Hungarian elections 2022 in Transylvania: Final Report

The Hungarian electoral campaign was severely impacted by the war in Ukraine. The start of the political campaign was based on traditional narratives from Fidesz, mainly promoting the historic support they offered since 2010 to Transylvania, Fidesz’s financial support to families, subsidies for schools, and kindergartens.

Hostile Narrative Brief: War in Ukraine

Since the most recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia's armed forces on February 24, 2022, the International Republican Institute (IRI)’s Beacon Project has been analyzing online media data from multiple Central and Eastern European Countries to track aspects of key narratives that have the potential to erode support for Ukraine.

Hungarian Elections - New Dynamics

Based on the political environment and various party preference polls showing the same trends, Fidesz-KDNP is most likely to win the upcoming general election. They will presumably gain a significant advantage in the next National Assembly, not a minor one. We believe the likelihood of either of these two scenarios of the ruling party’s victory is 70%. The main reason for this is that the ruling party has a substantial structural advantage in the framework of the Orbán regime. All aspects of this political system, such as the electoral system, campaigning resources and the huge discrepancy between the sides in terms of their prevalence in the public discourse, favor the current ruling party. The pro-government information bubble has become hermetically sealed, especially in the more rural electoral districts that are crucial for the election, and there is no indication that the opposition could break through this wall.

CeSID’s Project Fights for Resilience to Disinformation in Serbia

In 2021, IRI’s Beacon project supported initiative of the Center for Free Elections and Democracy (Serbia) contributing to the suppression of disinformation in the Serbian and regional public space. Research activities included a public opinion poll sounding perception of international actors and media content analysis of 11 Serbian mainstream online media and their coverage of international actors.

COVID-19 Social Media Narratives in Lithuania

This paper introduces the available Facebook data to about the presence and prominence of hostile narratives that may have impacted Lithuania’s vaccination efforts. To do this a sample of significant public Facebook pages relevant to Lithuania were analysed to identify potential disinformation narratives that are more likely to be relevant to the Polish ethnic minority in Lithuania.

Divide and Conquer

New social media research indicates that the Hungarian government’s attempts to shape the narrative among diaspora communities have been paying off.

Disinformation common challenges facing Taiwan and the European Union

In case you missed our discussion on “Disinformation – common challenges facing Taiwan and the European Union”, we're pleased to offer the recording.

Thanks to all the speakers: Ambassador Ming-Yen TSAI, IRI President Daniel Twining and MEP Andrius Kubilius, Ivana Karásková (Asociace pro mezinárodní otázky/Association for International Affairs) and Ketty W. Chen

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