“MANY ARE LIVE ‘ROUND HERE…” THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE DEVALUATION OF THE MAINSTREAM MASS MEDIA IN HUNGARY

Abstract

There has been an on-going debate about the status of the public service broadcasting in Hungary since 1989. The political affiliation of the electronic media and the representation of the civil and oppositional voices in the media are central questions of the discourse. The oppositional parties (both in and out of the parliament) as well as the civil organizations are under-represented in the mainstream mass media, their standpoints are more likely to be mediated through social media, especially on Facebook or through thematic blogs.        

In December 2018, a new legislation, which since then has been known as the “Slave Law”, was pushed through in the Hungarian Parliament, despite the obstruction of the opposition. There have been several protests against the law organized by opposition parties, labor unions and civil organizations. Due to the lack of objective and unbiased information on these actions in the public media’s representation, the subjects of demands have changed over time: the need for free and independent information flow has been declared as one of the main demands. The filming of the actions that took place in front of the Parliament and the state broadcaster were almost exclusively accessible to Facebook users who followed the live video streaming of the partakers. Thus, the “live” function (i.e. live video streaming through mobile devices) became the most vital resource of information and the most effective tool for mobilization. This function enabled the opinion leaders to reach their followers, and the participants to document the police interventions and violent actions. The interactivity exacerbated the confrontation of opinions on the Facebook platform, and more generally, facilitated political activism.                      

In the present study, the author investigates how these events are represented in personal profiles of the oppositional parties’ leaders, how the use of “live” function influences the outcome of the actions, and how the political debates seen on social media can lead to an unprecedented level of activism in civil society. The author analyzes the comments of the most trending posts (using the MAXQDA qualitative analysis software) to examine whether the propaganda messages, both from the governing party and the opposition, are able to radicalize the readers, to create an image of the enemy, or to deepen the confrontation.