CHRONICLE: The risk of filter bubbles in the Polish election

There are two different and irreconcilable images, both with some grounding in reality, that the Poles convey through large established media:

President Andrzej Duda and the National Conservative Government Party Law and Justice put the interests of the Poles first and for the first time since the fall of Communism there is a government that looks after those who have the most trouble. Or, Duda has isolated Poland and brought the country further away from the EU and threatened democracy.

The polarization in Polish society is becoming clearer and, ahead of the presidential election on Sunday, supporters of both candidates know that everything is at stake. In Sweden, people have sometimes discussed the risks of people in social media being in filter bubbles where they only share what like-minded people think and think. But in Poland it becomes obvious that it is not social media that pose this danger but it is the traditional media.

Outside of Poland, Law and Justice's takeover of control and political control of the public service TV channel TVP has received a lot of attention. But the fact is that the majority of the private media in Poland also takes a clear political stance and propagates for or against the government.

During our days in Poland, we have had a hard time getting people who support the incumbent President Andrzej Duda and the Law and justice to be interviewed. They are skeptical of journalists in general, of journalists who do not belong to state television even more, and of foreign journalists in particular. Everything foreign is portrayed by the government party as something threatening that wants to impose on Poland different lifestyles and values ​​than the traditional Polish ones.

And during the election campaign, the media and their role have been at the center. So polarized is the country that the two presidential candidates could not agree on a common channel to run in an election debate. Instead, they lined up for an interrogation in each. Rafal Trzaskowski in privately owned TVN and President Andrzej Duda in state TVP.

In a media landscape where few strive for neutrality, it becomes difficult to know what is true and not. It is becoming increasingly difficult to understand those who think differently than one does. Suspicion grows.