Zuzana Čaputová (source: Martin Medňanský, SITA)
In this story, you can read about:
Reporting on the presidential campaign in disinformation outlets
The most frequent narratives fake news media used
How antisemitism was present in the campaign
Liberalism is ruining our society, there has been interference in the election, the media cannot be trusted, and traditional values are under attack. The disinformation media scene maintained its typical narratives also during the presidential election campaign.
They were directed mostly against Zuzana Čaputová. Among all the candidates, she received the most negative coverage in fake news media.
(source: Globsec)
On the other hand, Štefan Harabin was the most preferred candidate of the disinformation outlets, according to the latest analysis of the Globsec think tank. Out of 332 Facebook posts mentioning Harabin, only 2.7 percent had a negative connotation.
(source: Globsec)
Štefan Harabin did not make it to the second round of the presidential election, but that does not mean the disinformation scene in Slovakia is weak, thinks Miroslava Sawiris, Globsec analyst and co-author of the study. Harabin and Marian Kotleba together received 25 percent of the vote.
“We saw the lower election turnout in the second round; it seems the disinformation scene in Slovakia has quite a huge impact,” Sawiris told The Slovak Spectator.
More negativity on Čaputová than Šefčovič
The study was conducted by Sawiris and Katarína Klingová. They analysed 1,312 posts from 14 disinformation Facebook pages between January 10 and April 4. The campaign before the presidential election took place mainly online.
“It proved that the online space started to play a dominant role in all types of elections,” she said.
President-elect Čaputová, as a pro-European liberal candidate, was the target of an intense disinformation and smear campaign. The monitored disinformation outlets focused on her, the majority of the posts (58 percent) about Čaputová having a negative connotation.
