TY - JOUR

T1 - Shameless normalization as a result of media control

T2 - The case of Austria

AU - Wodak, Ruth

PY - 2022/11/30

Y1 - 2022/11/30

N2 - Far-right populist parties instrumentalize the media and intervene into processes of mediatization in significantly different ways, depending on socio-political contexts, their position of power, their role in government or opposition and – related to the latter – their specific access to media. In this paper, I focus on one of the many ways propagandistic tools are employed to control the relevant agenda and information being disseminated by both traditional media and online, in other words ‘message control’. Message control illustrates one of many steps of normalization of far-right agenda. The concept of ‘message control’ emerged from the specific propaganda tool developed by the former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and his followers and implies launching and thus controlling select information via weekly press conferences, briefings, personal conversations, back-ground conversations ( Hintergrundgespräche), and text messages, and to financially subsidize only those media that reported favorably about the activities of Kurz’s government. Thus, a new media logic based on favoritism, nepotism, and clientelism was established and normalized. This stands in contrast to Trumpism, which delegitimized all investigative journalism without explicitly attempting to control it. Former US President Donald Trump constitutes rather a prime example of Löwenthal and Guterman’, as he instrumentalized far-right and extreme-right media channels (such as Breitbart or Fox News) and extensively used Twitter to spread systematic disinformation.

AB - Far-right populist parties instrumentalize the media and intervene into processes of mediatization in significantly different ways, depending on socio-political contexts, their position of power, their role in government or opposition and – related to the latter – their specific access to media. In this paper, I focus on one of the many ways propagandistic tools are employed to control the relevant agenda and information being disseminated by both traditional media and online, in other words ‘message control’. Message control illustrates one of many steps of normalization of far-right agenda. The concept of ‘message control’ emerged from the specific propaganda tool developed by the former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and his followers and implies launching and thus controlling select information via weekly press conferences, briefings, personal conversations, back-ground conversations ( Hintergrundgespräche), and text messages, and to financially subsidize only those media that reported favorably about the activities of Kurz’s government. Thus, a new media logic based on favoritism, nepotism, and clientelism was established and normalized. This stands in contrast to Trumpism, which delegitimized all investigative journalism without explicitly attempting to control it. Former US President Donald Trump constitutes rather a prime example of Löwenthal and Guterman’, as he instrumentalized far-right and extreme-right media channels (such as Breitbart or Fox News) and extensively used Twitter to spread systematic disinformation.

KW - Argumentation

KW - discourse-historical approach

KW - ‘arrogance of ignorance’

KW - message control

KW - orchestration

KW - press freedom

KW - propaganda

KW - scape-goating

KW - shameless normalization

KW - Trumpism Orbánism

U2 - 10.1177/09579265221095419

DO - 10.1177/09579265221095419

M3 - Journal article

VL - 33

SP - 788

EP - 804

JO - Discourse and Society

JF - Discourse and Society

SN - 0957-9265

IS - 6

ER -