Facebook as a Political Marketing Tool in an Illiberal Context. Mapping Political Advertising Activity on Facebook during the 2019 Hungarian European Parliament and Local Election Campaigns

Abstract

The research examines political advertising on Facebook during the 2019 European and local election campaigns in Hungary. Previously, political advertising had been difficult to study due to a lack of publicly available data. However, since spring of 2019, information on political advertising on Facebook has been publicly accessible in European countries. The study collected all political ads during the two nationwide election campaigns in Hungary to map the political advertising sphere based on spending. The research tests theories regarding the political restructuring potential of social media, including the oppositional/democratizing role of social media, and the theses of normalization versus equalization. Additionally, the ad-specific thesis of ‘stealth media’ is tested, which argues that Facebook’s ad platform can be employed to circumvent campaign-related regulations. Our findings suggest that the opposition remarkably dominates the political Facebook advertising sphere in the present illiberal context. Beyond this fact, the normalization theory seems to prevail, and there is no evidence that ads are used to increase the personalization of politics. In Hungary, Facebook’s advertising platform is not a type of ‘stealth media’ as it is dominated by official political actors, but a few partisan media outlets were strongly involved in the advertising campaign.