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Abstract
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.
Acknowledgements
Data collection for the Hungarian surveys used in this paper was supported through a
grant from the Central European University Foundation. The panel data from the 1996
Romanian election was collected by the Institute of Sociology of the Romanian Academy
of Science, and kindly provided to us by one of the principal investigators, Dr. Valentina
Marinescu. The longitudinal survey from the 2000 Romanian election campaign was
commissioned by the Pro Institute, Bucharest, and kindly provided to us by the principal
investigator, Dr. Mirel Palada. Of course, none of these organizations and individuals is
in any way responsible for the views expressed herein.
Convention