Political Communication Research in Central and Eastern Europe

The ECREA Central and East-European (CEE) Network and IPSA RC22 – Political Communication will organize a joint online seminar, titled Political Communication Research in Central and Eastern Europe, on 10 October 2022.

Co-organizers

• Department of Political Science, Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, University of Szeged, Hungary
• Faculty of Political Science and Journalism, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland 
• Institute of Journalism, Media and Social Communication, Faculty of Management and Social Communication, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland
• Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

In the post-socialist Central and Eastern European region, the first democratic election campaigns took place more than 30 years ago. In parallel with this, political communication as a field of research emerged in the region’s scientific community. Since then, phenomena such as the changes in voters’ levels of volatility (Blumler 2016; Blumler and Kavanagh 1999; Swanson 2004), the shift of communication and in news consumption (Thomassen 2005), the appearance of ‘modern’ political marketing (Maarek 2011), and long-term relationship between political actors and electorate as a strategy (Wring 1996) shaped the directions of research in political communication. Although these symptoms are widely studied in Western democracies, the situation is different in the CEE region. However, the processes mentioned above have also conquered political campaigns in the region (Eibl and Gregor 2019). Seeing that their voters live their everyday lives on social media, political actors have ‘moved up’ to the leading platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and nowadays Instagram and TikTok. This process has to be reflected in research on political communication. The new platforms demand different communication techniques. The significance of personalized politics has increased, too (Bennett 2012). The basics of political communication have not changed in response to new platforms. However, the density of communication means of interaction and a constant race for attention have resulted in a significant turnaround. Populist-illiberal parties, the decline in media freedom in the region, and – inevitably – the heightened public opposition to the governmental decisions during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is sometimes interspersed with fake news and conspiracy theories caused by the epidemic and vaccinations, have further contributed to the changes in political communication.

Key questions:

• patterns of political communication research in the region;
• features of the communication patterns;
• digital communication;
• personalisation of the content;
• challenges to political marketing in the region;
• illiberal/anti-liberal tendencies in the user-generated content; 
• polarization of public discourses in the region;
• future of political communication in the CEE region.

Organizing Committee

Norbert Merkovity (University of Szeged, Hungary)
Magdalena Musiał-Karg (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland) 
Lenka Vochocová (Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic)
Małgorzata Winiarska-Brodowska (Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland)