MobileActive.org

Post Date

06.03.05

Author

| Marty

Netpolitique : In your research paper, you insisted on the importance the new media suddenly took between the two rounds of the election. What happened exactly?

Endre Danyi : ABefore the first round of the Hungarian elections (April 7, 2002) political jokes were spread in SMS format on mobile phones, a couple of parties mobilized supporters to a few demonstrations in SMS messages, and some political messages and poems were circulating. However, it was the close result of the first election round that led to the very visible use of personal electronic communication as political campaign weapons.

In the first election round the two biggest parties received almost the same amount of vote. The opposition Hungarian Socialist Party and their allies the liberals got 51%, and the governing right wing party (Fidesz - Alliance of Young Democrats) received 49% of the vote. In this situation the governing party changed strategy and started an extremely intense negative campaign.
Millions of anonymous flyers and posters spread factoids and outright lies about the socialists. New communication technologies suddenly became part of the black propaganda repertoire. In the online environment, the same black PR messages were spread in SMS and e-mail format by right wing supporters. Socialists sympathisers responded with millions of counter-SMS and e-mails.

In our paper, we named this political spamming "viral political marketing" as party enthusiasts distributed political SMS and e-mail in a viral pattern. We coined the term to indicate that the concept of "viral marketing," which is used in business marketing, can also be applied in the discussion of political campaigns.

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