Media Effects in Campaigns in Elections in East Central Europe

This paper discusses the media and political contexts of campaign effects in the newer democracies of Central Europe, and draws upon examples from the 1994, 1998 and 2002 Hungarian national elections, as well as recent elections in Romania. Research (by the authors) on the 1994 and 1998 Hungarian elections found important campaign effects though these were not consistent from one election to the next, and also not always in line with what the campaign strategists had intended. The main findings from research on the 1994 and 1998 Hungarian elections are summarized, and changes in the media and political systems are discussed before turning to the post-election 2002 survey for analysis of the relationship between media use on the one hand, and political attitudes, evaluations, and vote choice on the other. In addition, one panel, and a three-wave longitudinal survey covering the 1996 and 2000 national elections in neighboring Romania are analyzed to assess the validity of three possible explanations of why the partisan abuse of public television broadcast by government parties can sometimes help them in the electoral arena, and yet have a potential to grossly backfire in some elections.