By Martina Thiele
Interview with Nina Horaczek, chief reporter for the Viennese weekly newspaper Falter, about the role of media and politics in the election campaign
Keywords: Austrian national election 2024, election campaign, FPÖ, right-wing extremism in Europe
Background: In Austria, the parliament, also known as the House of Representatives, is made up of two chambers: the National Council and the Federal Council. The 183 members of the National Council are elected every five years based on proportional representation. The Federal Council – the second chamber of parliament – is not directly elected. Its 61 members are delegated by the state parliaments of the nine Austrian federal states.
On September 29, 2024, around 6.35 million eligible voters elected a new National Council. The voter turnout was 77.7%. The result triggered mixed reactions across Europe, but predominantly criticism, as the right-wing populist FPÖ (= Freedom Party of Austria, also known as »the Freedom Party«) became the strongest parliamentary group for the first time. Since the end of the Second World War, the party has developed from an old German nationalist Nazi party into a prototypical right-wing populist party, parts of which are right-wing extremist. Its current chairman Herbert Kickl has attracted attention with statements that are very similar to those of the National Socialists. He maintains close links to the national and international far-right scene and describes himself as a fan of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Traditionally, the FPÖ also has been close to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party.
The key issues in the election campaign were migration, internal security, the economic crisis and the possible election victory of the FPÖ. During the election campaign, the FPÖ presented itself as the party that represents the interests of the people, with the slogan »Your will be done«; it promised that »5 good years« would now begin and promoted its lead candidate with the teaser: »Kickl: Your heart says yes«.
Figure 1
FPÖ election poster with the slogan »Your will be done«
FPÖ election poster, picture taken in Salzburg on August 28, 2024
(© Martina Thiele)
Five parties will be represented in the upcoming National Council. Next to the FPÖ, this includes: the Christian-conservative ÖVP (= Austrian People’s Party), which had put forward the current Federal Chancellor Karl Nehammer as its top candidate; the SPÖ (= Austrian Social Democratic Party) with party leader Andreas Babler as its top candidate; the NEOS (= New Austria), a liberal economic party with Beate Meinl-Reisinger as its top candidate; and the Green Party, which has been a junior partner in Chancellor Karl Nehammer’s coalition for the past five years with Green Party leader Werner Kogler.
The election results were soon clear: the FPÖ won with 28.85% of the vote. It was followed by the ÖVP with 26.27% and the SPÖ with 21.14%. With 9.14% the NEOS overtook the Greens who got 8.24%. The future distribution of seats is therefore as follows: FPÖ 57 (+26 seats compared to the last legislative period), ÖVP 51 (-20), SPÖ 41 (+1), NEOS 18 (+3), Greens 16 (-10). The KPÖ (= Communist Party of Austria), which has recently enjoyed success in regional elections, and the alternative BIER (= Beer Party), which was founded in 2015 by the punk musician Dominik Wlazny (stage name: »Marco Pogo«), failed to reach the four-percent threshold that applies in Austria in order to make it into the parliament, as did other small parties and lists.
The FPÖ was the strongest party in the federal states of Upper Austria, Styria, Carinthia and Burgenland. In Lower Austria, in the provinces of Salzburg, in Tyrol and Vorarlberg, the ÖVP was ahead; only in Vienna did the SPÖ gain the most votes, followed by the FPÖ and the ÖVP.
Figure 2
National Council election 2024: Party with most votes per federal state
Blue = FPÖ, teal = ÖVP, red = SPÖ;
Source: Lencer (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Austria_location_map.svg), »Austria location map«, translation/political map by Redaktion Journalistik, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode
In Austria, the Federal President plays a decisive role in the appointment of a government. The former Green Party leader and economist Alexander Van der Bellen has been Federal President since 2017. After various exploratory talks, during which it emerged that no party wanted to form a coalition government with the FPÖ, he instructed the incumbent Chancellor Karl Nehammer from the conservative ÖVP to form a government on October 22, 2024. According to Van der Bellen, Nehammer was charged with entering coalition negotiations with the social democratic SPÖ immediately. This leaves the far-right FPÖ on the sidelines for the time being despite its election victory – which the party is using to present itself as a »victim« of the »system«.
In an interview with Nina Horaczek, chief reporter at the Viennese weekly newspaper Falter, the University of Tübingen’s media scholar Martina Thiele discusses the role of media in the National Council election campaign and the possible consequences of the election result for press freedom in Austria. Independent journalism does not have it easy in a country that, as a small European state, struggles with the consequences of a highly concentrated media market. Quite a few people abroad think of political scandals when they hear Austria, involving media and politics – whether it be the Waldheim affair around war crimes during Nazi times or the recent Ibiza scandal surrounding corrupt party politics and biased reporting, leading to the collapse of the governing coalition and early elections in 2019.
Interview with Nina Horaczek
Austria has voted. The forecasts predicted an FPÖ victory. Are you still surprised?
No, because opinion polls had consistently predicted for months that the FPÖ would take first place. The only difference is that, in contrast to the EU elections, when the FPÖ was overestimated in the polls, the forecast for the National Council election deviated less strongly from the actual result. This shows that the rate of FPÖ voters who confess to the party is higher than it used to be, even though FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl is quite radical. It is easier today than it was a few years ago to declare your support for the FPÖ.
According to your observations, did journalistic reporting contribute to the FPÖ’s election victory or the poor performance of the other parties?
That is difficult to judge. First and foremost, of course, it depends on the FPÖ, but also on the strength or weakness of the other political parties as to how much support the FPÖ receives. What struck me was scandals such as the Ibiza scandal or a recent financial scandal involving the FPÖ in the Styrian capital Graz hardly played a role in media during the election campaign. It would be the task of media to focus more on this. What also struck me was how central the topic of migration was in comparison to other topics that are also important. This is even though the number of asylum seekers has visibly decreased this year. This focus on the migration issue has certainly benefited the FPÖ.
What role did first, the tabloids, second, the public service broadcaster ORF and third, social media play?
Tabloid media such as Oe24 play very strongly on this fear of the FPÖ, because they know that they will generate circulation with a Herbert Kickl on the cover. This was already the case with Jörg Haider in the 1990s, and their massive reporting has boosted parties like the FPÖ. The public service broadcaster ORF provided very balanced coverage in this election campaign and the FPÖ relied heavily on social media. According to research by the Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard, the FPÖ invested more than 73,000 euros in FPÖ leader Kickl’s Facebook page alone between the beginning of June and the end of August 2024 – and the final countdown of the election campaign hadn’t even begun yet. The FPÖ also used social media to specifically address young target groups: Lisa Schuch-Gubik, a presenter on the FPÖ’s own YouTube channel FPÖ TV, who is now also an FPÖ MP, ran her own youth election campaign on TikTok, where she claimed that Austrian children and young people were affected by »massive discrimination against Austrian-born nationals«, that women and girls would only dare to go to the swimming pool in a full-body protective suit for fear of sexual harassment and that young people were suffering because their own mopeds were taboo due to »climate hysteria«. So, she reached young people with shrill tiktoks on their smartphones.
And what role did »blue«, »alternative« media and channels play – i.e. the fact that the FPÖ has increasingly freed itself from the criticism and control of democratic media? (Thinking about the alleged threat of election manipulation along the lines of »they want to take away our victory«).
The FPÖ uses its affiliated far-right propaganda channels such as Auf1 TV, Report 24 and Der Status to spread its conspiracy theories and uses these channels to capture new target groups, such as opponents of the coronavirus measures and esoterics who are susceptible to conspiracy theories. The FPÖ was the first party in Austria to start setting up its own channels and massively supporting party-affiliated far-right propaganda channels with paid advertising (financed by taxpayers’ money) back in 2009. It is now benefiting from this. In addition, in Austria we have a financially strong »classic« TV channel, Red Bull’s Servus TV, which has slipped into the extreme in its political and satirical formats, but above all in its political coronavirus reporting.
What journalistic mistakes or brilliant achievements did you notice? Before the election, on election night, afterwards?
Unfortunately, as I was at many party events myself, I couldn’t follow all the election coverage. Overall, however, there were too many TV confrontations. On a positive note, I noticed that the ORF was very positive in terms of its public service educational mandate with new formats such as the »Democracy Experiment« or »The Professor and the Wolf«, in which the two political experts Peter Filzmaier and Armin Wolf talk about the National Council election, and thus dared to try out new formats in election campaign reporting. I thought the two formats mentioned above were very successful.
What considerations did you make at Falter regarding election coverage? Were there guidelines, special responsibilities, main topics?
Of course, we have divided up the responsibilities for different parties within the editorial team. Overall, however, we are very free in our reporting. We started my online column Blauland (= Blue Country[1]) at the beginning of the year, in which I report weekly from the world of the Freedom Party, because it was already clear at the time what a major role the FPÖ would play in this election year in Austria. And in my reporting, I focused heavily on the background, analyzed many hours of speeches by the FPÖ party leader, researched the connections of the FPÖ parliamentary club staff to the extra-parliamentary far-right scene to give our readers as comprehensive a picture of this party as possible.
How freely were you able to report? As a journalist, were you prevented from taking part in events? Or even threatened?
No, I wasn’t hindered at all this time. I was also able to report on the FPÖ election event on election night without any problems. It was different at the EU election in June 2024. I was denied accreditation by the FPÖ then. I sometimes received no response to my written inquiries from the FPÖ, even though I sent my inquiries in such a way that there was enough time to reply. But that’s something I’ve been used to from the FPÖ for a long time.
You are an expert when it comes to Herbert Kickl, his rhetoric and his career, because you have been following his political activities for years: What will happen with him, someone who has staged himself as the future »People’s Chancellor« and »accelerator of remigration«?
This is difficult to predict because the FPÖ is always good for surprises. But as with every party: if it gains votes on election night, it is placed quite firmly in the saddle. If that is no longer the case, things could get tight. In Kickl’s case, there is also the fact that although he won the election, no other party currently wants to govern with him. Despite his success, this makes him vulnerable to a certain extent, as there is naturally great interest among FPÖ functionaries in an FPÖ participation in government. On this issue, Kickl has maneuvered himself to the sidelines through his radical behavior and his personal attacks on politicians from other parties.
And what does the FPÖ’s election victory mean for the freedom of media and especially the independence of the public service broadcaster ORF?
It will be problematic for the ORF if the FPÖ comes into government. At the moment, it doesn’t look that way. If a three-party constellation consisting of the ÖVP, SPÖ and the NEOS or Greens comes to power, probably fewer things will change. If the FPÖ does become part of a government, the FPÖ would like to restructure the Austrian media world in a similar way to Hungary. The first victim would probably be the ORF.
You are in close contact with journalists from other European countries: How do you see the election result in the context of current European political developments?
The development in Austria is not very different from that in Germany, with the difference that the conservatives in Germany are keeping a greater distance from the AfD (= Alternative for Germany) compared to Austria. However, a shift in power to the right is also evident in France, and in countries such as the Netherlands this has already taken place. Seen in this light, Austria is perhaps a pioneer, as the FPÖ already had 26.9% of the vote in 1999 under party leader Jörg Haider. But Austria is no longer an outlier in a European comparison.
Where do you see Austria and its media in five years’ time?
Difficult question. The entire industry is suffering massively from the fact that a large proportion of advertising money is moving away from traditional media companies and towards internet multinationals such as Meta, Amazon, Google and others. In addition, people are less willing to pay for high-quality content and trust in quality media is also declining. Right-wing extremist propaganda channels are poisoning the political discourse. We will therefore have to continue to make great efforts to find new readers among the younger generation. I would like to see more education about why quality media is important for a democracy and about the function of public service media. Because only if we can explain to people why we are needed will they be prepared to pay for our journalistic investigation also in the future.
Translation: Martina Thiele with the support of DeepL Pro
About the authors
Nina Horaczek (*1977), born in Vienna, is a political scientist, author and chief reporter for the Viennese weekly newspaper Falter. She has been dealing with right-wing populism in Austria and Europe for more than two decades and publishes the column »Blauland« (Blue Country), in which she reports from the world of the FPÖ every week. (You can subscribe to it free of charge at www.falter.at/blauland). She has written numerous books, most recently »Kickl beim Wort genommen« (»Kickl taken at his word«) as a comprehensive argumentation aid for a factual discussion about the person Herbert Kickl and the politics of the FPÖ (Czernin Verlag, 2024). Contact: horaczek@falter.at
Prof. Dr. Martina Thiele is a media scholar at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Germany. From 2003 to 2020, she taught at the Paris Lodron University of Salzburg, Austria, in the Department of Communication Studies. Media policy and media system comparison are among her main research and teaching interests. Since 2015, she has been conducting program analyses on behalf of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF). She is co-editor of Journalism Research/Journalistik. Contact: martina.thiele@uni-tuebingen.de
Footnote
1 Blue is the party color of the FPÖ.
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Citation
Martina Thiele: Blue country. Austria has voted. In: Journalism Research, Vol. 7 (3/4), 2024, pp. 256-263. DOI: 10.1453/2569-152X-3/42024-14647-en
ISSN
2569-152X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1453/2569-152X-3/42024-14647-en
First published online
November 2024