elite," deliberately misleading the public (Egelhofer et al, 2021;Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019;Hameleers & Van der Meer, 2021;Mede & Schäfer, 2020). In the context of decreasing trust in science and journalism and growing online hostility towards experts, this type of discourse is highly concerning and has been characterized as "one of the most important challenges to science communication today" (Krämer & Klingler, 2020, p. 254).…”

My Voters Should See This! What News Items Are Shared by Politicians on Facebook?

“…Turning to the third actor group, we observe that political actors (i.e., candidates or parties) have been increasingly influential in the dissemination of political information, especially during election times (Dimitrova and Matthes 2018). While various recent studies investigate content created and shared by political actors on social media platforms themselves (Egelhofer et al 2021; Ernst et al 2017; Heidenreich et al 2022; Magin et al 2017), we still know relatively little about general patterns regarding content from external pages that are shared by political actors on social media, especially when it comes to news content.…”

Undermining the legitimacy of the news media: How Swedish members of parliament use Twitter to criticise the news media

“…At the same time, recent developments suggest that news media have increasingly become the target of politically motivated attacks seeking to undermine trust in news media. The most famous example is former American president, Donald Trump, who repeatedly accuses the news media of providing "fake news" and being "an enemy of the people" (Carlson et al, 2021;Meeks, 2020), but there are numerous other examples from countries such as Australia (Farhall et al, 2019;Wright, 2021) and Germany (Egelhofer et al, 2021;Koliska & Assmann, 2021), not to mention different semi-democratic and authoritarian countries (Solis & Sagarzazu, 2020;Waisbord & Amado, 2017).…”