From Free University to #freeuniversity: Student and Teacher Activism in Offline and Online Spaces in Hungary

Abstract

The paper considers the movements of students and teachers at the University of Szeged, particularly in the period after the change of the political regime of Hungary in 1989. The author examines offline and online forms of civic activism from three points of view, examining (1) the relationship between institutionalized and spontaneously organized groups of students and teachers, (2) the adaptation of the tools of political activism to the online space, and (3) the tools and methods for global, national, and local mobilization.

The study focuses on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, which have manifested itself in the form of restrictions on the right to assembly. The author considers online platforms that have become particularly valuable in replacing personal contact lost to distance education, and the higher education policies that have generated the most protests in a wide variety of forms. A special focus is made on the communication strategy of the Lecturers' Network, formed in 2012, and the student groups constantly changing in communicating these developments, as well as their impact on public opinion, university management, and civic attitudes.

In addition to the content analysis of primary documents and discourses of social networks, the author works with materials of in-depth interviews and questionnaires to test the hypothesis that social media and online space do not replace the power of personal political activity, but play a role in the apparent mobilization of «revolutionaries in the chair» rather than the politics of participation.