Pseudo-journalistic political communication: The Flemish far right and the appropriation of journalism for political communication ends

The borders between journalism and politics have become increasingly blurry within the hybrid media system in which older and newer media logics as well as media and political logics interact in complex ways. This article examines an underexplored aspect of this evolving landscape: the appropriation of journalism for political communication ends by political parties, a phenomenon we call ‘pseudo-journalistic political communication’. With the far right having emerged as a key player in this hybridization, we examine the Belgian Vlaams Belang’s (Flemish Interest, VB) pseudo-journalistic political communication through a multimodal textual analysis of the VB ‘talk show’ VBTV and the VB-produced but seemingly independent ‘news website’ V-NIEUWS. Building on Ekman and Widholm’s (2024a) work, our study focuses on the combination of political communication logics and journalistic logics across four dimensions: (1) transparency concerning partisanship; (2) platforms used for dissemination; (3) journalistic genres and roles; and (4) discourse about journalism. Our findings highlight the party’s aptitude in drawing on journalistic logics for political communication ends but also the difficulties it faces in navigating the tensions between journalistic and political logics, particularly in formats that are more profoundly pseudo-journalistic. The conclusion builds on the comparison of V-NIEUWS and VBTV to refine the conceptualization of pseudo-journalistic political communication as one specific articulation of journalism into political communication. We also situate this phenomenon within the broader landscape of the far right’s multi-faceted engagement with journalism.