The Political and Media Landscape in Greece and Italy: Populism and the Public Sphere

Abstract

The goal of the current study is to explore how media experts and members of the general public view the level of inclusion of populist discourse in public sphere. After all, if certain segments of the public feel that they have no access to the expression of their views, it could lead only to their further radicalization. Greece and Italy were selected for this study as these countries both had Right-wing and Left-wing populist movements. Neglecting either of the extremes may allow for making the picture of populist landscape less complete and balanced. Two methods were used: qualitative interviews with communications experts, and focus group discussions with randomly selected participants. There were three specific questions asked to both the experts and focus group participants. The preliminary results indicate that experts agree that there are some limitations on the freedom of speech related to populist movements, but these limitations are due more to the provisions of the hate speech law than to deliberate stifling of undesirable views. The focus group discussion concurred with experts on the broad latitude of acceptance of what and how ordinary people are able to express their views, however, the participants pointed at doubts on their behalf about actual possibilities that these expressions may lead to any change in political life and legislation related to the concerns of ordinary citizens. They also think that in regards to populism, younger populations are more concerned with their economic status while older populations worry more about threats to cultural identity. Keywords: populism, the public sphere, mainstream media, democracy