Media capture

News

The European Media Freedom Act: The Solution to Capture or Just Fine Print?

As the EU pushes new media freedom standards, the threat of media capture is persistent across Europe. In this op-ed, Oliver Money-Kyrle analyzes the threat, examining how governments manipulate media through control of public service media and regulatory bodies, ownership structures, and state advertising, and what measures are needed to safeguard editorial independence.

26.03.2025

News

Why Misinformation Thrives in Autocracies: Spread from the Top, Delivered by TV, Believed by Partisans

Misinformation thrives in competitive autocracies, where governments manipulate information to control narratives and foster uncertainty around political events. Yet, its dynamics in these contexts remain underexplored. Our recent study on Turkey reveals that partisanship and selective exposure drive misinformation beliefs – but surprisingly, not via social media, rather through television.

11.02.2025

Interviews

Informal Power in Hungary and Poland: In Conversation with Edit Zgut-Przybylska

Formal Rule of Law backsliding in Hungary and Poland has been well-publicized. Yet this is just the tip of the iceberg of a system of informal power connections that are undermining the Rule of Law and democracy. In this RevDem Rule of Law podcast Oliver Garner discusses this informal power with Edit Zgut-Przybylska.

12.05.2023

For a Democracy, It Is Vital to Be Able to Tell Facts Apart

Our editor Robert Nemeth talks to Marius Dragomir and Astrid Söderström, authors of a recent study on the state of state media globally, which covers 546 state media outlets in 151 countries in the world, and it found that government control has reached extremely high levels: nearly 80% of these state-administered media companies lack editorial independence.

13.04.2022