The Long-Range Character Assassination Machine: The Role of Megafon’s Astroturf Influencers in the 2022 Pro-Government Campaign in Hungary

Abstract

In this study, we argue that Astroturf influencers, who are not officially associated with the campaign but are informally integrated into it, can play a crucial role in election campaigns by amplifying the campaign’s voice and taking on important communication tasks that have been outsourced to them. This 2022 parliamentary election campaign in Hungary is a unique case, as 2 years before the election, an agency called Megafon was established to train and support pro-government influencers who became key actors in the campaign. While the role of self-made political influencers is an emerging topic, the strategic functions of influencers created specifically to serve campaign goals remain unexplored. To bridge this gap, we compare the Facebook activities of Megafon’s influencers and the campaign’s electoral actors (party leader, the party, and its candidates). First, we show that the 10 Astroturf influencers generated tremendous engagement with their posts and spent much more money on political advertising than the electoral actors. Then, through a manual content analysis of their ads, we show that the Astroturf influencers took over the attacking, character-focused, and fear- and anger-oriented campaign communication from the electoral actors, who were able to focus on praise- and policy-focused, enthusiastic, and pride-oriented campaigns.