Moral panic, indignation, and invoking parental responsibility as strategies of the far right to gain mainstream media coverage in Bulgaria and Germany

The paper explores the affective strategies of far-right players to gain mainstream media coverage in Bulgaria and Germany – taken as most different cases when it comes both to their media systems and the openness of mainstream media to far right views. We focus more specifically on the staging of moral panic and indignation by far-right players on issues that, according to them, relate to children’s safety and education. We show that parental care and protection of children are often overlooked aspects of far-right rhetoric, even though they have strong public resonance and are often presented by far-right players as justification for negative attitudes towards immigration or progressive gender politics. Comparing the cases of Germany and Bulgaria, we explore to what extent the affective strategies of the far right – stirring moral panic and indignation and invoking parental responsibility - have allowed the far right to “break into” mainstream media. Furthermore, adopting a strategic interactionist approach, we analyse also the dilemmas mainstream journalists face when deciding to cover or not to cover a specific childhood-related “scandal” staged by the far right. The paper draws on a qualitative analysis of mainstream media TV shows and articles as well as on interviews with far-right players and journalists in the two countries in order to map the strategies and dilemmas both types of actors face when interacting with each other. Crucially, we show that in Bulgaria, sometimes mainstream media are the first to introduce “scandalous issues” that the far right takes up only later, pointing against a simplified model of interaction in which the far right tries to impose its topics on reluctant gate keepers.