The Political Communication Export of the Hungarian Government
The Political Communication Export of the Hungarian Government

Author(s): Mihály Szilágyi-Gál
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Media studies, Communication studies
Published by: Факултет по журналистика и масова комуникация, Софийски университет „Св. Кл. Охридски”
Keywords: Eastern and Central Europe; expansionism; Hungary; political communication
Summary/Abstract: There is a detectable difference between exporting political communication technology like campaign techniques and branding strategies, on the one hand, and exporting political agendas by establishing institutions or influencing existing ones, on the other. In this paper, it is argued that this second form can also function as a rhetorical element in the overall process of political communication. Whereas in the first case, we are dealing with methods of communication in which the content of political messages is of secondary importance, in the second case we are dealing with institutions as strategic means designed to disseminate a particular agenda. The four consecutive Hungarian governments of the Fidesz-KDNP coalition since 2010 supply several examples of this second type of practice. Macedonia, Slovenia, and Croatia are only some of the target countries of the Orbán-government for knowledge transfer primarily not of campaign techniques, but of actual ideological and political content. This paper labels such transfers abroad as communication “export” and argues that they display a specific model of “communicative expansionism”.

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