The censoring effect of populist anti-media messages

  • May 4, 2021
The censoring effect of populist anti-media messages

Ayala Panievsky's study of populist anti-media campaigns suggests journalists' objectivity is being used to undermine them.

Ironically, journalists’ devotion to objectivity is used to erode the public’s trust in that very same objectivity.

Ayala Panievsky

Populist attacks on the press should be viewed as a form of soft censorship which uses journalistic norms regarding objectivity to undermine the media, according to a new study by a Gates Cambridge Scholar.

The study, Covering populist media criticism: When journalists’ professional norms turn against them, by Ayala Panievsky, is published in the International Journal of Communication.

It is based on 40 interviews with Israeli journalists who have been criticised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [pictured]. It outlines the ways they have responded to anti-media populism.

The article reports that the majority responded to attacks with what they called “business-as-usual” and stuck more strongly to objectivity rules in order to disprove populist accusations that they were biased against Netanyahu, the right and “the people”.

However, in the process they often found themselves amplifying the allegations because they felt forced to cover the anti-media rhetoric in live speeches by politicians or in emotive, simplistic comments on social media. Due to their reticence about becoming the story and their desire to maintain an objective distance, some attempted to debunk the comments indirectly while some adopted an overcautious approach, sometimes burying or censoring stories to prevent further criticism.

Ayala [2018], who is doing a PhD in Sociology, says: “I suggest studying anti-media populism as a form of censorship: a discursive mechanism that uses (imagined) audiences as a lever to manipulate journalists’ professional norms against them. By framing journalists as biased “enemies”, any future negative coverage becomes an asset that “confirms” the media’s alleged hostility toward the populist and “the people”. Journalists, who fear the potential negative effects on the news audience’s trust, are then trapped in a lose-lose situation: covering anti-media populism “objectively” against their seeming interest, or covering it negatively, thereby confirming the populist accusations.”

She adds: “Ironically, journalists’ devotion to objectivity is used to erode the public’s trust in that very same objectivity.”

The article ends with a discussion of whether, given the current populist surge, journalists should rethink their commitment to objectivity in light of the need to defend democratic values. Ayala says: “This article joins the calls for democratically engaged journalism, which could be thought of as an evolution of the public journalism movement in that it reemphasises journalists’ commitment to actively advancing democracy as players rather than observers.”

*Picture credit: Wikimedia commons and Ron Przysucha / U.S. Department of State from United States

Latest News

Inclusive conservation

Rohini Chaturvedi finished her PhD at a difficult time for many students – in the midst of the global economic crisis of the early 2010s. But through a combination of hard work, initiative and serendipity she has found an impressive way to extend the work she did at Cambridge to promote conservation efforts in India. […]

Research impact award for Gates Cambridge Scholar

A Gates Cambridge Scholar is one of two winners of the 2023 Sandra Dawson Research Impact Award for his work on the economics of climate change earlier this month. The annual award was established through a generous donation from Professor Dame Sandra Dawson, a former Director of Cambridge’s Judge Business School. Winners are chosen based […]

AI system self-organises to resemble brains of complex organisms

A team of Cambridge scientists, co-led by a Gates Cambridge Scholar, have shown that placing physical constraints on an artificially-intelligent system – in much the same way that the human brain has to develop and operate within physical and biological constraints – allows it to develop features of the brains of complex organisms in order […]

Scholar wins history of science & medicine essay prize

A Gates Cambridge Scholar has won a prestigious essay competition about the history of early science with a treatise on evidence of knowledge exchange between the Ming-Chinese and Iberian conventions in the 16th century. The essay competition was run by the Early Sciences Forum of the History of Science Society and the Early Science and Medicine journal […]