Political Communication in the New Age of Spectacle

Summary

EU Scream — Episode 128: Political Communication in the New Age of Spectacle
Date: May 16, 2026
Host: EU Scream
Guests: Peter von Alst (Professor, University of Antwerp), James Kantor

---

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the transformation of political communication in the digital era, focusing on the "age of spectacle." Host EU Scream, joined by political communication expert Peter von Alst and journalist James Kantor, explores how emotion, attention economies, and spectacle are reshaping democratic discourse, the role of social media, the challenges facing institutions like the European Commission, and the blurred lines between authentic and performative messaging.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Shift From Information Age to Attention Age

• Attention as Scarcity: In an era saturated with information, the main challenge is no longer access to facts but capturing and keeping public attention.
  • "We're not living in the information age, we're living in the attention age. So information is everywhere. You can ask AI, and AI will give you the answer. That's easy. But grabbing attention with what you do or what you say, that has become very difficult."
    (Peter von Alst, 01:05)

2. The Emotionalization of Political Communication

• Emotional Language: Politicians’ messaging has become increasingly emotional, especially through social media, both for strategic and psychological reasons.
  • "Over the last 15 years, the emotional language has become the norm. [...] What surprised us a lot, what we were not anticipating, is that it's mainly positive emotions."
    (Peter von Alst, 02:39)
• Emoji Inflation & Online Youth Culture: Younger generations favor overtly positive engagement (red hearts over thumbs up), signaling an "inflation of emotions."
  (03:56)
• Radical Right & Negative Emotion: While most emotional content is positive, radical parties harness anger and outrage—especially directed at immigrants—for viral engagement.
  • "Extreme right parties across Europe, they generate a lot of anger... social media works better for radical parties because there's this, yeah, not being nuanced helps to get a lot of reactions."
    (Peter von Alst, 04:37)

3. Social Media as Equalizer—and Polarizer

• Radical Parties' Advantages: Social media platforms level the communicative playing field for smaller/radical parties who previously lacked institutional access.
  • "If you're a small radical left or radical right party, you can get more easily attention. While in the past you need to be an established organization..."
    (Peter von Alst, 05:25)
• Danger of Polarization: While access increases, so does potential for polarization as content becomes about generating anger rather than substantive issues.

4. Positivity as Incumbent Strategy

• Self-Promotion and Emotional Marketing: Incumbent politicians favor positive messaging to convey competence and connect emotionally with voters.
  • "Because you're in government and you're trying to do a lot of good and you want people to notice. So you're saying, look at us, we changed these roads, we're giving this extra tax credit."
    (Peter von Alst, 06:30)
• Even Radical Parties Employ Positivity: E.g., highlighting successful demonstrations as signs of collective joy and self-promotion.

5. Viral Authenticity and its Pitfalls

• Authentic Content: Viral success hinges on authenticity—what "fits" a politician. Forced imitation often fails.
  • "You need to find something that fits you, that represents you, that you can say, this is me."
    (Peter von Alst, 09:25)
• Memorable Example—The Cat Politician: Belgium's Prime Minister Bart de Wevers' cat, Maximus, became an Instagram sensation by appearing in his office, humorously commenting on politics—sometimes even treated as a political oracle.
  • "The cat has now as many followers on Instagram as he has... And the cat is kind of cynical, has a kind of cynical humor, makes jokes and remarks on what happens in politics. And people love it."
    (Peter von Alst, 09:44 – 11:18)

6. Spectacle, Meme Culture, and State Messaging

• Politics as Viral Entertainment: States (even the White House) now shape narratives using memes, video game references, and AI—a blending of spectacle and reality.
  • "[The] White House... mixing footage of US Israel strikes on Iran with with the Wii sports game... this is the official channel..."
    (EU Scream Host, 14:49–15:27)
  • "It almost seems like there are no more rules."
    (Peter von Alst, 15:27)
• Propaganda & Inauthentic Amplification: Concept of "full spectrum propaganda" where official and fake, state-sponsored networks amplify narratives.
  • "I more often talk about a permanent campaign. So the White House is not waiting for elections. It's permanently campaigning with less rules."
    (Peter von Alst, 19:15)

7. The Society of the Spectacle — Applying French Theory

• Guy Debord & the Spectacle: The episode ties developments in political communication to Debord’s and Baudrillard’s concepts—society is now shaped by images with the line between reality and its representation increasingly blurred.
  • "The real world is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it, yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded as the epitome of reality."
    (James Kantor quoting Debord, 20:46)
• But Material Realities Persist: Spectacle cannot erase real consequences (e.g., war, budgets, political outcomes).
  • "Those bombs are dropping, people are dead. So you can't say, ah, this is not reality."
    (Peter von Alst, 24:42)

8. Institutional Communication in the Modern Age

• Why the EU Struggles: The European Commission is slow, risk-averse, consensus-bound—and thus ill-suited to viral, emotional, personalized communication.
  • "They're not a front runner in everything we discussed so far... everybody needs to agree. And rather than getting a comment from their boss saying that's not what we wanted, then they play it safe."
    (Peter von Alst, 27:56)
• Hope for Change: Individuals with authentic, telegenic attributes or simply uniqueness could unexpectedly break through, as with viral successes elsewhere.

9. Influencer Strategies vs. Traditional Communication

• Commission’s Use of Influencers: Move to Instagram and paid influencer content (e.g., videos celebrating Schengen) is noted, but with key caveats.
  • "Most of the influencers got paid something like €8,000 for these videos... And most acknowledged this was paid content."
    (EU Scream Host, 36:42)
• Impact & Limitations: Likes/engagement are no guarantee of depth or real connection; authentic, organic advocacy works better than paid campaigns for long-term impact.
  • "If you pay them, what you want is actual influencers. People who do this on a daily basis who say, I'm defending Europe, I think Europe is worthwhile... Otherwise it's a short term campaign that can have a little effect."
    (Peter von Alst, 35:11)

10. The Problem of (Lack of) Accountability and Regulation

• Distribution Challenges: American platforms (Meta, X, TikTok) impede or restrict European political ads, citing complex regulatory environments—and the EU is, ironically, left struggling for reach.
  • "These are multinationals that earn a lot of money, don't have clear accountability, and they use algorithms that we don't have transparency with."
    (Peter von Alst, 47:18)
• Regulation Dilemmas: Should influencers be regulated like traditional media? There’s a need for transparency, but definitions and practical approaches are elusive.
  • "How would you regulate? And do we have a definition of what an influencer is? We don't."
    (Peter von Alst, 52:10)

11. The Enduring Role of Journalism

• Importance of Traditional Media: For political learning and providing context, traditional journalism outpaces social media—critical for democracy.
  • "What our research also shows is people learn very little from social media. [...] Journalism is in the center of the debate about democratic erosion, which is good."
    (Peter von Alst, 54:10, 54:55)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "We're not living in the information age, we're living in the attention age."
  (Peter von Alst, 01:05)
• "Love, Trump's hate, you could say..."
  (Peter von Alst, 02:39)
• "There's an inflation of emotions and I see that especially among young students. My children, they try to explain me why thumbs up is not good. You need to give a red heart..."
  (Peter von Alst, 03:56)
• On viral authenticity: "Wrong recipe."
  (EU Scream Host, 09:24)
  "You need to find something that fits you... that works."
  (Peter von Alst, 09:25)
• The Bart de Wevers’ cat phenomenon: "And the cat has now as many followers as he has...[it] makes jokes and remarks on what happens in politics. And people love it."
  (Peter von Alst, 09:44–11:18)
• On the influence of meme culture: "It almost seems like there are no more rules. [...] you use AI as it suits you. You can be dishonest if that works."
  (Peter von Alst, 15:27)
• "The real world is replaced by a selection of images..."
  (James Kantor quoting Debord, 20:46)
• "It's sometimes unpredictable what will work."
  (Peter von Alst, 31:06)
• "So sometimes it has, it makes no sense and then it doesn't work. So it's not just about finding people and I'm paying them some money to do a clip. It's finding what works, what is a selling point of Europe."
  (Peter von Alst, 44:45)
• "Have you seen that? Yeah, I saw it. And then you ask a few questions... and people can't remember."
  (Peter von Alst, 54:10)

---

Significant Timestamps

• 01:05 — The shift to the attention age
• 02:39 — Rise in emotional political communication and its surprising positivity
• 04:37 — Radical right (and left) parties, negativity, and social media
• 06:30–07:18 — Positivity as incumbent strategy; emotion as self-promotion
• 09:44–11:18 — "Cat politics" and viral authenticity in Belgium
• 14:49–17:53 — Spectacle, meme warfare, and political manipulation at the state level
• 20:46–21:08 — “Society of the Spectacle” explained
• 27:56–30:13 — EU institutional sluggishness vs. attention economy
• 36:42–38:57 — EU Commission’s influencer strategies and metrics of success
• 47:18–48:54 — The problematic power of multinational social media platforms
• 52:10–55:06 — Regulation of influencers vs. role of journalism; media literacy and democratic health

---

Conclusion & Final Thoughts

The “New Age of Spectacle” in political communication is defined by fickle attention, emotional storytelling, and blurred boundaries between genuine engagement and manufactured performance. Political actors—mainstream and radical—are compelled to adapt or risk irrelevance. Institutions like the European Commission struggle to keep pace, experimenting cautiously with new formats and influencers but often constrained by inherent structural and reputational risks.

Peter von Alst urges a balanced approach: embrace new modes but don’t forget the irreplaceable value of slow, critical journalism in upholding democratic discourse.

---

For further details and to listen to more episodes, visit Brusselstimes.com and look for the EU Scream podcast.

Transcript

[Peter von Alst]

No migrants more in no Europe without Christianity.

[James Kantor]

An alliance also with Russia.

[EU Scream Host]

Welcome to EU Scream, the podcast that guides you through stories coming from the eu. We talk about the news a bit differently and with people who really know what they're talking about. James I'm James Kantor. This is episode 128, political communication in the New Age of Spectacle, with Peter von Alst, professor at the University of Antwerp and a founding member of the Movements and Politics Research Group on relationships between media, politics and citizens in the digital age. So, Peter, this battle for attention, media attention, it seems to be getting even more intense, if that were possible, very broadly, what is happening.

[Peter von Alst]

So everybody is online and everyone wants a piece of the attention, but everybody's scrolling around on his phone and you have a hundred things coming by. And so it's very hard to attract, especially young people, attention. And therefore we pay a lot of attention to a few people. Donald Trump, for instance, is very good, perhaps not in persuading people, but in grabbing their attention. So we look at his model to say, okay, can I also, as a politician or as a journalist or as an organization, grab also some of that attention? Because that has become so difficult. We're not living in the information age, we're living in the attention age. So information is everywhere. You can ask AI, and AI will give you the answer. That's easy. But grabbing attention with what you do or what you say, that has become very difficult.

[EU Scream Host]

One thing about this is that there's this deep concern that emotionalizing, emotional content is the thing that really works to succeed in this attention economy, as you've been describing it. But there's also this sense that emotionalizing or emotional content weakens trust. In democracy, you hear this all the time from people, especially in the European institutions. They don't like emotional content.

[Peter von Alst]

So what we see in our own research, and that is mainly on Belgian politicians, over a period of 15 years, we see a steady increase of emotional language by politicians. So it used to be that the large majority of that communication was neutral. Then you had some negativity and some positivity in there. Over the last 15 years, the emotional language has become the norm. So if you post something on social media nowadays, as a politician, it has emotional language in it. What surprised us a lot, what we were not anticipating, is that it's mainly positive emotions. So there's love, Trump's hate, you could say, because. And this is also how our minds work. We have a negativity bias, that very negative tweet, that very negative post that gets into the news. The fight between a couple of politicians, that is what is newsworthy. But the majority is politicians asking like, look at me, I'm doing this fantastic new thing. And then we will respond with the heart to that.

[EU Scream Host]

Respond with the heart. That's where you get this kind of emoji jamming. Right.

[Peter von Alst]

There's an inflation of emotions and I see that especially among young students. My children, they try to explain me why thumbs up is not good. You need to give a red heart when somebody says something. So there's an inflation of this positive language, which in a sense is good. So it's not all negative when we talk about politics. Yeah.

[EU Scream Host]

Okay. There's this positivity story, but there's also this combination of radical right parties with social media that. That is also a key part of your findings, at least when it comes to emotions like anger and fear. Right?

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah. So extreme right parties across Europe, they generate a lot of anger. Their posts are often filled with anger, and the reactions are also filled with anger, mostly at immigrants, but also at other groups and that anger. So I always say that social media works better for radical parties because there's this. Yeah, not being nuanced helps to get a lot of reactions. So. And if you're a politician on the one hand, on the other hand, social media is not that good for you. You also see it on the extreme left. So saying, oh, it's all greed and let's fight back also works. But the nuanced story, like the anti

[EU Scream Host]

capitalism story, that also works.

[Peter von Alst]

So you could say that social media to a certain extent makes it a more level playing field. So that if you're a small radical left or radical right party, you can get more easily attention. While in the past you need to be an established organization, have connections with unions and whatever, social media makes that more easy. At the same time, this can be, of course, as you also mentioned, very problematic because you can rally emotions and polarization and less about content than just about being angry.

[EU Scream Host]

Just to come back to the positivity, the positive emotionality which you found is actually even more common in your research. This is the incumbent's strategy, right?

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah.

[EU Scream Host]

Because. They don't have to rile people up, they just have to make people feel good. Why is it the incumbent strategy to be positive?

[Peter von Alst]

I think it's partly because you're in government and you're trying to do a lot of good and you want people to notice. So you're saying, look at us, we changed these roads, we're giving this extra tax credit. We will help you with the energy crisis. Or just look at me, I'm here at this rally and people show up. So therefore we also see it with radical parties that they sometimes have positive messages. Like we had this demonstration against Israel for Palestine and we were with thousands of people. And then also a very joyful, positive, like, look, we are mobilizing people. So there's a lot of self promotion there that comes together with the positive emotions.

[EU Scream Host]

And in your research, I found this interesting. You came up with 37 emotional categories, if I'm not mistaken. That seems a lot. But that was the basis on which you kind of organized the social media posts in order to do this research.

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah, we had a lot of discussions among the researchers about what is emotional and what is not. So there was hours and hours of discussions and then we looked at political content itself and then we trained a kind of large language model to recognize these emotions. But you would be surprised that you have a lot of going back and forth of what is compassion and how would you show compassion and what is joy and what is not joy? So, yeah, there was a lot of discussions going before to come to some sort of category to say, this is positive, this is negative. It becomes complicated if you look at the reactions of people among it, because you can be angry and say, show a red heart, say, I'm angry, so I support your angriness. It's a little bit messy to study it.

[EU Scream Host]

So what explains why we've seen this rise in emotional communication on the part of politicians in the last 15 years? Yeah, so entirely a social media thing.

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah, yeah, I think mainly. Mainly, I think being positive about yourself and being negative about. So negative campaigning is an old thing, it's not invented by social media, but you see the reaction right away. So I think there's also a learning effect. If I'm a politician and I post something every time, I get feedback, so you see what works. Still, it's very difficult to explain. Virality, Right?

[EU Scream Host]

Virality, virality.

[Peter von Alst]

We don't know yet what will go viral, although one politician is very successful cooking in his or her kitchen and talking about politics. And all the other politicians think, oh, that is what works, and they try it and it doesn't work at all.

[EU Scream Host]

Wrong recipe.

[Peter von Alst]

Well, there the authenticity comes in. You need to find something that fits you, that represents you, that you can say, this is me. And that works.

[EU Scream Host]

I mean, do you have an example in mind of, let's say, a politician who's gone viral with some sort of personal activity?

[Peter von Alst]

I think the most Prominent thing at the moment is our Prime Minister, Barto Wevers, who is going viral with his cat, Maximus. Textures. So he has a cat in the Oval Office. It's the Wet Strat 16 in our case. So in his working office, there's a cat. And the cat has now as many followers on Instagram as he has Maximus Hus van de Wittstraat, Sistine MIT banner, 300,000 followers of Instagram. Ublangrek is the puss. And the cat is kind of cynical, has a kind of cynical humor, makes jokes and remarks on what happens in politics. And people love it. And also people who don't follow politics normally react with 10 hearts, like, oh, Bart, your cat Maximus. Yeah, happy over papa. Happier for Maximus. Everybody in Belgium knows Maximus, the cat of the Prime Minister.

[EU Scream Host]

And is Maximus a kind of inner voice of Bart de Weber?

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah.

[EU Scream Host]

And so that cat reflects what it's like to be a Flemish nationalist who is also in charge of an entire nation, which at one point he wanted to split apart. Does the cat channel any of these contradictions within?

[Peter von Alst]

So our Prime Minister is a funny person. He has a real good sense of humor, although I also invited him in my class. And he's able to attract attention, but also with smart analysis. And he knows perfectly how it works. And so the cat is never too political, because then it would be obvious that it's his voice, but it makes a small remark or says, why are all these politicians now for hours and hours here talking? Why don't they really work? So also a little bit critique on politics, but also sometimes just the cat walks around with a funny background noise or a good song. And you combine that with politics and with some humor. And from time to time, when the Prime Minister is not giving out statements about negotiations that are going on, journalists even look at the cat to say, yeah, but Maximus said that that might mean we're close to a deal. My name is Maximus Textorus Polker, Commander of the Feels Legions, loyal servant of the one true emperor, Bartholomew Textor, and I will have a balanced budget in this life or the next. So even when there's no real news, Maximus makes news. And again tomorrow, another politician thinks, oh, I need to start with my dog. And then it will not work.

[EU Scream Host]

He's kind of a well manicured figure, looks after his appearance, famously lost a lot of weight actually, before he became Prime Minister. And so a cat is quite a fastidious animal, looks after itself. So maybe there's. There's kind of some overlap there with actually, so he's Found the right thing. So do we know who invented this? Do we know who told him to do this?

[Peter von Alst]

I think in Downing Street. Then there's also a cat. Famously, prime ministers may come and go, but one resident has stayed the same. Larry the cat. And so the waiver told recently that he had this idea in mind, but then he was not aware that it would become that popular. And of course there's somebody making these small clips to put online. But also that person behind the scene is never in the media doesn't talk

[EU Scream Host]

about because do we know who that person is?

[Peter von Alst]

Journalists know, but the person smart enough does not come forward. Like, I'm making these movies. No. So it seems real. It seems like real cat videos.

[EU Scream Host]

So there are other media trends and this gets a little darker. This is not cat videos. For example, Iran and the US have been packaging their war as if it was a form of entertainment. Iran is using viral Lego videos that mocked Israel and its ally the us These showed Trump using the Iran war as a pretext to distract from the Epstein files.

[Peter von Alst]

These mountains troops alive. We are waiting for them. Come test it. No survivors if they want to die. For Epstein's listened net then Yahoo's war. We got the welcome ready body bag stacked at the door.

[EU Scream Host]

And then you have the White House they've posted mixing footage of US Israel strikes on Iran with with the Wii sports game. Each player has a controller and you use a monitor and you play tennis or golf. And this shows the Wii game characters like the tennis and golf players hitting their tennis and golf balls and striking targets

[Peter von Alst]

holy water

[EU Scream Host]

spliced with images of like military explosions or strikes on Iran in black and white. Where are we?

[Peter von Alst]

Where are we? So the social media channel of the White House also for me, following this for years and years, it almost seems like there are no more rules. So because this is the official channel, this is not Donald Trump on Truth Social, this is the official channel making these videos, as you say. The best way I think to explain it is that they use the meme culture on the Internet where you make fun of things, you play around. Now you use AI with that and they mix that completely with politics and you get this mixture of the two which leads to these weird videos you describe. But also there was one on Hollywood with heroes and then mixed with real war images. And then Iran reacts with what they made on AI making fun of Donald Trump and you get this. We have an education in international politics and diplomacy. But yeah, where is the diplomacy? Everything you see is a different game they play. And when I say no rules. I mean, you use AI as it suits you. You can be dishonest if that works. There was this famous incident where there was somebody in custody, a black woman, in protest against ice, and then the White House made her cry.

[James Kantor]

This was a post from the White House's official X account. And in it they post a photo of Nekima Levy Armstrong, who was arrested for interfering a church service in Minneapolis. Her hands are behind her back and her face is in total distress. She's crying. There are tears running down her face in this image. The problem with the picture is that that's not the real picture of Armstrong after she'd been arrested.

[Peter von Alst]

And everybody. And. And they asked the reaction of. Of the person making that, and he said, yeah, this is just a meme. Get used to it. We will keep doing that.

[James Kantor]

And this White House is saying that this is a meme. The issue at hand here is that unless you have seen the community note that is posted to on X which says that this is a digitally altered image, you may not know that this is not a real picture. And this is coming from the official White House account, which has three and a half million followers.

[Peter von Alst]

It was only when Donald Trump presented himself as Jesus, there was backlash of his own people, and then they pulled it back. But backlash of other people doesn't matter, because in the war of attention, they are winning. Everybody's looking at this. We are talking about this. So in terms of attention, why would you care?

[EU Scream Host]

As well as entertainment strategy, there's also increasingly what's called full spectrum propaganda strategy. This is a concept associated with an American professor called Rene Diresta. It's essentially combining official messaging with hidden networks such that state outlets can cite fake online Personas and other stuff in order to do what is also called inauthentic amplification of whatever the state narrative may be. So here it looks like you've got state actors turning an online audience into a distribution channel larger than any one single state could kind of build on its own. So, again, these are becoming very important means by which states communicate and authorities communicate.

[Peter von Alst]

Definitely. And everybody's. Of course, it's changing so rapidly, and everybody's looking for the right term to label this. And so I'm not sure that propaganda is always the best term because it has this historic meaning to it. I more often talk about a permanent campaign. So the White House is not waiting for elections. It's permanently campaigning with less rules. And so Trump is a specific character. He really does not care about the truth. I think most Politicians still do so. Therefore, I think we should be careful with exaggerating the this model. I don't think it will work everywhere, that you can just say whatever you want and that there's no factual truth about that. It will not work in a European country.

[EU Scream Host]

I think that's a very optimistic note. That's very interesting.

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah, yeah, well. Or not to the same extent, even a populist politician in Europe will pay more attention to the truth.

[EU Scream Host]

There is the concept proposed by Guy Debord, a French theorist in the late 1960s, that we are entering a society of the spectacle. That was the name of Debord's book. It was also made into a fairly experimental art film.

[James Kantor]

The fetishism of the commodity, the domination of society by intangible as well as tangible things, attains its ultimate fulfillment in the spectacle, where the real world is replaced by a selection of images which are projected above it, yet which at the same time succeed in making themselves regarded as the epitome of reality.

[EU Scream Host]

Debord's point was that modern life is degraded into a kind of accumulation of spectacles, genuine experience replaced by images, appearances, passive consumption. And then by the 1980s, we get the 247 news cycle and we start talking about how much of that coverage ends up distracting from real substantive issues, such that by the time we get to the 2010s, we're talking about social media, which is where we kind of pick up the story with you, Peter, which is seen as adding to this phenomenon, accelerating it massively, because all of us now can sort of at least part, you know. Well, not all of us, but some people can participate in the creation of this spectacle making phenomena like post truth and propaganda shareable and go viral. Of course, there are other important thinkers here. Well, important if you're into French theory, like Jean Bautriard with his concept of hyperreality, where there's nothing even real behind the images. And then there's Peter Pomerentseff, Peter Pomerentsev, the Ukrainian born British writer who talks about how political messaging isn't there to convince you anymore that there is any kind of particular truth, but to destroy the possibility of any form of shared truth altogether. What do you make of these kinds of concepts? How do they fit in with your academic work, if at all?

[Peter von Alst]

Well, I think a lot of these concepts are helpful to see sometimes the bigger picture a little bit, taking some distance and see what's happening. And I also, years ago, I also used that idea of the spectator society. We were not part of the Campaign. We were watching the entertainment and you could say politics always has been some sort of theater. So if you look at the British Parliament, how they behave in their sometimes old fashioned way is some sort of theater? No, and it was never that. It was all about substance. And the way you brought it, the way you made your argument or made fun of the opponent always mattered. Difference of opinion is of the essence of politics. There is an elaborate combination of finger wagging and head shaking going on, which may be personally therapeutic, but is institutionally disadvantageous. But indeed we have gone further and further. I'm not sure that this social media revolution is just another layer on top of that. Because of that, what you say, the user engagement, I think really changes the dynamic. As I said, politicians learn and you're not a passive spectator, you're part of it. And again, not that your comment is that important, but some of these comments and the group as a whole and how these people behave make the politician. So I think even Donald Trump was a bridge too far for the Republican Party, but the base helped him there. I think also Donald Trump learned from his base and from the reactions how much they hated journalists. Donald Trump himself did not hate journalists, it was the followers. So there is.

[EU Scream Host]

He's always worked very closely with journalists, especially when he was a New York City developer.

[Peter von Alst]

He had very tight, definitely, and he still watches a lot of television. So for him it's still an important medium. But he has now a direct channel with his supporters and these supporters make him bypass the media. So that for him. So I don't think there's one concept that fits all of this. But I do agree that the entertainment part is problematic, as we've seen in the war. At the same time, I don't believe that the theory goes that far, that it's not about the substance. It's still a struggle of ideas. I do believe that, of course, bringing the ideas in the right way. And like Iran and the us, there's a communication war, but at the same time there's real fighting. So those bombs are dropping, people are dead. So you can't say, ah, this is not reality. So of course there's a basis of reality also in politics nowadays with populist parties and what happened in Hungary, that is still a struggle of ideas about having the right solutions for the future. But then of course, the communication entertainment part comes over that.

[EU Scream Host]

I mean, French theory is really fun, you think, and then it kind of, you know, it hits a wall, like you were saying. It's like, you know, Jean Baudrillard oh, there's nothing real behind the spectacle. Well, actually, there kind of is, is what you're pointing out. We've talked about this intensity of our media environment in which politicians and institutions find themselves. And then there's the eu, you know, specifically the European Commission, which for so long has been the butt of criticism, like, forever, for being the kind of institutional communicator, like, boring, completely unsuited for modern media. On the one hand, it's a fairly large multinational civil service, like 30,000 people. Usually civil services are at least. The individual members are pretty invisible. But then, on the other hand, the Commission's been given this executive role within the EU system. It holds midday press conferences where it's de facto the face and voice of the European project. It has a budget of something like 100 to 150 million euros per year. They don't publish consolidated figures, so we don't have the exact amount to spend on communications yet. It's routinely bogged down by institutional language and process, and it's always struggled to sell its messages partly out of fear of offending this or that member state or creating Eurosceptic sentiment. So, Peter, how acute is the situation for these kinds of institutions like the European Commission, getting heard in this kind of media environment scene that we've been talking about?

[Peter von Alst]

Well, they're not a front runner in everything we discussed so far that is clear. So it's a large institution and they need to agree with so many partners, so that makes them slow. Donald Trump is a king, and a king behaves fast because he does not need other people to agree with him.

[EU Scream Host]

I just have to say no kings,

[Peter von Alst]

but okay, yeah, of course. And then the other people around him need to adjust their communication to the king. We shall have underlay needs, needs, everybody on board and then can make a statement. That, of course, is the opposite of how social media works. So that logic, the EU or the European Commission will never be a great communicator. They are really afraid to make mistakes, and that hinders fast communication, that hinders direction. And some of that creativity is lost in, in the bureaucratic process, because everybody needs to agree. And rather than getting a comment from their boss saying that that's not what we wanted, then they play it safe. And that mentality I see, makes some people leave European institutions. And that is a big problem in our bigger struggle with Russia, China, the US That I understand that something like the European Union works differently because you need to compromise, but it works too hard, that it makes us slow and it makes Us lazy and it makes us risk averse. That being said, I think it might change. So in a couple of years we will have somebody leading the European Commission who is very good at something and they will find that and they will tweak that and that will lead to like Barto Wevers cat. It will, it will happen, it will happen. At some point we will discussing like, wow, the European. But I think it's very personal what works and it has to do with authenticity. And you can't ask Ursula van der Leyen, please do this or that so we can also.

[EU Scream Host]

So you're optimistic that these heads of state and government who end up selecting the European Commission president one day are going to parachute somebody into that job who will be able to do this kind of telegenic meteor or it works

[Peter von Alst]

the other way around. They say, oh, we have nobody. Then they select a boring person. But that. So Herman van Rompuy, as you know,

[EU Scream Host]

well, he was the head of the European Council. The first one, the first president of the European Council. Former Belgian Prime Minister, famously called as charismatic as a damp rag by Nigel Farage.

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah, you have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low grade bank clerk. And the question that I want to ask, the question that I want to ask, who voted for you and what mechanism?

[EU Scream Host]

He was actually pretty competent. The Americans liked him.

[Peter von Alst]

Herman van Rompuy, he was definitely very competent. But everybody thought, oh, this is the most boring guy you can choose for the job. I'm sure that a few smart people around him nowadays would find something that makes him, because he's so boring would make him go viral on TikTok, you know, so it's not that you have to have specific qualities that makes you stand out. It's sometimes unpredictable what will work. And it's clear that in the case of Ursula van der Ley, there's not something there. Otherwise we would have found it and they would have used it.

[EU Scream Host]

On the one hand, there's her character. On the other hand, there's this idea that she needs to get consensus before making statements. And you know, you were voicing the idea that we should be somewhat sympathetic there. But I must say that she has been trying to break through in terms of making her own statements and, and branding herself. But it's not working very well. No, it's really not working very well. You know, she's trying to inject emotion. She says things like, long live Europe.

[James Kantor]

Long live Europe.

[Peter von Alst]

Thank you so much. Long live Europe. Vive le rope. Viva le roppa. Lang, Leibe Roppa

[EU Scream Host]

almost at the end of every important big marquee speech. No other European Commission president that I know of has ever done that. But it feels a bit flat somehow, since she's maybe not really elected or. And she's been lately injecting quite a few superlatives about Europe into her speeches, but that feels a bit forced as well. And then she can be untruthful. For example, when she signed last year's trade accord with Trump. And at Turnberry in Scotland, where the EU accepted this 15% tariff, she had temerity, if I can put it that way, to say this had nothing to do with US pressure on Europe over Ukraine. And this is after she did a thumbs up with Trump in Scotland. I mean, you couldn't imagine worse optics. And she continues to say, oh, we got this great deal, we got the best deal.

[Peter von Alst]

So the fact that she was untruthful, politicians have done this always. This is called strategic communication, framing, whatever. So, of course she wants to be popular in herself, but is that really necessary in the sense she's not elected by the public? If she can persuade the other head of state, if she can persuade the journalists that follow her on a daily basis, that's probably good enough. And so she will never be really popular. And okay, again, you can make that a selling point in herself. Like, look at Ursula van der Leyen, a traditional politician in these weird days. Perhaps that can be your selling point, the fact that you're not playing the game. So that would be my advice to her.

[EU Scream Host]

I hear you. Exactly. That really resonates with me. I mean, when she's saying these things, when she's trying to play, play this modern media game, it's a bit forced. It comes across as more selling than actual governing. And then there's this other very interesting change going on within the European Commission. It's now using paid influencers to make vertical videos for Instagram on phones and other platforms. And I want to just check something with you, though. Is it generally true that influencers, these social media influencers, these vertical video influencers, are massively more cost effective than placing adverts on radio and tv? Given the sheer volumes of people following these influencers or content creators, I mean, the numbers are huge. So does that kind of, by definition mean that it's good value?

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah, that's a tricky question. So I think it's quite normal that as a European Commission, you also work with influencers, because in that battle of attention, the influencer has the attention he or she can reach 10,000 youngsters. How else would you reach 10,000 youngsters? They don't watch the news, they don't read the newspaper. So you have to go via these influencers. I don't mind that the European Commission says we need to sell Europe. The idea of Europe, that states work together, build a compromise via these influencers. But the effect will be limited to a certain campaign. If you pay them, what you want is actual influencers. People who do this on a daily basis who say, I'm defending Europe, I think Europe is worthwhile. Like people in Hungary fought for that campaign against Orban because there was something at stake. And otherwise it's a short term campaign that can have a little effect. It can spark something, perhaps. So I'm not against it, but I would not overestimate what it can do.

[EU Scream Host]

Real politics, real stuff at stake, democracy in jeopardy. If you get real influencers to talk about that kind of thing, then you probably have some pretty compelling content.

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[EU Scream Host]

What seems to have happened in terms of, you could call it a pilot project. The European Commission, a paid influencer campaign was held, as I understand matters, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Schengen area last year. Schengen, which abolished internal border checks in much of Europe and now covers 29 countries. So you can see all these videos at the Schengen anniversary website, link to those in the show notes, or you can track a bunch of them down on Instagram. Most of the influencers got paid something like €8,000 for these videos. Less than a minute, kind of Instagram type reels. Most seem to have done three videos for that fee. And most of the influencers seem to have acknowledged that this was paid content or an ad in the caption area below the video. And I guess some people do read that. I don't know who does, apart from people like me. Most of them, I've checked some of them, they were getting, you know, between several hundred to several thousand likes. And that does seem to be something of a measure of success in a world where the currency of social media is not necessarily authority or accuracy, it's engagement numbers.

[Peter von Alst]

I would hope that it's a little bit more than just counting likes and that you have some metrics that also say, okay, people really engaged with that. They shared it with their friends and added something there. Okay, then it means something. Just a like, okay, yeah, what does it mean? Especially as an institution for the eu, they're now really focused to get more people liking what they do, because that's compared to Other institutions and other people, that's really low. So I understand that they say we need to boost that, but the real impact is, okay, do you really connect with some of these new audience that you want to reach?

[EU Scream Host]

There's not much mention in the videos, as far as I could tell, of what some would say is the existential issue here with Schengen. The prolonged reintroduction of temporary internal border checks by several member states after COVID 19 that they've ostensibly kept in place because of security concerns and apparently internal migration. So Schengen is in jeopardy. But you don't really get that sense from these videos. They're really just celebrations of travel and, you know, young kids kind of being able to go on a holiday or spend one night on one side of the bed that they're in, in the hotel in one country, and if they shift to the other side of the bed, they'll be in another, that kind of thing.

[Peter von Alst]

But okay, I don't want to defend the strategy of the European Commission to promote it that way. It. But the question is, with what would you compare it? If I would compare it to old traditional advertising, it would be a picture of Ursula van der Leyen in a newspaper across Europe with a slogan, I love Europe. Not very substantial either. So advertising is superficial always.

[EU Scream Host]

I guess the journalist in me is like, you know, if you want to make Schengen really interesting, then talk about the scratchy bits, talk about the difficulties.

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah.

[EU Scream Host]

Talk about how I'm a kid, I'm angry because the Germans keep putting up, you know, border controls and I'm angry at the Germans for doing that because I love Schengen.

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah.

[EU Scream Host]

The bit that's missing from these videos, of course, is I'm angry at the Germans, you know, because the Commission can never do that. And to me that's. That's where, you know, I get a bit frustrated with them.

[Peter von Alst]

But of course it's not because I say that these social media strategies, that there should not be classic journalism and that Ursula van der Leyer should give a two hour interview to the main newspapers in Europe talking about that. And I should be able. You and I should be able to read all of that, but that will not reach the majority of the population. Again, referring back to our Prime Minister who plays with his cat on social media. But then he gives a speech of two hours somewhere in the Netherlands about his vision on Europe and both should be there. And then there should be a third, which is the critical interview where he gets back and forth with a journalist. We should have a broader toolkit of information rather than a more narrow one, one or the other.

[EU Scream Host]

And indeed, I mean, just to take Ursula von der Leyen again, I mean, there's widespread criticism of her reluctance to engage with critical journalists.

[Peter von Alst]

And that happens more of media appearances. That happens more and more with political leaders. It was always, oh, they want to be in the media the whole time. Now they strategically stay away. Also, our prime minister does something on social media, then gives the two hour speech, but in both cases he's completely in control and they sometimes avoid the annoying journalists. And I think it's also critical. But again, Joe Biden also did that. So there are a lot of politicians that we call very democratic and role models, but also they avoided the media.

[EU Scream Host]

So what we're talking about here is all these new technologies and social media in particular becoming unhelpful, kind of substitutes for proper accountability to the public.

[Peter von Alst]

To put it differently, there's nothing wrong with social media as long as you still do the long interview.

[EU Scream Host]

There was big resistance within the commission to doing this internally. Even this pilot project with Schengen. The main concern being not being able to control the message. But that resistance seems, seems to have been assuaged. It seems to have been dealt with by the influencers being obliged either formally or informally, I'm not sure about that, to run their videos by the commission for a final check. So again, do you have any further thoughts on this sort of model, especially by institutions?

[Peter von Alst]

Well, it's clearly a borderline where they're with trial and error, seeing what works and what doesn't work. We can critique it, but if it works. Yeah. So I understand that in this environment people are trying to see what works. This is a new, it's a new game and a lot of people are learning. The problem is that hopefully the account of the White House will never be the example, although it's successful in a way.

[EU Scream Host]

One of the other concerns is the unforeseen consequences, for example, if an influencer later ended up saying the opposite, saying the opposite, but also committing a crime or getting into trouble with the law and then the choice of that person being seen as just immensely bad judgment. And this whole idea of bringing this, this person kind of bringing the European project into disrepute, I mean, so I think they're all. Yeah.

[Peter von Alst]

Therefore I said, I think it's a tricky strategy. I know that the Dutch government used influencers during COVID and then some of these people did say the opposite thing a month earlier. And that what mask or don't mask. And so people notice this and you make a fool of yourself. So there's clearly a lot of dangers of people reading a book about the European Union next to the pool and nobody would believe that that person would actually read the book about the European Union next to the pool. So sometimes it has, it makes no sense and then it doesn't work. So it's not just about finding people and I'm paying them some money to do a clip. It's finding what works, what is a selling point of Europe. They should think about that and then think about the people that could be influencers. And perhaps these are not the traditional paid influencers.

[EU Scream Host]

You know, all of this is supposed to work because it's emotional, authentic, da da da. And that's the kind of content that gets prioritized by the new gatekeepers, the social media platforms. But that's not the end of the story here. The big US platforms see some European Commission content as problematic politically. And this is complicated stuff because some of this is American platforms blaming European media rules and European advertising rules, giving them almost a pretext for not allowing that European content to be shared widely. Specifically, Meta announced last October that it would suspend all political and issue based ads on its platforms in the European Union on ostensibly because of a European regulation on political advertising. And then the European Commission no longer pays to promote On X on Elon Musk's platform based on the idea that we should not be giving this guy money, given how critical, you know, just outrageous Musk is about Europe, you know, calling it Nazi and all of these things that Musk does. So as to TikTok, the European Commission doesn't post there because of these concerns about China. So you can talk about making content, but then there's the distribution part of this.

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah, and that distribution part is highly problematic. So perhaps we should have started the whole conversation with that. These are multinationals that earn a lot of money, don't have clear accountability, and they use algorithms that we don't have transparency with. So the whole model is flawed and from a democratic point of view, highly problematic. So that is my starting point. So still it seems that we have no choice to play around. And I think what Europe does in terms of regulation is good. It's not perfect, but it's much better than in the rest of the world. So I think this is one of these moments in history that Europe proves relevant because we need to regulate these companies. And related to Meta's abolishment of these political ads, perhaps this is biased by my Belgian Point of view. But we had Belgian political parties spending millions on Meta ads, more than in any other country. And that was just very bad also for the image of politicians. But they were in a game like, ah, if they spend money, we also need to spend money. And more and more money was going to American multinational. The extreme left party had troubles with that, but they also were a big spender on Meta. So that is. It was almost ridiculous. So I think that is a good thing. On the other hand, it makes us.

[EU Scream Host]

It's a good thing that that's been abolished by Meta itself.

[Peter von Alst]

By Meta itself. Forced by the European regulation.

[EU Scream Host]

Well, that's what they say.

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah. Because they wanted more transparency. I worked with the Meta ad library for me as a researcher that was very interesting to see. Ah, so that political party had 10 different versions of that ad in different regions of the country. So for me there was already some transparency, but they said, we need more transparency on that. And then Meta said, okay, actually we don't make that much money out of these political ads and it gets a lot of critique, so let's stop it. So I think for them, in their economic model there was not that much to gain. So cat videos are much more interesting than political videos. So interesting when you mix the both, it might be really good. So it was that rather, I think, than the regulation in itself.

[EU Scream Host]

Meta just didn't want to deal with the blowback.

[Peter von Alst]

Yeah, yeah.

[EU Scream Host]

Is there any consensus yet or what's your point of view on whether these influencers should be regulated as media or not as traditional media? You know, my understanding is that political influencers currently fall outside of the scope of this 2024 law on transparency and targeting of political advertising. It requires online and offline ads to be clearly labeled to indicate, for example, who paid for them, their costs. Political influencers are not. They don't kind of fall under the scope of that law. There is talk of a new digital fairness act where they could be kind of more regulated. What are your thoughts on regulating this kind of content? I mean, there's. As a journalist, I'm like, hang on a minute, I don't like the sound of regulating content creation. On the other hand, when you see the power of these political influencers and the fact that they can be paid and then get the eyeballs of so many millions of people that can change political outcomes, such as in Romania in that election where the Russians are thought to have used influencers to steer the election towards a victory for a Kremlin friendly candidate. That election then got subsequently canceled. With around 9 million TikTok users out

[Peter von Alst]

of a population of 19 million, the country saw its November 24 election overturned over allegations of Russian meddling via the social media app. During that campaign, far right candidate Kalin Giorgesku rose to the first place, fueled by an explosion of favorable content. Moscow, however, has denied allegations of manipulation.

[EU Scream Host]

That was a big warning bell about the power of this system. So, on the one hand, regulation of content creation, or something like journalism, or a little bit like journalism, don't like it. On the other hand. Hang on a minute. Democracy is at stake. What are we doing not regulating this?

[Peter von Alst]

It's a very tricky debate, I think, and I also have mixed feelings about it all, because how would you regulate? And do we have a definition of what an influencer is? We don't. And you say you reach millions of people, but what if I'm a popular person here in Antwerp and I reach thousand people with my personal political views? Should you regulate me?

[EU Scream Host]

I don't know.

[Peter von Alst]

So also, the example of Romania was somebody who wanted to go into politics. So for me, that was more a politician than an influencer. So there's a lot of gray zone there, and I think it's very hard to regulate. But I. At the same time, you're right. So we need some sort of framework, at least where we can work in. But as you say, yeah, these companies have too much power, they're not transparent. And then we have foreign governments like the Russians influencing these elections. So one of the solutions we have not talked about is investing in traditional journalism, of course, because it often happens there where people lost their trust in traditional journalism or in traditional politics. And then it creates a void that others jump in and that social media jump in. So more than ever, I tell my students, please watch the news from time to time, sit with your parents in the sofa and watch this slow news where they explain again, Israel, Palestine, how was it again, how. How did it start like that? Some of that context, in the weekend, from time to time, use the newspaper. What our research also shows is people learn very little from social media. And this is my more pessimistic side. So research after research, we see that people learn very little from social media. So sometimes I also think, don't spend all your attention there, because it's not there where you make the real difference. So. Oh, yeah. Have you seen that? Yeah, I saw it. And then you ask a few questions about it, and people can't remember. So there is something structurally problematic with the medium. It goes so fast. There's information overload. You see 20 messages. The attention span so short. I sound really, really old fashioned. I know, but, but I think it's more important than ever and it seems that some students get it. And I also, yeah, journalism is in the center of the debate about democratic erosion, which is good. So yeah, the whole struggle about what is happening now makes journalism more important than ever.

[EU Scream Host]

That's it for this episode. EU Scream is non profit journalism and is produced in association with the Brussels Times. It's your support and your feedback that helps us delve into this new darker era in our politics, into how the EU should be responding, and into the thoughts and experiences of people who really know what they're about. Talking, talking about small donations to large ones. That's all incredibly appreciated. It also helps when we get a five star rating at Spotify or a review at Apple. Podcasts and passing on episodes to family, colleagues, friends. That's yet another great way to show support. For more details and for more EU Scream, do please visit Brusselstimes.com and look for the podcast. Thanks for listening.