Authoritarian populism and structural limitations on journalism in selected European countries

A comparative article on the structural limitations of authoritarian populism on journalistic practices in Eastern and Central Europe will soon be published in Journalism Studies journal. The article is an outcome of a group research conducted by the Popback project members drawing its findings from more than 80 in-depth interviews with journalists from Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and Turkey. In the article, the authors underline three authoritarian strategies acting as structural limitations on journalism: the (ab)use of institutional power to deepen party polarization in political processes and in the media field, numerous populist interventions in ownership structures and the strategic (ab)use of the digitalization process in the journalistic field. The article on comparative aspects of establishing and retaining a populist hegemony is freely available online and will remain freely available after its final print publication in the journal.