In January–March 2019, pro-Russian media in Slovakia continued to spread their typical narratives concerning the European Union and Slovakia’s membership as well as Russia, Ukraine, and the military conflict between them.
713 articles shared on Facebook sites belonging to government-controlled media outlets and pro-Kremlin outlets indicate that the governing party’s EP campaign messages mainly attack the EU elite and the bloc’s institutional system through the dissemination of manipulative information concerning migration.
The surge to prominence of extreme right-wing beliefs has become a sign of our times. It only takes a glance at a comparative analysis of election results and how they changed over the last decade in many Western countries.
The year 2017 brought wins and failures. The Ukrainian Government was able to approve important reforms, which was still not sufficient to receive scheduled assistance from the IMF and the EU. 2018 will be tough as Ukraine should make large progress in many areas, while the 2019 elections are approaching.
People cannot always decide for themselves whether a message is false or distorted. No one is solely in possession of the final truth. However, getting the facts straight and actively pursuing “counter speech” is a task not only for the media but also for civil society and each individual user.
Putin’s Russia is the first country that has deliberately made the carnival a cornerstone of its domestic and foreign policies – in fact, of its entire post-Soviet political architecture. The first country to have established, one decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a full-fledged TV-run postmodern dictatorship – a so-called “managed democracy”.
One thing Hungarian citizens, businessmen and politicians all agree on, is that rampant corruption is one of the main problems of the country. This situation calls for the increased transparency of government institutions, and for providing easily accessible information regarding the handling of public funds.
The sequence of events in Poland might sound familiar to many of you. Hungary experienced quite a similar scenario. Clearly, Poland is not an isolated case. Political radicalisation and anti-democratic backtracking might be contagious.
On October 28, Colleen Bell, American ambassador to Hungary, pointed out the dire political and social problems Hungary faces today – problems it must solve. The speech, delivered at a university in Budapest, is not the first criticism Hungary received from its Western ally.
