CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2022
| Author | Veronika Budaiová |
|---|---|
| Title | Populist Crisis Communication during the early Covid Pandemic in Slovakia |
| Summary | Political leaders frame their responses to the actual crisis in different ways. Even though the Covid-19 crisis caught many leaders unprepared, they needed to adapt their communication style to respond to the new reality. This thesis focuses on the crisis communication of populist leaders. In particular, how the populists in power presented the crisis when unpopular regulations needed to be adopted while maintaining the popular support of ‘the people’. Qualitative content analysis is used to analyse different communication patterns while following the discourse of former Slovak PM, Igor Matovič, during press conferences on the issue of Covid-19 from March 2020 to April 2021. The main finding of the research shows that when unpopular decisions were adopted, the populist leader emphasised the necessity and diverted attention towards experts who recommended the regulations. Moreover, the partisan division between ‘the people’ and ‘the elite’ / ‘others’ strengthened when the situation worsened and, at the same time, the latter group expanded including anyone who disagreed or did not follow the regulations. The study contributes to the larger discussion on populist discourse in time of crisis. |
| Supervisor | Sata, Róbert |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2022/budaiova_veronika.pdf |
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