Keyword – performance of media systems

Hammer, Ferenc:

When facts somehow just don’t bite

This paper addresses three main questions. First, it shows why an assessment of the praised democratic role of investigative journalism and fake news debunking cannot be complete without an account of what happens when fact-findings have no tangible consequences. Second, it identifies a few constitutive factors of the archaeology of silence and of silencing through international and Hungarian examples, with specific attention paid to the important context of media hybridisation. And third, by offering a methodological innovation—i.e., by juxtaposing the RSF freedom of expression index and the Freedom House democracy index—it provides an empirical understanding of which countries are presumably sliding upward or downward on the freedom/democracy scale and looks into the role that the lack of consequences of free speech may play in this decline.

Keywords: democracy, hybrid media, performance of media systems, press freedom