The Illiberal Turn? News Consumption, Polarization and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, 2019-2020

Stetka, Vaclav and Mihelj, Sabina and Toth, Fanni and Kondor, Katherine (2024). The Illiberal Turn? News Consumption, Polarization and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, 2019-2020. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-855088

Recent years have seen worrying political developments across both old and new democracies, ranging from the rise of populist leaders and dwindling support for democratic rule to the growing polarization of public opinion, evident in the stark divergence of political attitudes among both political elites and the general electorate. Many of these transformations have been linked to changes in information environments, and specifically to the growth of social media and digital platforms, which have given unprecedented visibility to populist rhetoric and hate speech, facilitated the spreading of misinformation, and allegedly encouraged the formation of ideological 'echo chambers'. According to many commentators, these developments contribute to the erosion of the public sphere, particularly in light of the gradual weakening of the role of professional, legacy news media organizations as primary providers of political information. With the proliferation of various "alternative", hyperpartisan online news sources whose content gets amplified via social media, unverified information, unchecked claims and fringe opinions spread virally and get exploited by populist actors and movements.
While these tendencies currently pose challenges to democracies across the world, their impact is particularly detrimental in countries that have a shorter history of democratic development and where democratic institutions are more fragile. This is the case in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), a region that has recently experienced an unprecedented decline in the quality of democracy, a resurgence of illiberal nationalism, and a shift towards authoritarian forms of government. These troublesome developments are arguably threatening to reverse the process of post-1989 transition following the fall of communism. This makes the research into the relationship between media use, political attitudes and behaviour, and popular support for democracy in CEE particularly topical - especially given the fact that systematic research into these issues has so far been limited largely to the U.S. and Western Europe.
The ambition of this project is therefore to fill this gap, and to carry out the first-ever systematic, comparative study of news consumption and political polarization in Central and Eastern Europe, at a key point in time when the region is undergoing dramatic changes. This is achieved by means of a comparative study of news consumption an political attitudes, using a novel multi-method analytical framework that combines survey data, digital tracking of media consumption, as well as media diaries and qualitative interviews with audiences in four CEE countries. While empirically focused on CEE, the project also makes a key contribution to general debates on political polarization, populism, nationalism and related phenomena (a) by clarifying the role of the changing media environment in these phenomena, and (b) by pioneering a new multi-method comparative framework that can be adapted for similar research elsewhere in the world.
Given the urgent nature of developments in CEE, the project also includes a significant impact component. We have collaborated with several CEE-based and pan-European organizations and associations representing media regulators and journalists, dedicated to the promotion of media literacy, media pluralism and freedom. Through designated activities with these partners we seek to influence both professional and public debate concerning the political impact of the changing news environment in CEE, and contribute to the development of regulatory frameworks, professional standards and civil society activities designed to counter the growth of media partisanship and the spreading of disinformation and "fake news" via online media channels.

Data description (abstract)

The Illiberal Turn project aims to carry out the first-ever systematic, comparative study of news consumption and political polarization in Central and Eastern Europe, at a key point in time when the region is undergoing dramatic changes. The project employs comparative study of news consumption and political attitudes, using a novel multi-method analytical framework that combines survey data, media diaries, and qualitative interviews with audiences in four CEE countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Serbia.
The quantitative element of the project involved a longitudinal and a comparative study. The longitudinal study was conducted during the European Parliament election campaign in May 2019 in the Czech Republic, and is comprised of digital tracking of news consumption, as well as pre-and post-election population surveys, which collect data about peoples’ media consumption habits, perceptions of the EU, general political attitudes and political participation, including voting. The comparative study consists of a population survey conducted between November 2019 and January 2020 in four countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Serbia. These questionnaires collect data about peoples’ a) sources of news and patterns of news consumption, as well as media bias perceptions; and b) political attitudes, support for populist and right-wing arguments, support for (liberal) democratic values, trust in democratic institutions, and political participation, including voting. The quantitative data uploaded here includes the two datasets (one for the longitudinal study and one for the comparative study), as well as their corresponding codebooks and questionnaires.
The qualitative side of the project involved two rounds of qualitative semi-structured interviews, conducted between February and May 2020 (media diaries are not included herein). The first round of interviews, conducted in February and March 2020 in participants' native language, covered topics like every day routines, political engagement, the media environment, and news consumption routines and preferences; these interviews also made use of a 'card exercise', where participants ranked the personal importance of various media types and news sources (not included herein). In the second round of interviews participants were mainly asked to discuss their media diaries and the COVID-19 pandemic. The qualitative data uploaded here includes the Participant Information Sheets and Consent Forms (in English, Czech, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian), First Interview Protocol (all languages), Second Interview Protocol (all languages), and English transcriptions of all first and second round interviews.

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