Populist Central European regionness as the part of anti-Western narrative: example of conspiracy in Czech “alternative” media and discourse

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F26482789%3A_____%2F26%3A10152904" target="_blank" >RIV/26482789:_____/26:10152904 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://www.peterlang.com/document/1516220" target="_blank" >https://www.peterlang.com/document/1516220</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Populist Central European regionness as the part of anti-Western narrative: example of conspiracy in Czech “alternative” media and discourse

Original language description

Central European Identity and Central European regionness belong to the very traditional and deeply rooted discourses in Poland, Czechia, Germany and many other nations who themselves count – or would like to count – to the region. The regional cooperation is usually positively reflected both in the theoretical literature, as well as (European/EU) political life. Nevertheless, specifically on the example of the Visegrad Group and its development in the last decade we can observe also more criticial voices, labelling this body as the “populist cooperation”. In the contribution we specifically reflect the discursive strategy related with the populist-driven, anti-EU and generally anti-Western actors in Central Europe with specific focus on the Czech case. The polycrisis (2008 and beyond economic crisis, 2014-2015 migration crisis, pandemic as well as Russian aggression against the Ukraine) strengthened and suddenly accelerated the anti-Western sentiments in the East-Central European regions. Such anti-Western position do not have identical nature, but its promotors are able to create flexible coalitions undermining mutually the liberal democracies in the region. The discourses about the “degenerated” West (the “Gayrope”), about the deep-state milieu in Western nations, about the neo-colonial strategy against the new EU-members and about the Central European integrated regions as the opposition against the “Brussels” present only short and selected list of topics from the discourse created and used against the West. Important role in the dissemination and strengthening of this Central Europe vs. West play the so-called alternative media. Thus, after the operationalization and theoretical determination our analysis will focus on this scene, strongly interconnected with the fake news industry (domestic as well as externally driven, influenced and also sponsored) and conspiracy. Methodologically, the analysis is anchored in a case study and casuistry of the Czech case with an overlap into the broader Central European framework, while it relies primarily on critical discursive analysis.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50601 - Political science

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2026

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Media, Populism, and European Democracy

ISBN

978-3-0343-5613-8

Number of pages of the result

25

Pages from-to

65-89

Number of pages of the book

218

Publisher name

Peter Lang

Place of publication

Berlin

UT code for WoS chapter

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