The Populist Threat to Public Service Media (PSM): Experiences, Responses and Impact of Populist Attacks on PSM Representatives

Public service media (PSM) across Europe must contend with delegitimising media criticism that is often characterised by the use of populist rhetoric. This delegitimising media criticism, referred to here as populist attacks, can originate from both political actors and segments of the public. However, little is known about how PSM respond to populist attacks. Using 26 semi-structured interviews with German PSM representatives, this study examines how they perceive and respond to populist attacks, as well as the effects of these attacks on PSM. The results indicate that populist media criticism of PSM follows four distinct lines of argumentation. As the accusations are in part PSM-specific, we propose the concept of anti-PSM populism. Anti-PSM populism has become commonplace for PSM and leads to various effects, which are systematised on different levels: individual, content and organisational. Overall, populist attacks do not lead to long-term self-censorship but do result in temporary self-censorship on social media. The results are discussed in the context of the media freedom discourse, and a matrix is introduced to help determine whether certain adaptations constitute self-censorship.