FAR-RIGHT ACTIVISM ON CROATIAN MAINSTREAM NEWS PORTALS: CONTRIBUTING TO (AND CHANGING) THE PUBLIC DEBATE ON THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Martina Topic, Marija Geiger Zeman, Zdenko Zeman, Mirela Holy

DOI Number
https://doi.org/10.22190/FUPSPH2203113Т
First page
113
Last page
134

Abstract


This paper analyses online user comments on two mainstream Croatian portals, Index.hr and 24sata.hr regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, global conspiracies, and fake news in the context of decreasing media trust. Three-tier coding was conducted on 12.910 comments (2.194 from the portal 24 sata and 10.716 from the portal index.hr) and a thematic analysis was carried out. The findings showed that the main themes capture global conspiracy theories, including fascism as one of the main themes, as well as a lack of belief in the reality of the pandemic and negative views of the mainstream media seen as intertwined with the Government and as promoting one-sided views. Since the findings were unexpected, particularly regarding the extensive criticism of the media, and due to a large amount of conspiracy-related content on two portals neither of which is normally associated with the far right, an abductive analysis was conducted. The results revealed that the majority of content in the user comments regarding fascism and slavery as features of the COVID-19 policy in Croatia was posted either by a far-right political party (on Index.hr) or two unidentified users (on 24sata.hr) (likely far-right activists), and in both cases, comments were copy-pasted, including grammar mistakes. This signals an attempt of the far right in Croatia to not just contribute to but also manipulate public opinion and debates as well as give a false impression to an inattentive reader of the views of the Croatian public regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keywords

audience, fake news, post-truth, Croatia, public opinion, media trust, far-right activism, manipulation, COVID-19 pandemic, coronavirus, news portals, conspiracy, online behaviour

Full Text:

PDF

References


Ahmed, Wasim, Josep Vidal-Alaball, Joseph Downing and Francesc López Segui. “COVID-19 and the 5G Conspiracy Theory: Social Network Analysis of Twitter Data”. Journal of Medical Internet Research 22, 5 (2020): 1–14.

Braun, Virginia and Victoria Clarke. “Using thematic analysis in psychology”. Qualitative Research in Psychology 3, 2 (2006): 77–101.

Bufacchi, Vittorio “Truth, lies and tweets: A Consensus Theory of Post-Truth”. Philosophy and Social Criticism 47, 3 (2021): 347–361.

Campa, Riccardo. “Post-Truth. La lezione dimenticata della sociologia della conoscenza”. Orbis Idearum 4, 1 (2016): 97–115.

Campion-Vincent, Véronique. “From Evil Others to Evil Elites: A Dominant Pattern in Conspiracy Theories Today”. In Rumor Mills: The Social Impact of Rumor and Legend, edited by Gary Alan Fine, Véronique Campion-Vincent and Chip Heath, 103–122. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2005.

Delanty, Gerard. “Introduction: The Pandemic in Historical and Global Context”. In Pandemics, Politics, and Society, edited by Gerard Delanty, 1–21. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2021.

Duhaček, Gordan. “Sve više medija ukida komentare čitatelja, ne mogu se nositi s mržnjom”. tportal.hr, August 21, 2016. Accessed October 26, 2022, https://www.tportal.hr/vijesti/clanak/sve-vise-medija-ukida-komentare-citatelja-ne-mogu-se-nositi-s-mrznjom-20160819.

Ezadar. “Tajne uplate prije izbora: Matija Babić od Bandića primio 489.000 kn za PR”, January 27, 2014. Accessed October 29, 2022, https://ezadar.net.hr/dogadaji/2189597/tajne-uplate-prije-izbora-matija-babic-od-bandica-primio-489000-kn-za-pr/.

Fuller, Steve. “Sociology as the Post-Truth Science”. British Sociological Association, 2017. Accessed October 23, 2022, https://www.britsoc.co.uk/about/latest-news/2017/august/sociology-as-the-post-truth-science/.

Fridlund, Patrik. “Post-truth Politics, Performatives and the Force”. Jus Cogens 2 (2020): 215–235.

Gardiner, Becky, Mahana Mansfield, Ian Anderson, Josh Holder, Daan Louter and Monica Ulmanu. “The Dark Side of Guardian Comments”. The Guardian, April 12, 2016. Accessed October 26, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/12/the-dark-side-of-guardian-comments.

Harambam, Jaron, Kamile Grusauskaite and Lars de Wildt. “Poly-truth, or the limits of pluralism: Popular debates on conspiracy theories in a post-truth era”. Public Understanding of Science 31, 6 (2022): 784–798.

Harjuniemi, Timo. “Post-truth, fake news and the liberal ˈregime of truthˈ – The double movement between Lippmann and Hayek”. European Journal of Communication 37, 3 (2022): 269–283.

HR portal. Accessed October 26, 2022. https://www.hrportali.com/.

Index.hr. “Po čemu zaključujemo da će Josipović biti dobar predsjednik?”, May 12, 2016. Accessed October 29, 2022, https://www.index.hr/vijesti/clanak/po-cemu-zakljucujemo-da-ce-josipovic-biti-dobar-predsjednik/469090.aspx.

Iyengar, Shanto and Douglas S. Massey. “Scientific communication in a post-truth society”. PNAS 116, 16 (2019): 7656–7661.

Kanižaj, Igor. “Kako se koristiti medijima a da oni ne koriste vas?”. Hagio.hr, January 16, 2020. Accessed October 29, 2020, https://hagio.hr/hagio-info/povjerenje-u-medije/.

Kanižaj, Igor and Božo Skoko. “Mitovi i istine o novinarskoj profesiji - imidž novinara u hrvatskoj javnosti”. Medijske studije 1, 1–2 (2010): 20-39.

Kutscher, Sabrina Kamala. “Fake News and the Illusion of Truth: The Influence of Media on German Political Discourse in the Wake of COVID-19”. Sortuz: Oñati Journal of Emergent Socio-Legal Studies 11, 2 (2022): 142–169.

Lapadat, Judith. “Thematic analysis”. In Encyclopedia of case study research, edited by Albert Mills, Gabrielle Durepos and Elden Wiebe, E., 926–928. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2010.

Law on Electronic Media (Zakon o elektroničkim medijima). Narodne novine 111/2021. Accessed October 25, 2022. https://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeni/2021_10_111_1942.html.

Livingstone, Sonia. “Audience Research at the Crossroads: the ˈImplied audienceˈ in Media and Cultural Theory”. Journal of Cultural Studies 1, 2 (1998): 193–217. Accessed October 29, 2022, http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/392/.

Luo, Han, Meng Cai and Ying Cui. “Spread of Misinformation in Social Networks: Analysis Based on Weibo Tweets”. Security and Communication Networks (2021): 1–23.

Malcolm, Dominic. “Post-Truth Society? An Eliasian Sociological Analysis of Knowledge in the 21st Century”. Sociology 55, 6 (2021): 1063–1079.

Melki, Jad, Hani Tamim, Dima Hadid, Maha Makki, Jana El Amine and Eveline Hitti. “Mitigating infodemics: The relationship between new exposure and trust and belief in COVID-19 fake news and social media spreading”. PLoS ONE 16, 6 (2021): 1–13.

Molina, Maria D., S. Shyam Sundar, Thai Le and Dongwon Lee. “ˈFake Newsˈ Is Not Simply False Information: A Concept Explication and Taxonomy of Online Content”. American Behavioral Scientist 65, 2 (2021): 180–212.

Mooney, Hailey. “ˈFake Newsˈ and the Sociological Imagination: Theory Informs Practise”. Loex Quarterly 44, 4 (2018): 4–16, Article 3. Accessed October 23, 2022, https://commons.emich.edu/loexquarterly/vol44/iss4/3.

Morse, Janice M. and Lyn, Richards. Readme First for a User's Guide to Qualitative Methods. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage, 2002.

Oxford English Dictionary. n.d. “Word of the Year 2016”. Accessed October 25, 2022, https://languages.oup.com/word-of-the-year/2016/.

Peren Arin, Kerim, Juan A. Lacomba, Francisco Lagos, Deni Mazrekaj and Marcel Thum. Misperceptions and Fake News during the Covid-19 Pandemic. CESifo Working Paper No. 9066, Munich: CESifo, 2021. Accessed November 2, 2022, https://www.cesifo.org/en/publications/2021/working-paper/misperceptions-and-fake-news-during-covid-19-pandemic.

Parmet, Wendy L. and Paul, Jeremy. “COVID-19: The First Posttruth Pandemic”. American Journal of Public Health 110, 7 (2020): 945–946.

Ravenelle, Alexandrea J., Abigail Newell and Ken Cai Kowalski. “ˈThe Looming, Crazy Stalker Coronavirusˈ: Fear Mongering, Fake News, and the Diffusion of Distrust”. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 7 (2021): 1–13.

Robie, David and Sri Krishnamurthi. “The sociology of a pandemic. Countering a COVID ˈdisinfodemicˈ with a campus media initiative”. Pacific Journalism Review 26, 2 (2020): 179–200.

Romer, Daniel and Kathleen Hall Jamieson. “Patterns of Media Use, Strength of Belief in COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories, and the Prevention of COVID-19 From March to July 2020 in the United States: Survey Study”. Journal of Medical Internet Research 23, 4 (2021).

Silveira Pereira, Pedro, Antonio da Silva Silveira and Antonio Pereira. “Disinformation and Conspiracy Theories in the Age of COVID-19”. Frontiers in Sociology 5 (2020): 1–14.

Tavory, Iddo and Stefan Timmermans. “A Pragmatist Approach to Causality in Ethnography”. American Journal of Sociology 119, 3 (2013): 682–714.

Tavory, Iddo and Stefan Timmermans. n.d. Abductive Analysis. Accessed November 3, 2022. http://www.abductiveanalysis.com/.

The Constitution of the Republic of Croatia. Accessed November 4, 2022. https://www.zakon.hr/z/94/Ustav-Republike-Hrvatske

Tobitt, Charlotte. “TV newsreaders see biggest fall in trust among UK professions over past year, survey finds”. Press Gazette, November 18, 2020. Accessed November 1, 2022. https://pressgazette.co.uk/tv-newsreaders-journalists-trust-ipsos-mori-survey/.

Topić, Martina and Carmen Bruegmann. “ˈThe Girls at the Deskˈ: Timeless Blokishness in the Newsroom Culture in the British Press?”. Journalism Studies 22, 1 (2021): 77–95.

Večernji list. “Obljetnica velikog prosvjeda za Radio 101: 'Da sam poslušao Tuđmana, bilo bi mrtvih i ranjenih'”, November 21, 2021. Accessed October 29, 2020, https://www.vecernji.hr/showbiz/obljetnica-velikog-prosvjeda-za-radio-101-da-sam-poslusao-tudmana-bilo-bi-mrtvih-i-ranjenih-1540923

Vosoughi, Soroush, Deb Roy and Sinan Aral “The spread of true and false news online”. Science 359, 6380 (2018): 1146–1151.

Wassler, Philipp and Chiara Talarico. “Sociocultural impacts of COVID-19: A social representations perspective”. Tourism Management Perspective 38 (2021), 100813. Accessed October 22, 2022, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221197362100026X.

World Health Organization (WHO). n.d. “Infodemic”. Accessed October 25, 2022. https://www.who.int/health-topics/infodemic#tab=tab_1.

Zeman, Zdenko. Autonomija i odgođena apokalipsa: sociologijske teorije modernosti i modernizacije. Zagreb: Hrvatska sveučilišna naklada, 2004.

Zeman, Zdenko, Marija Geiger Zeman and Martina Topić. “Challenges of the ˈNew Hybrid Ecosystemˈ: Celebrities, Fake News and COVID-19”. In Media and Communication 4, edited by Sead Alić, Marin Milković and Ivana Grabar, 117–143. Zagreb: University North and Centre for Media Philosophy and Research, 2022.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.22190/FUPSPH2203113Т

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


ISSN 1820-8495 (Print)

ISSN 1820-8509 (Online)