The Intertwining of the Covid-19 Pandemic with Democracy Backlash: Making Sense of Journalism in Crisis

ABSTRACT

This article explores how the combination of the public health crisis and the authoritarian government of Janez Janša’s Slovenian Democratic Party, along with its tendency to politically instrumentalize and economically devastate the media, impacted journalism during the Covid-19 pandemic. Of central concern are how journalists understand their roles in communication relating to Covid-19 and how these roles are shaped when the pandemic and trends towards democratic backsliding coincide in time. The analysis is conducted in the theoretical frameworks of crisis communication, authoritarian influences on the media, and journalistic roles, while methodologically it is based on individual interviews in which journalists reflect on their professionalism amidst the pandemic and rising authoritarian control over media. The findings show that the facilitative role revealed in existing research of media functioning during a public health crisis may be interwoven with a watchdog role challenged by authoritarian tendencies. Indeed, interviews suggested the coexistence of general journalistic roles at a time of dual crisis, when the sense of responsibility to facilitate measures to confine the spread of the disease is coupled with critical monitoring, (self)reflection, and attempts to restore professional standards in both public and private media.

KEYWORDS:

• Authoritarianism
• Covid-19 pandemic
• crisis communication
• journalistic roles
• propaganda
• Slovenia

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Available at https://www.gov.si/novice/2020-05-11-vojna-z-mediji/ (accessed on 3 April 2021).

2 More is available at the website of the Slovene Association of Journalists https://novinar.com/ (accessed on 25 May 2021).

3 See the appeal of the Slovene Association of Journalists to respect editorial independence addressed to the new owner of POP TV, https://novinar.com/novica/poziv-novemu-lastniku-pop-tv-in-kanala-a-k-spostovanju-uredniske-neodvisnosti/ (accessed on 25 May 2021).

4 For more see https://www.politico.eu/article/slovenia-war-on-media-janez-jansa/ (accessed on 3 May, 2021).

5 A non-profit initiative Danes je nov dan (Today is a New Day) published a list of media articles across the globe that reported about the political situation in Slovenia since the beginning of Janša’s government in March 2020. More than 570 media in more than 60 countries across the world reported about the changed political situation, which has not occurred since independence in 1991: https://sramota.si/ (accessed on 28 May 2021).

6 Available at https://rm.coe.int/memorandum-on-freedom-of-expression-and-media-freedom-in-slovenia/1680a2ae85. See also Media Freedom Rapid Response Report: Press Freedom Deteriorating in Slovenia under Latest Janša Government by the International Press Institute https://ipi.media/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Slovenia_PressFreedomMission_Report_Final_20210630.pdf (accessed on October 5, 2021).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Norface Network [grant number 2021-2023, 462-19-080]; Slovenian Research Agency [grant number J5-9445, P5-0413].