Podcast Summary: Why Do Authoritarians Want To Control The News? With Martin Moore

Podcast: Intelligence Squared
Host: Carl Miller
Guest: Martin Moore
Producer: Mia Sorrenti
Date: November 28, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode delves deep into the global resurgence of government efforts—both authoritarian and democratic—to control news and shape public perception. Martin Moore, academic, author, and co-director at the Centre for the Study of Media, Communication and Power (King’s College London), discusses his new book Dictating Reality (co-authored with Thomas Colley). The conversation explores strategies governments use to dominate the news narrative, how these tactics have evolved in the digital age, and what this means for democracy and knowledge itself.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Platforms to Governments: The New Battle for News

• Not About Tech Giants: While much recent discourse focused on tech platforms (Google, Facebook) as new gatekeepers, Moore explains this book shifts attention back to governments, who are re-asserting control over narratives.
  • “What was really not clear to me then was that … governments would fight back…by the time we get to 2025, you can see … not just autocracies, but a lot of democratic governments, have successfully kind of regained an awful lot of power and are increasing that power and … leading us to this much more authoritarian public sphere.” (Martin Moore, 04:07)

2. Why News is Central: Narrative Dominance

• Controlling the Agenda: Governments recognize that maintaining power over the news is key to establishing “narrative supremacy”—reaching the dominant interpretation of events.
  • “In order to gain, as they see it, narrative supremacy … they need to … control the agenda and indeed control some of the facts that fit the agenda.” (Martin Moore, 06:26)
• Drowned Out Alternative Views: Even skeptical citizens in tightly controlled systems struggle to find alternative or dissenting information.
  • “It’s really hard to kind of know what isn’t there … you quite quickly sound like a conspiracy theorist.” (Martin Moore, 07:40)

3. The Mechanics of Storytelling for Power

• Strategic Narratives: Building on Jerome Bruner’s cognitive psychology, Moore explains that people often interpret the world through stories—not just facts.
• Narrative Arcs & “Sovereign Reality”: Governments construct grand stories with heroes, villains, turning points, and inevitable moral lessons; these “strategic narratives” become the frameworks through which all events are reported.
  • Russia Example: The war in Ukraine is presented as “David vs Goliath”—Russia defending itself and the Donbas against Western-backed Nazi aggressors—regardless of observable facts.
  • “Whenever there’s an event … it’s reported through a particular prism… in the overall strategic narrative. So if Russia is retreating, Russia is actually making a tactical withdrawal.” (Martin Moore, 12:13)
  • “In Russia … ‘Bucha’ now … is a shorthand for fake news.” (Martin Moore, 14:42)

4. Case Studies: Tactics Across Regimes

Russia: “Sovereign Reality”

• Russian state media creates an internally consistent reality, directly opposed to Western narratives.
  • “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. And it’s almost like that is the way Russian media deals with events in Ukraine.” (Martin Moore, 14:09)
• Notable: “In Russia … ‘Bucha’ now … is a shorthand for fake news.” (Martin Moore, 14:42)

China: Building Infrastructural Control

• China acted early, establishing:
  • Great Firewall: Technological blocks on outside information.
  • Platform Control: Domestic tech giants comply with strict censorship.
  • Global Media Expansion: Funding, staff, and favorable content deals worldwide, quietly tilting the global news ecology.
  • “I was just thinking…how long it’s been since we’ve heard any news that’s really critical of the Chinese government, the CCP...” (Martin Moore, 19:26)

Hungary: Illiberal Democracy’s Media Capture

• Legal and regulatory reform to neuter independent media regulation.
• Public broadcaster purged, loyalists installed.
• Orban allies buy hundreds of commercial media outlets—later centralized in a government-friendly foundation.
• Cultivation of a pro-government influencer network for social media.
  • “By the next election, every local newspaper is endorsing Orban … so you see how, in a very, very step by step fashion, Orban has very carefully taken over almost all [media]…” (Martin Moore, 27:17)

Brazil: Parallel Information Ecosystem

• Bolsonaro’s team bypassed mainstream media, creating self-sustaining “news bubbles” on WhatsApp and social media.
• Taps into conditions particular to Brazil: limited data plans that allow “free” continued use of Meta’s platforms, fostering dependency.
  • “You can kind of create what one New York Times journalist called a mass delusion without even needing ... big media houses anymore.” (Martin Moore, 30:12)

India (and Lessons for Democracies):

• The BJP uses money, access, and friendly ownership to dominate news, especially TV. Threats familiar to all democracies—advertising dollars, access to politicians, credibility attacks—are used as levers of control.
  • “Broadcast news is now effectively sort of almost entirely pro-BJP ... Those levers are absolutely available in other democracies…” (Martin Moore, 32:45)
  • “Media ... is in a particularly vulnerable position. I mean, business model has been declining for years now.” (Martin Moore, 34:02)

5. Dangers for Liberal Democracies

• Even absent overt state takeovers, Western governments exploit financial levers, legitimate and otherwise, to influence coverage.
• Legitimacy attacks, regulatory threats, and access control are all tools already being used.

Memorable Quotes & Moments

| Timestamp | Quote | Speaker | |-----------|-------|---------| | 04:07 | “By the time we get to 2025 … a lot of democratic governments have successfully kind of regained an awful lot of power … leading us to this much more authoritarian public sphere.” | Martin Moore | | 07:40 | “It’s really hard to kind of know what isn’t there … you quite quickly sound like a conspiracy theorist.” | Martin Moore | | 12:13 | “Whenever there’s an event … it’s reported through a particular prism… in the overall strategic narrative.” | Martin Moore | | 14:42 | “‘Bucha’ now … is a shorthand for fake news.” | Martin Moore | | 19:26 | “How long it’s been since we’ve heard any news that’s really critical of the Chinese government, the CCP...” | Martin Moore | | 27:17 | “By the next election, every local newspaper is endorsing Orban … so you see how, in a very, very step by step fashion, Orban has very carefully taken over almost all [media]…” | Martin Moore | | 30:12 | “You can kind of create what one New York Times journalist called a mass delusion without even needing ... big media houses anymore.” | Martin Moore | | 32:45 | “Broadcast news is now effectively sort of almost entirely pro-BJP ... Those levers are absolutely available in other democracies…” | Martin Moore |

[36:00] News Fighting Back: Reasons for Optimism

• Emergence of “Truth Seekers”: Despite government censorship, an international movement—fact-checkers, open-source intelligence groups—are fighting misinformation and government narratives.

  • “We have to recognize that we do live in an extremely different information environment … and one of the things … has been the enormous growth of … truth seekers, and that’s open source intelligence and fact checkers … who are willing to challenge governments.” (Martin Moore, 36:04)

• Rebuilding a “Constitution of Knowledge”: Knowledge-based institutions (journalism, science, academia, law) have processes to verify and challenge claims; supporting and renewing these is vital for democracy.

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:08] – Why the book’s focus is on governments, not platforms
• [06:22] – Why controlling “the news” is so powerful for government narratives
• [09:10] – The psychological and political importance of narrative storytelling
• [14:00] – How Russia constructs its “sovereign reality”
• [15:34] – China: Economic and infrastructural strategies for news control
• [23:11] – Hungary: Step-by-step state media capture, local press, and influencers
• [29:18] – Brazil: Bypassing traditional media, building a social media “bubble”
• [32:22] – Lessons for liberal democracies: subtle levers of control in India and the UK
• [36:00] – Can the news fight back? Fact checkers and open-source intelligence

Tone and Style

• Measured, analytical, urgent but not alarmist.
• Moore is direct, sometimes wry, always focused on evidence and concrete examples.
• Carl Miller maintains a facilitating role, frequently summarizing or clarifying for listeners.

Summary for Non-Listeners

This conversation is an essential primer on how governments worldwide—authoritarian and ostensibly democratic—are reasserting control over the information ecosystem. By tracking concrete case studies (Russia, China, Hungary, Brazil, India) and illuminating the new strategies at play (from infrastructural takeover to influencer cultivation), Martin Moore warns that narrative manipulation is more sophisticated, and more dangerous, than many recognize. Yet he concludes with hope: networks of truth-seekers and renewed “constitutions of knowledge” may yet protect societies from the full authoritarian capture of reality.