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Podcast Episode#1-Greece, France, the Netherlands and Why Populism is Winning With the Issue of Immigration.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35075439

This podcast takes a look into populism in the three countries of Greece, France and the Netherlands. Here we compare the three countries and tie together their similarities as well as the differences between them. We discuss the parties of the Golden Dawn, which is a dying populist party but has created a lot of noise in Greek history, the PVV led by Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, and the FN led by Marie Le Pen of France. All three countries populist actors pay close attention to immigration as a point of debate as well as a talking point in order to gain popularity within their countries. We hope you enjoy our podcast!

https://soundcloud.com/daniel-safsel/podcast-episode-1-ppulism-in

Links to sources:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/910515/opinions-on-cartoon-contest-wilders-in-the-netherlands/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/world/europe/netherlands-election-muslims.html

https://www.timesofisrael.com/on-trial-head-of-greek-far-right-party-alleges-conspiracy-against-him/

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/28/the-new-face-of-the-dutch-far-right-fvd-thierry-baudet-netherlands-pvv-geert-wilders/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/18/world/europe/geert-wilders-netherlands-freedom-party-moroccan-immigrants.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdcrP-5bDIk

https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01889832/document

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/07/world/europe/emmanuel-macron-france-election-marine-le-pen.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35075439

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26528673?casa_token=Vb4q4m3dxUkAAAAA:ApEkxolbbD_ga1wa_B2YQstEbjt9Qc9HLzP5SYXxJAjxPEi5LAFYCnImMStSign1CfIadptgMO98UZAZA7WTwLleZjViyGC8rGtyj5EKrBIvqY-jsQ&seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La%C3%AFcit%C3%A9

https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/41598978/ElQadim_Deprivation_Spring2015.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DThe_January_2015_attacks_and_the_debate.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20191030%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20191030T000732Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=91d00a09f062d96207ef5942395c2e16b21484192dffbf230ecc5b479cb5332e

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1467-9248.00184

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/french-elections-latest-marine-le-pen-immigration-suspend-protect-france-borders-front-national-fn-a7689326.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38321401

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/10/02/world/social-issues-world/hundreds-migrants-protest-conditions-greek-isle-lesbos/#.XfAY6LaZO8V

Populism, A Very Short Introduction, Mudde C. and Kaltwasser R., Oxford University press 2017

https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au/bitstream/handle/10072/1606/20220.pdf;sequence=1

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Media Landscape Brief

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/06/few-dutch-worried-about-fake-news-most-trust-the-media-survey-finds/

Within the Netherlands there are many working parts that make up the media. Like the U.S, the Netherlands has ties to almost all of the same types of communicative media that they have, such as books, newspapers, television, radio, the internet and social media platforms. Within this country, we can see the utilization of all these forms of media by political parties, which ranges from far right to far left views. According to medialandscapes.org, the media has the ability for information to pass on from one person to the next and is easy to do so because of the technological advancements that this country has gone through. Within the Netherlands we see the use of printed news, news broadcasted on television and news discussed on public broadcasting radio. Of these three, online news media has begun to become the more dominant form of news with public broadcast in a close second to this new form of digital news.  Jamie Bartlettclaims that the media most definitely changes the way we communicate and has an overall effect on politics.(Bartlett 100) Within the Netherlands, there has been a transition towards new media and away from older forms, which have allowed for a better overall flow of information from sources directly to the public.

With the rise of the internet, online media has slowly but surely become widely used by the majority of the Dutch population.With online streaming and the ability to post video segments on YouTube and Facebook, people have begun to shift away from the traditional use of television and newspapers to these now online ways of watching video and reading online articles. With this also comes the decline of printed media, although there is still a relatively decent amount of people reading printed news every day, it is slowly in decline. Because of online media becoming more substantial and utilized more than printed media, the Netherlands have seen waves of layoffs in these types of jobs dealing with print media. Alongside this, public broadcasting has seen its’ share in layoffs due to budget cuts because of similar reasons. Overall the Netherlands is seeing a decline in traditional forms of printed media and a rise in television and online media that has a better way of advertising on their forms of media.

           So far the status of the free press remains heavily protected by the government who supports a free press inside and outside their own country. The Netherlands have created a large legal agreement which also extends out to confidential sources that journalists may interview. Journalists in the Netherlands have also come together to create a union called the Federation of Journalistsin order to support and create a system where journalists can be protected under law and have the ability to pay for legal action when their rights are denied. In 2018 two crime reporters were granted full-time police protection as well as there being numerous threats made in the direction towards Journalists who are doing their job to report on issues of public importance.According to RSF.com (Reporters without borders), over half of all journalists have faced one or more types of threats throughout their reporting careers and this union creates a legal system of lawyers and fellow journalists which protect other journalists rights. The overwhelming majority of Dutch voters still favor a free press, which continues to contribute to their public knowledge.

           Today, journalists in the Netherlands have seen a rise of populist parties which has seemed to be a growing problem that challenges a free press. The populist party led by Geert Wilders tends to constantly question the legitimacy of journalists as well as calling for the resignation of and restriction of journalists who are doing their job to report on what is happening and uncover corruption. An issue that has been coming up specifically is when journalists address issues that have to do with the Netherlands national identity as well as immigration. When these topics are addressed, populists tend to try and intimidate these individuals through forms of online media. Since 2016, we have seen a global decline in the presses freedom due to the absence of a strong press freedom leadership in the United States, where before the election of Donald Trump, was a leader in having press be free to do journalistic work.  The continuation of the current administrations harsh treatment on the press creates a ripple effect where other countries press freedom will begin to see a decline globally.

           Tjitske Akkerman makes the claim that a popular press sympathizes with, but does not imply the support of,  populist parties rather than other parties.Populist parties tend to be exploiters of personalization, and through media platforms they tend to create bullying events that draw the attention of popular newspapers who pay more attention to controversial political leaders. This eventually helps these leaders such as Geert Wilders, gain a political presence and overall electoral breakthrough. Through online media sources such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other platforms such as these, the populist voice is able to be seen in a way that was once very difficult to do. Populist parties such as the PVVs’ leader Geert Wilders, posts on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to get out his messages of anti-immigration and connect with the “common people.” Through these forms of media, populism can begin to gain traction within the political contest, and like Jamie Bartlett claims in her academic article Populism, Social Media and Democratic Strain, “the challenge lies ultimately with other parties to respond. The more established parties have to change to survive: they will have to get used to a new type of membership that can be mobilized at election time.”(Bartlett J, 2014, pg. 110) Populist parties will continue to push their agenda and use media such as online platforms to push their agendas, but established parties must be able to identify these pushes and combat them by breaking down misinformation and informing the public about these matters. Media technology is everchanging and in order for people to stay informed they must continue to search for the truth through these sources of information.  

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Growing populism in the Netherlands and Connection to Islam

https://www.canva.com/design/DADq7UkWT-0/-P4qZ5X3nWVMA4H2r65Sgw/view?utm_content=DADq7UkWT-0&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=publishsharelink

In this brief infographic, I show you how we came to the main populist party today called the PVV as well as seeing the connection between populism and Islam, and how Muslim communities are being targeted by these populist leaders. In this infographic, you will see some numbers that describe the size of both populism in the Netherlands, as well as the size of the Muslim community. With this information, I have provided one can get a sense of the rising influence of populism and how the Muslim community is potentially going to be affected if the current state of populism continues to grow and flourish.

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Geert Wilders Cartoon Contest Analysis

On May 17th2018, the populist leader of the Party For Freedom, Geert Wilders, released an announcement that he was launching a drawing contest to depict the Prophet Muhammad. A belief by many Muslims, both Ahmadi and Sunni, believe that the depiction of the prophet is notprohibited, and is deeply offensive to those who practice the religion. The announcement of this contest led to many controversies and protests within the Netherlands amongst its' Muslim citizens and can be looked upon as an event that describes the tension between Muslim communities in the Netherlands and the Populist party led by Geert Wilders.

Wilders announced this contest to test the limits of free speech within the Netherlands. Alongside this, he was willing to use this contest as a way to try and show others that Islam is a threat, although he knew of the outrage that he was going to create with this contest. According to Khalil Yousuf, deputy director of communications for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, he believes that Wilder’s statements about Muslims can have damaging consequences due to him targeting Muslims as a specific enemy of the Dutch people.After direct threats to Wilders we made, Wilders announced to end the cartoon contest. Yousef also discusses how the clarification between free speech law is very important in a modern age and that speech such as this is made to offend and potentially incite violence.  Wilders later released a statement later on as to why he canceled the contest and states, “To avoid the risk of victims of Islamic violence, I have decided not to let the cartoon contest go ahead”. Before the cancellation of this contest, thousands of Islamists went to march towards Pakistan's capital to protest Wilders contest and speak out against how this was an attack on the Muslim religion.

Wilders is wildly known for his anti-Islamic rhetoric but did not fully start gaining attention to his views until the early 2000's when he broke away and formed the PVV. “In 1999, Wilders reportedly presented to parliament a large report on Islamic terrorism as well as weapons of mass destruction that were in the middle east.”With the beginning of his interest in how the Middle East and Islam were hurting the Dutch country, he began gaining support from those who aligned with his views. Such one person was Pim Fortuyn, whose ideology was heavily against the immigration of Islam into the Netherlands. Geert Wilders stated in an interview that he believed that the Middle East posed a great threat to the very stability of Europe and that with immigration to the EU will come immigration of Islam into the Netherlands.  

Just recently in the past month, Wilders has posted multiple cartoons that depicted the Prophet Muhammad on his Instagram account. These posts have been marked by the media platform as sensitive content and you must click a specific "continue to view" button to view the images. Due to Islamic views about the depiction of Muhammad, Wilders is using this platform of social media to extend on what he believes is his freedom of speech. Yousef also claims that Wilders is packaging discrimination and hate speech as “free speech” and this can negatively impact those minorities being targeted, such as those who felt impacted by this cartoon contest. Wilder's will most likely continue to spread his "brand" of Islamophobia in order to create a frame of protecting Western values against a “backward and totalitarian Islam” that is taking hold in the Netherlands, whether that claim is true or not, he is continuing to run with this concept.

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Pim Fortuyn’s Shadow

In this political cartoon drawn above, I have depicted Geert Wilders speaking on a microphone while also in the shadow of another past political populist leader, Pim Fortuyn's grave. Within this political cartoon, I wanted to connect and show how there is a similarity between the two populists alongside how Pim Fortuyn's assassination fueled the fire for Geert Wilders to step in as today's populist party leader of the PVV. The two share many similarities with their outlooks on anti-immigration policies on Islam as well as populist tactics.

When Pim Fortuyn was still alive, he was known as the populist leader of the Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy. Fortuyn's campaign that he was running on back in 2002 before his assassination was a controversial one. Fortuyn focused his campaign on the idea of anti-immigration, especially as one that was against the Islamization of the Netherlands. On the debate stage. Fortuyn would verbally attack the countries growing Muslim population and, make claims that Islam was a backward culture that is hurting their nation. This was seen as a controversial campaign platform due in part to the Netherlands' long-standing history of being a very tolerant country. The Netherlands was the first country to “legalize gay marriages, regulate prostitution, control and approve euthanasia, and also allow for the use of over the counter sales of marijuana in locations called “coffee shops.”So, in a country that is much more tolerant than others and whose Muslim population only amounts to around six percent of the overall Dutch population, the campaign platform on anti-immigration may have been a bit out there, but did however gain support from many Dutch citizens. This was shown when in March of 2002, he and his party was able to win 35 percent of the vote in the local Rotterdam election, which, is a small city whose population has a majority of immigrants.

          Today, the leader of the Populist Party for Freedom or PVV for short, is Geert Wilders. In a sense, Geert has picked up where Pim Fortuyn’s’ campaign Has ended. Wilders promotes his party with strong anti-Islam and ant-immigration policies/ideas that he wishes to enforce. In the early 2000's Wilders did not attract many followers, but, after the assassination of Fortuyn, many of his followers found Wilders just as appealing. After forming the PVV he amassed a large following that includes many of those who liked the populist messages that Pim Fortuyn was spreading. As the sole member of the PVV, he is the primary spokesperson for the party, and by using forms of social media such as Twitter, he can spread his messages of anti-immigration. The two share many similarities as to be the "speakers of the people." Pim Fortuyn's' initial campaign that sought anti-immigration of Muslims has somewhat lit the fuel for Geert Wilders, who continues today to take steps within the PVV to try and push his anti-immigration agenda.

          When drawing this political cartoon, I began to think about the connections as to how both Geert Wilders and Pim Fortuyn use/used populist tactics to gain traction with their anti-immigration and anti-Islam views. Margret Conavan describes that through populism and its followers, there can be a strong sense of anti-institutions that seem to be attached. (Canovan pg. 10)This made me think about how these two populist leaders both derived their messages based on anti-immigration within a country that is known for its' tolerant and accepting history. Is it possible that there is beginning to be a stronger resentment of those who are Muslim immigrants within Dutch society? Perhaps this national identity of tolerance is beginning to be questioned and is what is adding to the fire of Wilder's populist party and its' strength within Dutch politics today.

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Media Landscape Brief for the Netherlands

Below are a couple of important players within the media world in the Netherlands.

Social media: AGCS: Located in Amsterdam

a creative operations company that focuses on building display advertising for agencies and publishers. Their creative designers and developers have the expertise to develop advertising campaigns that align with their clients' marketing strategy. They write clean and creative code through their framework that is compliant with the specifications of any ad server, enabling their clients to adapt their solution anywhere they desire.

https://clutch.co/profile/agcs

DELTA (Dutch cable operator) cable provider in The Netherlands which provides cable T.V. Internet, and telephone services.

EQT Partners: A Swedish private equity group of 29 different funds within the EUR 61 billion in raised capital. Has a focus on industrial, consumer goods, technology, media,  telecommunications, and health care and services.  EQT took over cable operators Caiway and DELTA, which were two of the most dominant cable operators within The Netherlands.

https://www.eqtgroup.com

Public radio and TV face stiff competition from commercial stations. Viewers have access to a wide range of domestic and foreign channels, thanks mainly to one of the highest cable take-up rates in Europe. Every province has at least one local public TV channel. The three national public TV stations enjoy high audience shares.

National and commercial companies generally dominate the media here. In the Netherlands.

People are generally switching to digital media such as televised, radio, digital media and social networks to get their information rather than print media. Paid circulation of daily newspapers in The Netherlands roughly drops between 3-4 percent every year.

The two national radio stations that compete on news are Radio 1, a public broadcaster and BNR, a commercial station. Although most stations are generally music stations, there is a small percentage of radio that is discussion-based. 82 percent of radio listening is spent on live radio segments.

Press:

Algemeen Dagblad-national and daily news

De Telegraaf-national and daily news

NRC Handelsblad-national and daily news

De Volkskrant-national and daily news

Trouw-national and daily news

Het Parool-Amsterdam daily news

Het Financieele Dagblad-financial daily news

Elsevier-news weekly

Vrij Nederland-news weekly

People in the Netherlands have increasingly been watching TV on laptops and smartphones, as well as other tablet devices where they can access television now from. The most popular programs seemed to be soccer programs in 2016, as well as reality shows and game shows. With the Netherlands public television programs, some programs are made to educate citizens within the Netherlands. In the show Costa!, some scenes discuss and teach ways to have safe sex while also being entertaining to the public. Programs like this one are funded by foundations such as the Dutch Foundation Against Sexually Transmitted Diseases, the Netherlands Heart Foundation and many more to educate the public on important issues within their country. Television is an important medium to access information alongside its counterparts like the press, radio, the internet, and social media.

Television:

NPO-public broadcast

RTL- commercial

SBS- commercial

Radio:

NOS-public radio

Sky Radio-popular commercial FM station, continuous music

Radio 538- popular commercial FM, pop and dance music

BNR Nieuwsradio- commercial news

News agencies/ internet:

Algemeen Nederlands Persbureau (ANP)– news agency

FRNW- International radio and public multimedia

DutchNews.nl- news in English

There were just under 16 million people who use the internet every day in 2016(Internetlivestats), comprising 94% of the population.

Social Media:

Facebook

LinkedIn

Instagram

Twitter

Tumblr

Google+

Whatsapp

There is a growing number of online-only media in the Netherlands. Some focus on news (Decorrespondent.nl, Nu.nl, hundreds of hyperlocals) and others on specific subjects like tech, finance, food, culture or lifestyle. The online newsstand Blendle.nl reached one million subscribers in 2016. Journalists are very media-oriented now as well as many politicians. Primarily, the use of twitter is used heavily by not only these individuals but also news stations as a second medium to put news out onto.

https://medialandscapes.org/country/netherlands/media/sources

Press freedom is extremely valued in The Netherlands. The Netherland government supports the free press within the country as well as outside the country. There is a robust legal framework that protects journalist's rights and extends this to confidentiality of sources those journalists use. In the Netherlands, there is a federation called the NVJ which is an active union with a whole legal department and educational programs for journalists specifically. The rise of populist parties on the right and left is a growing challenge to press freedom. The legitimacy of the free press is being questioned and intimidated by these groups. With online social media platforms, the freedom of the press has been more visible than any time before within the Netherlands. The Netherlands media remains independent and is deeply ingrained into Dutch society. The free press in the Netherlands is considered by international standards, free from governmental or other interference. The greatest threats to the freedom of the press at this time in the Netherlands are right and left-populist movements and organized crime affiliates.

https://rsf.org/en/netherlands

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17741366

Populism media:

Geert Wilders runs an Instagram account currently that frequently posts on a day to day basis. On his pictures he posts, one can generally see an array of comments that are both positive but also extremely negative towards him as the populist leader. He has over 660 posts and 89 thousand followers. He is also not following anyone. On his Instagram bio he has a link to his website www.geertwilders.nl He seldom appears on TV and usually always refuses to be interviewed, but tweets daily. His tweets therefore often end up in media items.

Wilders also utilizes Facebook, Twitter, and a business email for inquiries. Recently Geert Wilders Instagram has been blocked due to remarks he had made about a political rival. However, Wilders relies on twitter to send out messages heavily, due in part to threats that have been made against him by Islamists. On Twitter, he has over 811,000 followers. The tweet that led to Geert Wilders being blocked on twitter described a progressive center-left party as being "suckers…who import ever more Islam and then weep crocodile tears over the consequences, such as honor killings."