Opinionated Opposition and Pragmatic Government: The Online Argumentation of Political Parties and Party Leaders during the 2022 Hungarian Parliamentary Election Campaign

Juhász, Vanessza; Bene, Márton

doi:10.3390/journalmedia3040049

Open AccessArticle

Opinionated Opposition and Pragmatic Government: The Online Argumentation of Political Parties and Party Leaders during the 2022 Hungarian Parliamentary Election Campaign

by

Vanessza Juhász

^1,* and

Márton Bene

^1,2,*

¹

Faculty of Law, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, 1053 Budapest, Hungary

²

Institute for Political Science, Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence, 1097 Budapest, Hungary

^*

Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Journal. Media 2022, 3(4), 733-749; https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia3040049

Submission received: 30 July 2022 / Revised: 14 November 2022 / Accepted: 15 November 2022 / Published: 21 November 2022

Download

Browse Figures

Versions Notes

Abstract

The current paper studies the 2022 parliamentary election campaign, in regards to what extent and quality certain elements of political debate can appear in political actors’ social media communication. During our research, we analyzed 2441 Facebook posts from parties and party leaders prior to the election. According to our results, political actors engage in opinionated discourse on social media and largely focus on public policy issues. They rarely rely on factual reasoning; instead, they tend to use individual phenomena to justify their claims. Ad hominem fallacy also plays a significant role in their Facebook posts when they are making an argument. However, other argumentation errors, so-called fallacies are quite rare in their communication. The main patterns are similar between the actors, but in general, parties and politicians from the opposition are more argumentative compared to the ruling party coalitions.

Keywords: 2022 parliamentary election campaign; ad hominem; argumentation; Facebook; Frans van Eemeren; political debate; pragma dialectics; social media

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Juhász, V.; Bene, M. Opinionated Opposition and Pragmatic Government: The Online Argumentation of Political Parties and Party Leaders during the 2022 Hungarian Parliamentary Election Campaign. Journal. Media 2022, 3, 733-749. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia3040049

AMA Style

Juhász V, Bene M. Opinionated Opposition and Pragmatic Government: The Online Argumentation of Political Parties and Party Leaders during the 2022 Hungarian Parliamentary Election Campaign. Journalism and Media. 2022; 3(4):733-749. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia3040049

Chicago/Turabian Style

Juhász, Vanessza, and Márton Bene. 2022. "Opinionated Opposition and Pragmatic Government: The Online Argumentation of Political Parties and Party Leaders during the 2022 Hungarian Parliamentary Election Campaign" Journalism and Media 3, no. 4: 733-749. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia3040049

APA Style

Juhász, V., & Bene, M. (2022). Opinionated Opposition and Pragmatic Government: The Online Argumentation of Political Parties and Party Leaders during the 2022 Hungarian Parliamentary Election Campaign. Journalism and Media, 3(4), 733-749. https://doi.org/10.3390/journalmedia3040049

Article Menu

Opinionated Opposition and Pragmatic Government: The Online Argumentation of Political Parties and Party Leaders during the 2022 Hungarian Parliamentary Election Campaign

Abstract

Share and Cite

Article Metrics

Article Access Statistics

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI