Authoritarian leaders are good at subverting democracy, but unless they are absolute dictators they still often have to worry about winning elections. The last few years in Europe have seen a rise in the number of authoritarian populists who rely on winning mass support among ordinary citizens - as opposed to stealing votes.
In some cases, they win with the help of successful or populist policies. In Hungary, for example, despite allegations of vote-rigging in the April 2022 election, Viktor Orbán's victory can be largely attributed to voter support for his government's popular economic and social programs.
However, right-wing populist authoritarians also win elections when their performance is not so positive. In Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan governed the country during a time of record inflation exceeding 50 percent and a youth unemployment rate of nearly 20 percent, yet 2023 percent of voters voted for him in the May 52 elections.
It is similar in many countries governed by authoritarian populists. And the key reason for their survival in power is often their careful influence on the news media, which allows them to shape the political debate while maintaining the image of a free and democratic media.
On paper, an overview of changes in media ownership over the past two decades in countries controlled by populist governments, such as Hungary and Turkey, paints an encouraging picture in which some opposition media may have disappeared, but others are still emerging in competition with government-aligned media. .
Nevertheless, a deeper insight reveals an interesting structural characteristic of media ownership networks in authoritarian populist countries. Our latest research in Austria, Turkey and Slovenia - all of which at one point in the past two decades had governments with authoritarian populist tendencies - shows that the structure of media ownership allows pro-government media to dominate public news discourse.
For example, in Hungary, the Central European Press and Medias Foundation (Kesma) is a huge right-wing media consortium that controls more than 500 national and local media houses. Kesma was founded in 2018, when most private media owners close to the government transferred their ownership rights to this foundation, which consists of a board of trustees full of Orbán supporters close to the ruling party.
Authoritarian populists do not seek to completely exclude opposition actors, on the contrary, they rely on their existence, which allows them to accuse and criticize them.
In Hungary, the voice of the opposition media is still heard - especially on the Internet. However, in reality, state funds and a large part of marketing go towards pro-government media. As a result, independent media are in an unenviable financial position. Public services and Hungary's main news agency are also under control and focus on a pro-government agenda.
A fact-finding mission to Hungary in December 2019 by several journalist organizations found that Kesma has become a key instrument for the government's "coordination of content through a pro-government media empire".
Similarly in Turkey, Dogan Media Group, which owns some of the biggest media in Turkey including the widely read newspapers "Hurijet" and "Milijet" and the largest tabloid "Posta" as well as the television channel CNN Turk - was sold piece by piece to Demiroren. to the group. The Demiroren family is a close ally of Erdogan and the ruling AKP.
Although at first glance it may seem contradictory, the way in which the media is organized in some authoritarian countries depends to some extent on the existence of certain opposition media.
Authoritarian populist governments are to be expected to be more like totalitarian regimes, which stop at nothing to silence those who disagree with them. This was the strategy of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin.
But actually if you allow opposition voices to coexist alongside dominant media organizations then it is harder for international media freedom bodies like Reporters Without Borders and watchdog agencies like Amnesty International to criticize the regime for its lack of pluralism.
It is also convenient for authoritarian regimes to set up an "us vs. them" situation, in which "they" can be smeared and ridiculed by the pro-regime media.
In Hungary, for example - in a broader strategy to discredit independent media - pro-government media have launched a smear campaign against independent media outlets established thanks to international grants. They call them "dollar media" and accuse them of serving foreign interests.
This system known as "competitive authoritarianism" maintains the appearance of democracy through electoral and market competition, despite the fact that in reality it is all a sham.
Authoritarian populists do not seek to completely exclude opposition actors, on the contrary, they rely on their existence, which allows them to accuse and criticize them. However, in a regime where power is manipulated to favor voices that carry the regime's message, the opposition viewpoint is stifled.
Populist leaders often complain about the "leftist" or "liberal" bias of the media. This allows them to present their enemies as targets for their supporters.
For example, at a press conference in 2019 - from which he excluded most of the media that did not support his government - Orbán complained that most of the media was "left-liberal", adding: "As soon as I stand up, I know that today I will be alone against everyone ".
Given the dominance of the media supporting his party, this statement is laughable. However, Hungary now has a few strong enough voices to make the opposition's ideas heard. Therefore, authoritarian populists do have an interest in preserving a certain level of pluralism - as long as it does not threaten the government's dominance in public discourse.
In terms of democracy and its defenders, this means that people should be careful and not jump to conclusions about media pluralism based solely on measuring the concentration of media ownership.
Depending on the structure of the ownership network, a populist authoritarian government does not have to concentrate media ownership in the hands of just one state-linked media group. It can allow the voices of dissidents to shout from the margins - because, as leaders like Erdogan and Orban well know - hardly anyone listens to them.
Translation: N. Bogetić
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