“Post-Truth” Politics, Journalistic Corruption and the Process of Self-Othering: The case of Bulgaria



Slavtcheva-Petkova, V ORCID: 0000-0002-5576-4353
(2018) “Post-Truth” Politics, Journalistic Corruption and the Process of Self-Othering: The case of Bulgaria. Journalism Studies, 19 (13). pp. 1980-1990.

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Abstract

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The poorest EU member-state Bulgaria also has the lowest press freedom ranking, significantly lagging behind all EU members, including neighbouring Romania and Greece. While “a laggard” in many respects, the country has leadership potential in at least one area: “post-truth” politics is not a new phenomenon. A prime example of its powerful impact was the ascent to power of the country's former king whose promise to change Bulgarians’ lives in 800 days led to the electoral victory of his newly formed political movement in 2001 and his subsequent appointment as Prime Minister. A 2016–2017 survey of Bulgarian journalists as part of the Worlds of Journalism study shows they have grappled for years with the kind of issues their Western colleagues have been lamenting about over the past few months—from covert collusions with political and business elites to a range of corruption practices such as bribes, “subsidised” smear campaigns and “sponsorships” of TV programmes in exchange for cover-ups. A resilience technique adopted by journalists is that of self-othering, which involves a strong condemnation of the “dire” state of journalism and distancing from the unethical practices that plague their profession without assuming any responsibility. This paper “unpacks” this process of self-othering.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Bulgaria, corruption, journalism, normative ideals, "post-truth" politics, self-othering, Worlds of Journalism study
Depositing User: Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited: 10 Sep 2018 07:07
Last Modified: 19 Jan 2023 01:25
DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2018.1500869
Related URLs:
URI: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3025923