"Since its Joint Communication on Hybrid Threats, the EU has publicly recognized the risks to its security posed by non-traditional means aimed at undermining its legitimacy. The propagation of disinformation including misleading political advertising serves as a key example of how the Commission’
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s perception of the EU’s vulnerability to hybrid threats in times of geopolitical instability is shaping its regulatory policies. This article uses the framework of regulatory mercantilism, which argues that in conditions of perceived vulnerability, a state-like actor will reassert regulatory control based on a security logic in areas previously characterized by self-regulatory regimes. This article considers the Commission’s 2019–2024 priorities, and how the spheres of technology, security, and democracy policies are intersecting as a response to hybrid threats. As a result, online platform governance in the EU is being substantially restructured with a move from systems of selfregulation to co-regulation backed by sanction as a means of combating hybrid threats online. The Commission’s “taking back control” from platforms in the context of a digital sovereignty agenda serves as an example of regulatory mercantilism in digital policy, which sees the Commission seek to promote regulatory strength in response to perceived vulnerability." (Abstract)
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"El estudio de los fenómenos comunicativos en las elecciones de México de 2015 constituye el punto de análisis en el presente volumen. En el marco normativo de un órgano electoral nuevo, el Instituto Nacional Electoral, las variaciones del tratamiento informativo y la presencia de estrategias me
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diáticas en la prensa, la radio y la televisión reforzaron la idea de unos medios de comunicación que fungieron como creadores de contextos interpretativos y agentes de control de la opinión pública, para el posicionamiento o deslegitimación de los candidatos ciudadanos y de los partidos políticos. Las elecciones intermedias demostraron, a pesar de la reforma electoral de 2014 y la participación de los candidatos independientes, que la regulación normativa del modelo de comunicación política tiene frente a sí a la diversidad de prácticas mediáticas y modulación discursiva como un universo de manifestaciones del lenguaje de la política, que se re-inventa a cada paso." (Editorial)
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"This article addresses concerns that an insidious culture of intolerance, hate and insults in Ghanaian politics and electoral contests could undermine the efficacy of the country’s neo-democracy. The article draws on pre-election interviews with the two main contenders in Ghana’s 2012 elections
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to sound out their positions on the propriety and prudence of expressing a negative campaign platform. The interview responses are analysed in the context of past ads run by their parties, which reveal that the candidates’ disclaimers and public professions to run issue-oriented campaigns contradicted the practice of their party’s resort to negative campaigns. The article concludes that candidates and their parties are unlikely to abide by ethical injunctions and accordingly proposes the passage of a legal code to regulate broadcasting (including political advertising) in Ghana." (Abstract)
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