On the 19th of November 2012, the Center for European Enlargement Studies, with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Budapest, organized the third  conference in the “Radical Right: Yesterday and Today” project. The event, entitled “The Media and the Radical Right”, had as its topic the interactions between media and radical right-wing politics in Europe. The use of the media by the radical right, including both conventional avenues of communication and “New Media”, media politics, the images of the radical right, the legal limits of free speech within media outlets and how mass media contributes to the rise of intolerance were among the subjects treated by the participants. The conference analyzed and presented both theoretical aspects and findings from field research. The event was broken up into two panels, bringing together researchers from western Europe and local expertise from Hungary.

The first panel was composed of three participants, and had as its main topic the findings and theoretical approaches to the study of mass media and the radical right in Western Europe. Professor Paul Jackson, from Northampton University, presented a case-study of a small extremist website in the UK. He then attempted to show how modern theories concerning the far right’s place in the media may be applied. Jackson showed how, according to the theoretical models provided by Kallis and Rydgren, the radical right influences mainstream media, providing a constant negative influence. The second presenter, Anton Shekovtsov, from Northampton University’s Radicalism and New Media Research Group, provided a historical overview of an important aspect of radical right wing media politics, the phenomena of extremist rock music. He presented the manner in which the music is produced, where it originated from, and also how it made a huge impact in Northern and Eastern Europe, where it is significant to this day. The third participant, professor Fabian Virchow, from the University of Dusseldorf, discussed the importance of mass media coverage for the success of radical political projects. He presented evidence of the interaction between patterns of radical right wing political success and the presence of controversial subjects (such as immigration etc.) in the mass-media.

The second panel was comprised of local experts, having as its main theme the interaction of media and radicalism in Hungary. Aron Szele, research assistant at the Center for European Enlargement Studies, gave a talk on the media politics of Hungary’s main radical right political party, Jobbik. Szele analyzed the main means of communication used by Jobbik, breaking them up into old and “New” media strategies, and showed the proclivity of the party’s use of the internet, social networking and other forms of New Media to get its message across to youth much more successfully than established political parties. The presentation also included a short analysis of the use of music by the Hungarian radical right, Szele concluding that the main strength of radicalism in Hungary lies in its counter-cultural approach toward its media image. The second presentation belonged to Hammer Ferenc, from the Eotvos Lorand University, and had as its topic the application of Cass Sunstein’s cyber-balkanisation thesis, in the context of radical right wing activism. Hammer showed the manner in which public sphere of Hungary has become fragmented, and the manner in which one fragment, controlled by the radical right, behaves, isolating itself from the mainstream. The last presentation belonged to Peter Molnar, from the Central European University’s Center for Media and Communication Studies. Molnar put forward the legal argument of the possible ban on extremist speech in the public sphere, according to existing legal norms. He concentrated his argument on the aspects of Hungarian criminal law, referring to the creation of imminent danger via extremist speech. The proposal created a debate among the participants and the audience, leading into the concluding roundtable talk on the topics of radicalism, the limits of free speech and the role of media. 

The event was well-covered by the Hungarian media, with several detailed reports: