The power of media is outlined and the effects of mass media on the public opinion and on the parliamentary election. In the book the role of the political intellectuals is analyzed in detail and the battles of intellectuals of the opposite political camps on the field of the language of politics.
What are our possibilities for removing our virtual presence from just being there for production of signs and meanings? What are the conditions under which we can benefit from the experience of being fully present in our identity on virtual platforms and stay connected with others? Social media seems to be an opportunity for this, but it happens the exact opposite: we just become a sign for our identity. Communicating our fictional selfs and meanings with others, however, gives a presence to this sign of identity. Meaning effects and presence effects (Gumbrecht) are inseparable from each other.
This paper analyses some basic questions and gives a review of literature so further the ways in which media-practices are mapped and the impact of media usage on our identity-constructions, on our relationships with others and on our reflection of the world we live in can be researched in the terms of this project.
As a motivational factor of action, political efficacy is an important predictor of political behaviour. The term was invented to capture the extent to which people feel that they can effectively participate in politics and shape political processes. Today, we have a comprehensive knowledge of the individual-level factors (socio-demographic variables, political preferences etc.) that shape the level of internal and external dimensions of political efficacy. However, while it is widely demonstrated that media consumption influences the level of political efficacy, the country-level media context factors affecting it have rarely been studied. This paper reports the findings of extensive research on how two crucial features of the media context, the political significance of the media and the level of political parallelism in the media system, shape the level of external and internal political efficacy. The investigation draws upon the dataset of the seventh round (2014 – 2015) of the European Social Survey (ESS) and includes more than twenty-two thousand respondents from nineteen European democracies. The research hypothesizes that in countries where the media play a more important role, people have lower levels of external and higher levels of internal political efficacy. Political parallelism, which shows the extent to which media outlets are driven by distinct political orientations and interests within a particular media system, is expected to directly increase both external and internal political efficacy. Its indirect effect is also hypothesized, arguing that partisan media amplifies the winner-loser gap in political efficacy as a kind of "echo chamber". The findings show that in countries where the media play a major role in shaping political discourse, people have lower levels of external political efficacy, while the political parallelism of the media system indirectly affects the external dimensions of political efficacy. Internal political efficacy is, however, not related to these context-level factors.
Seit ihrem Amtsantritt 2010 steht die rechtskonservative Regierung unter Viktor Orbán international in der Diskussion: Ob Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Unabhängigkeit von Justiz und Medien oder der Umgang mit Obdachlosen und Roma - vonseiten der Presse und EU kam heftige Kritik. Inwieweit decken sich Kritik und Fakten? Wie erscheint Ungarn etwa im Vergleich mit anderen demokratischen Staaten? Eine analysierende Gegenüberstellung von Pressezitaten und nachgeprüften Sachverhalten will Antworten geben.
The case of Simek Kitty garnered a lot of interest in the media between 2002 and 2005. The fourteen-year-old girl, who endured her stepfather's physical, verbal, and sexual abuse for ten years, one day shot the aggressive man with his own weapon. Although the court sentenced the young girl for her deed, the President of the Republic gave her amnesty, so she did not have to go to jail after all. However, her life turned even worse after the incident. In my study, I examine why the events turned out the way they did and how the tragedy could have been avoided.
This is an exploratory study of populist political movement Sme rodina – Boris Kollár (We Are a Family – Boris Kollár, since November 2019 only Sme rodina). The paper first locates this movement into a lose concept/sui generis family of political parties (the niche party), arguing in contrast to some typologies that this is primarily protest populist party presenting some niche issues, and only secondarily, an entrepreneurial party. The paper also answers the question why this party is considered as being populist by many political and non-political actors and analysts. The paper also suggests that there is actually non-existent, but assumed direct correlation between the support for this party and the decline in the standard of living, as sometimes presented in public discourse. In contrast, it is suggested here that there may be stronger links between relative poverty, feeling of being abandoned by political elites/parties, and low educational levels. Moreover, there played an important role previous knowledge (celebrity status) of the party leader who was often presented and discussed in tabloid media. For this reason, many young females voted for this party. The party also managed to raise a widely perceived problematic issue that was seen as not tackled sufficiently or at all by the previous governments and other competing political parties (the niche or salient issue).