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4 The Moral Panic Button
1
Construction and consequences
Márton Gero
˝and Endre Sik
Introduction
In January 2015, when the infamous terrorist attack on the editorial office of
Charlie Hebdo happened, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán was
inclined to express his solidarity with the victims. A couple days later, just as
he was about to fly to Paris to participate in the solidarity march, he drew a
frightening picture of rising terrorism in Europe. He not only blamed
European politics for the increasing threat of terrorism, but also political
correctness and, most importantly, the so-called ‘economic immigration
and immigrants’(Index 2015). The following weeks experienced the birth
of a campaign blaming migration for many of the problems of Hungary and
Europe, portraying migrants as posing a threat of losing employment,
increasing crime, and dissolving national culture, and continuously stating
that the Hungarian government will commit everything to stop migration.
The only problem was that, although the number of asylum seekers was increas-
ing in the spring of 2015, they were hardly ‘flooding’Hungary. The sudden
increase in the number of arriving asylum seekers lasted only for a couple weeks
and almost all of them only passed through Hungary (Bernát et al. 2015).
Although since then, the number of arriving asylum seekers has returned to its
normal level, the topic of immigration is still the central topic of the government’s
and Fidesz’s political communication.
In September 2018, a new media corporation was founded, the Central
European Press and Media Foundation. Throughout the next few months,
the Foundation became the largest actor in the media market, owning 29
media companies, two television channels, a major national daily newspaper,
the second largest online news portal, all county-level newspapers, one of the
largest tabloids, and the largest freely distributed advertising newspaper. The
most surprising thing about the Foundation is not the speed of its growth,
but the fact that the former owners of these media outlets handed over their
ownership for free. Thus, the Foundation acquired companies worth hundreds
of millions of Euro without paying a single eurocent.
What is the connection between the two events? In our opinion, they are
important steps of the 1) establishment, and 2) tailoring of the government’s
media organization toward a more fitting form (i.e., centralized, more con-
trollable, and efficient, etc.) of the Moral Panic Button (MPB).
The Moral Panic Button
The concept of the MPB draws heavily on the theory of the moral panic
developed by Stanley Cohen (1972). The moral panic involves the exaggeration
of existing phenomena, picturing them as existential threats to the national
community and explaining their causes by scapegoating and pointing to images
of an enemy.
The ideal type of moral panic should focus on a 1) important, seemingly
life-or-death, threat which 2) may have serious and lasting negative effects on
3) a large –or at least loud and visible –social group. It has to have 4) an
identifiable person/group of the wrongdoer(s) who 5) can be blamed for the
threat. 6) The ‘problem’becomes a major topic for more and more actors,
and in the course of the panic, 7) the level of hostility against the scapegoats
increases. 8) Finally, the moral panic runs its course and disappears, often as
quickly as it erupted.
The moral panic often involves specific language; the discourses of moral
panics often use ‘relatively fixed lexical and syntactical forms’(Cohen 2011:
xxiv). For example, asylum seekers are often described using metaphors of
water (flood, wave) or depicted as an invading army. Finally, moral panics
need theories explaining why the dramatic event happened and emphasizing
that the underlying mechanism is universal, thus it could happen again and
in other places (Cohen 2011).
As to the origin of the moral panic, it can be a bottom-up one, when rumor
or gossip initiates and widens the concerns of a local problem. It can also be
the result of an idea which trickles down from the elite through the media.
Opinion leaders of all sorts (editors, politicians, ‘moral entrepreneurs,’the so
called ‘right‐thinking people’) use these channels to diagnose the problem and
offer a remedy (Cohen 1972; Goode & Ben-Yehuda 1994).
The Moral Panic Button concept (Sik 2016; Barlai & Sik 2017) can be seen
as a special version of Cohen’s top-to-bottom, elite-engineered moral panic,
but in this case, it is the government that induces the moral panic and uses it
as a major tool of its governance.
The MPB, however, is much more than just a simple government-initiated
moral panic. It is far from being simply a hardcore version of a top-to-
bottom type of moral panic. All of the characteristics of a moral panic are
present in the operation of an MPB, however, they constitute only the
necessary but insufficient conditions of an MPB. The MPB 1) assumes strong
governmental control of the media, 2) the use of various propaganda instru-
ments beyond the mass media, 3) continuously selects new scapegoats (while
keeping the previous ones as well), and uses these combinations to hate-
monger, 4) applies strong framing techniques (e.g. the monotonous repeating
of simplified messages, using fake information and misinformation to
40 M. Gero
˝and E. Sik
humiliate and ridicule the enemy, etc.), 5) has uncontrolled financing from
the state budget, and 6) flexibly incorporates (often unofficially) pro-govern-
ment actors, such as think-tanks, NGOs (church, sport, civil organizations),
municipalities, and for-profitfirms (owned by ‘friendly oligarchs’), etc. which
are intertwined and organized by a few core state institutions.
The construction of the MPB in Hungary
In early 2015, after the sharp and fast drop of their popularity, the Hungar-
ian government tried desperately to come up with ideas to regain the sym-
pathy of their potential voters. For example, they experimented with
opening a discussion in which they suggested the re-introduction of the
death penalty and/or fueled suspicion towards the treacherous civil society.
These ideas, however, failed.
In January 2015, just as the worst public opinion results came out, they
discovered the merit of the terrorist attack mentioned at the beginning of
this chapter as the basis of a ‘threat from migration-type’moral panic con-
struction. While the Hungarian Prime Minister expressed his solidarity with
the victims, his statement issued on the occasion on January 11 was about
the increasing threat that terrorism posed to Europeans’everyday life:
Our reality today, in Europe, is the increasing presence of terrorism. Its
presence is growing day by day. It is the ‘European man’who is under attack:
the freedom and lifestyle of the ‘European man.’All of this is threatening the
safety of our everyday life, therefore we cannot afford not to face it.
(Népszava 2015.)
2
Then, he expressed his commitment to fighting this threat and stated that
political correctness and the sclerotic EU are hindering the proper defense
of Europe.
Soon, the government discovered that the result of this experiment was
promising and decided to use it as the basis for further moral panics, and so
on and so forth. They started beta-testing the MPB.
3
As we have stated above, the main aim of the ruling elite was to regain the
popularity they needed to remain in power. To achieve this goal, Fidesz
needed to rule the discursive space. This required three things: 1) a hege-
monic position in the media, 2) a proper topic for fearmongering, and 3)
proper targets for scapegoating.
In the Introduction, we showed the last step (the creation of the huge
state-controlled media entity) of the state’s achieving of a hegemonic position
in the media. However, Fidesz started this process immediately after winning
the Parliamentary election in 2010. The standard technique was a slow
acquisition of various media outlets and either re-directing their political
orientation or closing them down. To achieve these aims, the state used
three techniques:
The Moral Panic Button 41
1 Undermining of the independence of the organizations responsible for
overseeing private and public media;
2 The manipulation of access to the market resources necessary for media
market activities; and
3 The manipulation of the information environment by controlling the
access to public information and the political agenda (Polyák 2019: 283)
According to Bajomi-Lázár (2013: 76), the new institutional structure of
the media ‘may be defined as a strategy aimed at extracting from the media
resources such various services.’The redistribution of media power started
with the Media Act of 2010, which led to two major transformations. First,
it established the Media Council and the National Media and Info Commu-
nications Authority with a high level of authority over media institutions.
Second, it merged the dispersed public media institutions into one central
public service foundation (Bayer 2011). The concentration of a high level of
authority and massive funds into a single institution which is led by an
appointee of the Prime Minister was followed by the suspension of media
subsidies previously given to privately run TV stations (Rovó & Dull 2016).
The second phase was to occupy the privately-owned media space by
taking over or exterminating media assets that were critical to the govern-
ment. Between 2010 and 2014, the main figure in securing the hegemony
over the media was one of the founding members of Fidesz and a long-
standing friend of Viktor Orbán, Lajos Simicska, who owned the most
important pro-government media outlets. However, due to personal differ-
ences, this oligarch turned against Fidesz, and the formerly pro-government
media became anti-governmental as quick as lightning. Thus, after 2014,
Fidesz needed a new media strategy. First, Fidesz-related entrepreneurs
acquired well-established and formerly critical news outlets (such as the
second largest online news portal, the second most popular commercial tel-
evision channel, and local newspapers). Second, parallel to occupying the
existing media, they established new and loyal media outlets and radio
channels. Third, they centralized the existing pro-government media under
the ownership of loyal entrepreneurs, and started to rule out several presti-
gious, independent, and critical newspapers (Polyák 2019).
The third phase, which took place in 2018, started with the re-allocation
of the media outlets previously owned by Simicska, who, after Fidesz won
the Parliamentary election in 2018, sold all his media assets to a friend loyal
to the government. The new owner appointed a new editor the day after the
acquisition happened. But the most important element of the third phase
was the establishment of the already-mentioned state-controlled foundation.
With this organization, the pro-government media can be instructed directly
by the Party.
The second thing that Fidesz needed to do in order to dominate the dis-
cursive space was to find a proper topic. The optimal qualities of such a
topic were as follows: 1) simple (easily understood by the average citizen), 2)
42 M. Gero
˝and E. Sik
already popular among the public, 3) having a relevant moral component (i.
e. connected to some basic element of the dominant value system), and 4)
sensitive enough to be used as a potential threat to create a panic reaction.
In early 2015, the Hungarian government raised the issue of reintroducing
the death penalty to the Hungarian legal system (Bugaric 2016). However,
soon it turned out that the reintroduction of death penalty would contradict
basic international contracts signed by Hungary, so the topic was dropped.
Instead, the government turned to the topic of immigration, and at the same
time, they repeatedly tried to attack civil society organizations.
Since the danger of civil society is a regularly returning topic of the
government, we need a more detailed explanation why it did not serve well
as a triggering issue of the Moral Panic Button. Fidesz tried to initiate an
NGO threat-based moral panic already in 2013: the target was a repre-
sentative organization of the Norwegian Civil Fund in Hungary,
4
which
distributes funds through selected civil society organizations. The govern-
ment claimed that the representative organization (in fact a consortium of
civil foundations) financed the political activity of the opposition. It laun-
ched a campaign against them as well as the recipients of the grants and
pictured them as organizations representing foreign interests (Torma
2016).
5
The Prime Minister even mentioned this case in his annual speech
at Tusnádfürdo
˝:
6
‘I looked at civil society in Hungary apropos of debates
over the Norwegian funds …and what I saw were paid, political activists.
Paid political activists sponsored by foreigners!’
7
Despite the government’s various efforts to criminalize the targeted
NGOs, this topic failed to become a good topic to generate moral panic.
This is caused partly by the fact that the level of trust of the Hungarian
society in civil society is higher than in politicians or in the Parliament
(Hajdu 2014; Péterfi2016) Furthermore, the topic is irrelevant to the major-
ity of Hungarians.
With immigration, it is the opposite. Most people have an opinion on this
topic, and Hungary has been one of the most xenophobic countries in the
European Union since 2002.
8
Figure 4.1 shows that the level of xenophobia
was always much higher than in other European countries.
The third factor needed to dominate the discursive space by the govern-
ment was a proper scapegoat. The choice of ‘immigrants’is partly explained
by the comparatively high and increasing xenophobic attitudes of the Hun-
garian population (Figure 4.1). Thus, it was easy to apply already existing
frames to the scapegoats.
10
Later, when additional scapegoats were added
(such as George Soros, the liberals, civil society, UN, and Brussel’s bureau-
crats), Fidesz adapted a new frame to the old/new mix of scapegoats, all
belonging to a worldwide conspiracy against Hungarians (this frame also
equals the Hungarian nation with the Orbán government). The feeling of
having been mistreated, cheated, undervalued as well as oppressed and
exploited has a long tradition in Hungarian culture. These elements of eth-
nocentric values are used in the current framing of ‘Them,’in which ‘liberal’
The Moral Panic Button 43
discourse is an empty signifier, a foreign wealthy banker is an usurper,
international organizations are colonialists, etc. Moreover, this discourse
smoothly uses the disguised but well-known elements of the anti-Semitic
discourses of the twentieth century (Kende 1996; Kalmar 2018).
The Hungarian version of MPB
The main characteristics of MPB in Hungary are as follows:
There are three types of actions: information campaigns, national con-
sultations, and voting-based actions. While the first type of pressing of the
Moral Panic Button is the most prevalent and is conducted via the media (TV,
radio, on- and off-line newspapers and billboards), the latter two actions (the
four national consultations and the three actions involving voting –the quota-
referendum, the Parliamentary and EU elections) reached all Hungarian
households.
The information campaigns usually both precede and follow a national
consultation and/or the referendum/election. Those preceding them serve to
frame the topic, while those following them serve to reinforce the original
message and claim victory (which is always greater than earlier ones).
The frames and the language are repetitive and simple, and while always
adding new elements to the original frame (Europe and its value system, i.e.
Judeo-Christianity and/or European culture is threatened by migration,
9
13 12
18
20
12
22 22
26
24
28
31
25
36
45
43
40 39
48
62
9
12
18
17
19
26 25
ROUND 1 ROUND2 ROUND3 ROUND4 ROUND5 ROUND6 ROUND7 ROUND8
Austria Czech Republic Hungary Italy Lithuania
Figure 4.1 Countries with increasing levels of Rejection Index between 2002 and
2016, European Social Survey, percentage of 15+ population
9
Source: The figure is based on Messing & Ságvári 2019: 25
44 M. Gero
˝and E. Sik
Hungary is fighting a war and is unjustly treated by those whom we defend), the
contexts of all pressings of the MPB are carefully tailored to a concrete situa-
tion. The scapegoats (EU, Brussels, Soros, UN, civil society, Merkel, etc.) are
always the same, but they appear in different configurations.
Figure 4.2 shows the structure of the MPB. The figure contains all seven-
teen pressings we identified as separate, though overlapping, acts of the
MPB. The footnote contains the essence of these pressings. In the following
paragraphs, we briefly demonstrate some of them, just to illustrate the
details of the operation of MPB.
Figure 4.2 The pressings of the Moral Panic Button (2015–2019)
11, 12
The Moral Panic Button 45
The first example is the content of the national consultation on immigra-
tion and terrorism (Pressing 1, Figure 4.2). This example shows how all
national consultations were used as fake public opinion surveys to frame the
topic of migration. In Box 4.1, we selected some of the questions of the
consultation questionnaire (Prime Minister’sOffice 2015).
13
Box 4.1 Three questions from Hungary's ‘National Consultation
on Immigration and Terrorism’
1) We hear different views on increasing levels of terrorism. How relevant
do you think the spread of terrorism (the bloodshed in France, the
shocking acts of ISIS) is to your own life?
Very relevant
Relevant
Not relevant
3) There are some who think that mismanagement of the immigration
question by Brussels may have something to do with increased terror-
ism. Do you agree with this view?
I fully agree
I tend to agree
I do not agree
4) Did you know that economic migrants cross the Hungarian border
illegally, and that recently the number of immigrants in Hungary has
increased twentyfold?
Yes
I have heard about it
I did not know
It is obvious, even for a first-year undergraduate sociology student, that in
the case of Questions 1 and 3, the wording of the questions is suggestive and
the answer items are unbalanced, and that the function of Question 4 is only
to give (incorrect) information on migration.
14
46 M. Gero
˝and E. Sik
We can conclude that the so-called national consultations in Hungary are
more akin to direct marketing than to a public opinion survey: these are
short questionnaires sent to every Hungarian citizen which contain biased
questions to sell the messages of the government. They are also far from the
consultative tools of a democracy, since the topic is always the choice of the
government, the questions are biased, and due to a lack of public meetings
and publicly available rules of the procedures and control mechanisms, they
can hardly be considered as consultations at all.
15
They serve only two pur-
poses: 1) to manipulate the population and 2) to reinforce the truth of the
message by boasting about the strong support of the government’s policies.
The second example is from an information campaign (Pressing 3,
Figure 4.2). In this case, the MPB operated by using three simple mes-
sages,
16
suggesting that refugees are a threat to job security and to the
cultural values of Hungarians, and that they are likely to be criminals.
The third example shows how MPB incorporated fake news into its tech-
nology. The pre-referendum information campaign (Pressing 5, Figure 4.2)
used the slogan: ‘Did you know?,’supposedly providing information about
the settlement quota and immigration. The examples
17
clearly highlight the
fakeness of this ‘information campaign.’
As to the quota referendum (Pressing 8, Figure 4.2), the question asked
18
was intentionally biased, since 1) it referred to a non-existing conflict
between Hungary and the European Union and 2) the question reflected the
discussion about the settlement quota as if it were already decided, although
this was not the case (EKINT 2016; Bognár, Sik & Surányi 2018). The com-
munication of the result of the referendum is a clear example of the manip-
ulative communication of MPB –in the post-referendum campaign, the
government communicated the fact that 98% of those who voted were
against the quota, but failed to communicate that the referendum was inva-
lid, since fewer than 50% of the citizens eligible to vote participated.
The pressings of MPB from number 10 and above 10 (Figure 4.2), contain
new combinations of ‘old’and ‘new’topics, as well as ‘old’and ‘new’scape-
goats. Although the issue of immigration was always present, the main
‘enemy’changed and involves European Union’s bureaucrats, George Soros,
and the United Nations, all of whom are forcing Hungary to give up its posi-
tion as defender of European culture. This shows a shift of the discourse, i.e.
while at the beginning the information campaigns suggested that Hungarian or
European culture was in danger because of the migrants, at the end of the
campaign emphasis was on our national sovereignty endangered by a world-
wide conspiracy of foreign oppressive forces using migrants as their puppets.
The immediate consequences of the success of the MPB:
obedient public opinion, polarization, and xenophobia
The MPB has proven to be successful in its main aim: to overcome the loss
of popularity of Fidesz at the end of 2014 (Figure 4.3).
19
However, when the
The Moral Panic Button 47
use of MPB proved to be successful in gaining back the lost popularity of
the government within just a few months, it became the main tool of main-
taining popularity. Moreover, after several pressings, the MPB became a
smoothly running machine used to mobilize the voting camp of Fidesz.
The success of the MPB is clearly demonstrated by the changing directions
of the public opinion as well, i.e. the population follows the messages that the
MPB emits towards them. Figure 4.4 demonstrates that the shift between the
prevalence of threats of immigration, terrorism, and national sovereignty from
2017 to 2018 corresponds to the change in the framing of the ‘refugee crisis’in
the MPB.
21
Figure 4.5 shows that the choice of the main enemies changed as
well, in accordance with the influence of the MPB: the actors of the interna-
tional conspiracy became much more important. Furthermore, not only was
the prevalence of mentioning international actors higher, but the relationship
between threats and ‘enemies’became stronger: among those, who perceived
external threats to be the most important, the mentioning of external enemies,
with the exception of immigrants, doubled in a year.
Through the MPB, the government defines the core topics of the public
discourse to make sure that their sympathizers learn the language of full
agreement. However, this leads to increasing polarization within society:
23
while Fidesz sympathizers perceive that external threats (losing national
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
201401
3
5
7
9
11
2015001
3
5
7
9
11
20161
3
5
7
9
11
20171
3
5
7
9
11
20181
3
5
7
9
11
20191
3
Ipsos/Za·vecz Median Ne·zΉpont
Figure 4.3 The level of popularity of FIDESZ (proportion of potential voters among
those entitled to vote) 2014–2019
20
Source: Own design. The arrow shows the significant drop of popularity. Calcula-
tions are based on the data of the three public opinion research firms who conducted
surveys during the entire period. The data is available at: Sik 2019.
48 M. Gero
˝and E. Sik
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Losing national sovereignty Immigration and terrorism External threats total
2017 2018
Figure 4.4 The prevalence of the perception of immigration, terrorism, and the loss
of national sovereignty as the main threats for Hungary, 2017–2018, per-
centage of the total of selected items
22
Source: MTA Cooperation of Excellences, Mobility Research Center project, own
calculations.
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
14%
16%
18%
International Financial
Organizations
BrusselÕs Bureaucrats George Soros, the
organizations funded by the
Soros Foundation and the
liberals
Immigrants
2017 2018
Figure 4.5 The extent to which respondents hold international actors responsible for
the main threats for Hungary, 2017-2018, percentage of the total of selec-
ted items
Source: MTA Cooperation of Excellences, Mobility Research Center project, own
calculations.
sovereignty and immigration) are the most important threats and they hold
international agents responsible for them, the opposition feels that the
threats caused by the ruling elite –the demolition of democratic institutions
and state level corruption, are the most important threats. Naturally, the
main cause of these threats is the Orbán government (Gero
˝& Szabó, 2017;
Szabó & Gero
˝, 2019). The opinion of respondents positioning themselves in
the ‘center’are usually in between those of the two groups with stronger
political affiliation (Figure 4.6).
As Figure 4.1 already showed, since 2002, Hungarian society has been
more xenophobe than other European countries. However, if we focus on
the more recent changes represented in Figure 4.1, we find that the Hungar-
ian results deviate from all countries –even from those where the level of
rejection has increased –i.e. the prevalence of the Rejection Index was sig-
nificantly faster.
24
Moreover, unlike in other European countries, in Hungary there is no
difference in the level of xenophobic attitudes between the various social
groups (Figure 4.4).
While in Portugal, Austria, and the UK certain social groups exhibit sig-
nificantly higher or lower levels of rejection of migrants, in Hungary, there is
no deviation from the high level of the national average of rejection. We
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
External threats Soros and the liberals Brussels Bureocrats Threats of the ruling
elite
Orba·n Government
Opposition Centre Pro-government
Figure 4.6 Perceived threats and the actors/groups held as responsible by political
affiliation. Percentage of those who mentioned external threats (immigra-
tion and terrorism and losing national sovereignty) or threats of the ruling
elite (state level corruption, demolition of democratic institutions), 2018
Source: MTA Cooperation of Excellences, Mobility Research Center project own
calculation.
50 M. Gero
˝and E. Sik
63
62
56
62
61
65
58
64
65
65
64
51
67
59
61
68
62
62
54
Male
Female
14-19
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70+
Low education
Medium education
High education
Village
Town
Metropolitan
Very difficult on presentÉ
difficult on present income
coping on present income
Living comfortably onÉ
Gender Age Education
Place of
living
Subjective
income
Hungary
23
17
13
19
24
19
19
20
22
29
21
9
23
17
18
38
25
19
19
Male
Female
14-19
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70+
Low education
Medium education
High education
Village
Town
Metropolitan
Very difficult on presentÉ
difficult on present income
coping on present income
Living comfortably onÉ
Gender Age Education
Place of
living
Subjective
income
Austria
10
9
6
6
8
6
8
11
20
17
9
4
10
10
8
9
15
9
9
Male
Female
14-19
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70+
Low education
Medium education
High education
Village
Town
Metropolitan
Very difficult on presentÉ
difficult on present income
coping on present income
Living comfortably onÉ
Gender Age Education
Place of
living
Subjective
income
United Kingdom
11
11
5
7
10
9
12
14
18
21
12
4
13
11
9
26
17
13
4
Male
Female
14-19
20-29
30-39
40-49
50-59
60-69
70+
Low education
Medium education
High education
Village
Town
Metropolitan
Very difficult on presentÉ
difficult on present income
coping on present income
Living comfortably onÉ
Gender Age Education
Place of
living
Subjective
income
Ireland
Figure 4.7 Rejection Index by demographic groups in four countries in 2016/2017
Source: Our design, based on Messing-Ságvári 2019.
consider such uniformity (i.e. the lack of social group specific deviations) to
be a result of MPB, since only intense brain-washing can create a situation
where the same proportion of all parts of a complex society answers the
questionnaire similarly.
We conclude, therefore, that even in the short run, the MPB 1) made the
Hungarian society extremely xenophobic, and 2) successfully streamlined
intolerant thinking of the entire society into an equally non-thinking form-
less mass. However, it is important to point out that we have been experi-
encing a twofold process: the unification of opinions regarding immigration
on the one hand, and the simultaneous polarization of opinions about the
importance of issues and enemies on the other.
The long-term consequences of the success of the MPB
In principle, the aim of consultations, information campaigns, and other
tools applied in the political process is to help politicization, which,
according to de Wilde (2011), includes a growing salience of issues, polar-
ization of opinions and the pool of actors involved in the decision-making
processes (social movements, experts, etc.). However, as Bognár et al.
(2019) argue, though the Hungarian case might be seen as a successful case
for politicization at first sight, this is hardly the occurrence –although
immigration, as the core issue, became extremely salient, the polarization
of opinions was reduced to duality. This type of polarization leads to the
creation of mental borders between social groups, making public discus-
sion impossible. Also, although the audience involved in the decision-
making processes seems to be larger than before, the consequence of the
national consultations and information campaigns is the exclusion of med-
iating actors and experts, and consequently, of alternative opinions from
the debates (Bernáth & Messing 2015).
We assume, therefore, that the biased politization process based on the
success of the MPB, in the long run, serves the de-democratization processes
of Hungary, which have gained much attention in recent years (Bogaards
2018; Bozóki & Hegedűs 2018; Cianetti et al. 2018; Freedom House 2018).
Although this literature focuses on the regulation and the state of demo-
cratic institutions, we argue that the de-democratization of the country is a
result of the efforts to secure popular support and to disarm the challengers.
As these efforts are manifested in techniques preventing the possibility of
any critical attempts, and as the regime placed emphasis on these techniques,
it became more and more radical in the sense of decomposing democratic
institutions.
Thus, we argue, that ‘de-democratization’is best understood when we
focus on the way in which governments fight for popular support and
legitimacy sanctioned by the masses. We argue that when the main tool of
gaining this support is the Moral Panic Button, the result is not only
increasing popular support, but the creation of different realities for the
52 M. Gero
˝and E. Sik
supporters and non-supporters of the regime. This divided reality draws
boundaries between social groups and gives birth to harsh in-group out-
group conflicts. In such a situation, the government’s only option is to
maintain its support to further this process, which leads to the increasing
control over the public sphere and the demolition of democratic institu-
tions. In the constant fight to ‘save the nation,’the destruction of democratic
institutions appears as a necessary means.
This process fits the ongoing debate on hybrid regimes. According to
Diamond (2002), until the second half of the twentieth century, the decision
whether a regime was autocratic or democratic was easier, since, autocracies
applied obvious forms of oppression to their opposition. In the last decades,
however, the number of autocratic regimes that apply some democratic ele-
ments has been growing. They hold elections allowing limited competition,
consequently allowing the existence of an opposition and non-state-con-
trolled organizations and press. As they apply the scenery of a democracy,
they claim the title as well, although it is quite clear that most of these
regimes are far from being democratic –elections are hardly free and fair,
the conditions of a real electoral competition are missing, most of the press
is state-controlled through state ownership or by other means, and indivi-
dual freedoms are limited.
Zakaria’s (1997) concept of illiberal democracies also connects the rise of
regimes with elections (democracies) and disrespecting constitutionalism
(liberalism) with the second half of the twentieth century. Zakaria claims that
only the West understands democracy as a system requiring more than
competitive elections. Other parts of the world equal democracy with the
existence of competitive elections, which are not necessarily accompanied by
the respect of constitutionalism, the rule of law or respect for individual
freedoms (Zakaria 1997).
Although there is much discussion about the existence of semi-demo-
cratic, hybrid regimes, illiberal or defective democracies, most of this scho-
larship is optimistic in the sense that they interpret the appearance of these
regimes as a move from authoritarianism towards democracy. Even when
the weaknesses of new democracies are discussed, they are attributed to the
youth of these regimes, arguing that new democracies cannot be fully
democratic in all examined aspects immediately, as they need to develop
(Bogaards 2018).
Many of these scholars argue, however, that in the last years, the reversal
of democratic transitions can be observed. In this reversal, it seems, Hun-
gary plays a leading role (Csillag & Szelényi 2015; Kornai 2015; Bogaards
2018; Bozóki & Hegedűs 2018; Cianetti et al. 2018).
However, even in these attempts, scholars mostly try to describe how the
regimes look, without explaining how governments are able to exploit the
existing value system and the dissatisfaction with political institutions, and
how they are able to transform social structures and institutions to support
their attempts to maintain their power.
The Moral Panic Button 53
Therefore, to explain the process of de-democratization, we have to pay
attention to the use of political communication and the media as well, and in
particular, to the technology of the MPB. Through the centralization of the
media, and by applying national consultations and billboard campaigns, the
government initiated a series of moral panics through which their preferred
reality is presented.
As to the long-term impact of the MPB on the value system of the Hun-
garian society, if we accept solidarity as a basic European value, and the
ability to think politically as a premise of a democratic society, then we see
the MPB as a threat to the European value system. Even more so, since there
are signs that the Hungarian technology appears to be transferred to other
countries, in some cases directly (Macedonia, Slovenia), and in other cases,
less directly (Poland). Therefore, the MPB Hungarian specialist think tank
recently established a subsidiary in London, as an inheritor of the infamous
Finkelstein emporium (see Balogh 2019).
In the long run, MPB seems to have the same role as New Speak has in
Orwell’s anti-utopian Oceania (Lexico Dictionaries n.d.), and the resulting
society might also be similar –a brainwashed and dumb mass society with-
out any communication skills, unable to form political opinion, and only
sensitive to centrally initiated values.
Notes
1This chapter is supported by the CEASEVAL project. Grant no. 770037, http://
ceaseval.eu/
2All translations into English, except for those labelled otherwise, are ours.
3The experiment was destined for success, partly because migration is a perfect
theme for moral panic generation, and partly because previous research proved
that the Hungarian population (compared to other EU countries) is very xeno-
phobic (see Figure 4.1).
4The Norwegian Civil Fund is a small part of the grants provided by Norway in
compensation for accessing the Common Market without EU membership. Most
of the grants are distributed through state organizations, except for the Civil Fund
which is aimed at helping civil society and distributed by civil society organiza-
tions, independently from the state.
5These attempts to label civil society organizations as foreign-funded organizations
are very similar to those of other governments, e.g. Israel or Russia.
6Every year during a mass celebration of the greatness and unity of the Hun-
garian nation, Orbán holds a visionary speech at a youth camp in a small city
in Transylvania (Romania). In these speeches, he defines the core ideology and
often the direction of his politics for the next year. The speech receives great
attentioneachyear.
7Orbán Viktor’s speech, ‘The era of the work-based state is approaching,’trans-
lated by (Kopper et al. 2017: 117).
8Other countries had lower level of xenophobia during the entire period, and/or a
decreasing trend after 2015 (Messing & Ságvári 2019: 20–22; Figures 12, 13, 14).
9Since the figure in Messing & Ságvári (2019: 25) is calculated from the freely
available dataset of the European Social Survey, we re-calculated the data and
designed our own figure (European Social Survey Cumulative file ESS 1–8 2018).
54 M. Gero
˝and E. Sik
10 Bernáth & Messing (2015) point out that Fidesz borrowed the criminalization and
security frames of JOBBIK, a radical right-wing party, while Bocskor (2018)
reminds us, that the first campaign revived the labor-threat (as immigrants will
take away Hungarians jobs) applied by the socialist-liberal government in 2004, as
an argument against providing citizenship to Hungarians living in the surrounding
countries.
11 1. National consultation on migration and terrorism, 2. Migration and terror-
ism –information campaign. 3. ‘We don’t want illegal immigrants!’–information
campaign, 4. ‘Let’s send a message to Brussels!’–information campaign, 5. ‘Did
you know (…)?’–information campaign, 6. ‘One Minute News’–UEFA Euro
2016, 7. ‘One Minute News’–Olympic Games 2016, 8. Quota referendum and
information campaign, 9. National consultation ‘Stop Brussels,’10. ‘Don’t let
Soros have the last laugh!’–information campaign, 11. National consultation
‚The Soros Plan,’12. ‘Stop Soros’–information campaign, 13. Parliamentary
election 2018, 14. Anti-UN –i. c., 15. National consultation on family protection,
16. ‘Soros-Juncker’EU election information campaign, 17. EU election
12 We usually do not treat migration-related news as a separate act of MPB but we
treated the ‘One minute news’television campaigns during the UEFA Cup and
Olympic games as unique pressings of MPB, since the overwhelming part of these
news focused on migration and terror, and their messages were always very
negative.
13 The questionnaires of National Consultations are sent out to every household in
Hungary. The translations of the questions are freely available on the homepage
of the Hungarian government, (see Prime Minister’sOffice 2015)
14 Not to mention that the combination of two elements in a single question is for-
bidden in survey research.
15 In 2018, the European Citizen’s Consultation took place in 26 countries of the
EU. The form and scale of the consultations varied from country to country,
however, they always involved citizens’meetings and face to face communication
(Butcher & Pronckutė2019). Hungary was among the last countries to join the
Consultation and its form was a chain of forums held by government officials
(Stratulat & Butcher 2018). The result of the forums was, according to the news
reports, that Hungarians are committed to a Europe of nations, their priority is
security and they do not want to live in an open society (see ‘A magyarok nem
akarnak nyílt társadalmat’2018).
16 ‘If you come to Hungary you must not take Hungarians’jobs away from them!’;
‘If you come to Hungary you must respect our culture!’;‘If you come to Hungary
you must respect our laws!’Translation found in the Parliamentary question
submitted by István Újhelyi, member of the European Parliament (Újhelyi 2015)
17 ‘The terror attack in Paris was carried out by immigrants,’‘1 million immigrants
are headed toward Europe, only from Libya!’
18 ‘Do you want the European Union to prescribe the mandatory settlement of non-
Hungarian citizens in Hungary, even without the consent of Parliament?’
19 The most likely cause of this loss of popularity was that after winning the election
earlier in 2014, the government decided to increase the tax on Internet use
(Szombati 2015).
20 The data is available at Sik 2019.
21 The surveys were conducted as part of the research project ‘Integration and dis-
integration processes in Hungary’(2017, grant no. NKFIH 108836), and the MTA
Cooperation of Excellences, Mobility Research Center project of the Centre for
Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences (2018).
The respondents could choose the three most important dangers threatening
Hungary out of ten items. These items were grouped as 1) external threats (the
dangers of immigration and terrorism, and the loss of Hungarian national
The Moral Panic Button 55
sovereignty), 2) dangers posed by the ruling elite (de-democratization processes
and corruption), and 3) threats posed by dissatisfactory public policies (social
inequalities, education, and healthcare). Figures 4.4 and 4.5 represent only the
external threats and international actors/groups. The surveys were conducted
between March and April 2017, and between September and November 2018.
22 Since the question was a multiple-choice question, the number of possible choi-
ces is not equal to the number of respondents (2000 and 2700), but it is three
times larger. The figures represent the choices compared to this total number, not
to the number of respondents.
23 See also Messing & Ságvári (2019), in which the authors show that perceptions
about immigration are highly dependent on political affiliation.
24 Other analyses described the same trends in Hungary. For example, Barna &
Koltai (2019) compare the 6th and 8th waves of ESS’s Hungarian data from 2012
and 2017, and find that the proportion of the population who would not allow
anyone to enter the country grew significantly until 2017. The most significant
growth was found among sympathizers of the governing party. Simonovits (2016)
found similar results: the ratio of people rejecting asylum seekers was already high
(around 40%) in 2014, but became even higher (53%) in 2016 and the proportion
of the respondents that would accept all asylum seekers decreased from 10 to 1%.
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