New research has suggested that the Czech Republic leads among Central and Eastern European countries for ‘negative’ political messaging by parties running for national office.
Between 2020 and 2022, researchers investigated the number of negative Facebook posts published four weeks before elections in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, and the Republic of Moldova. The study was co-authored by Alena Pospíšil Macková from the SYRI National Institute, a Czech research body .
The Czech Republic recorded the highest frequency of negative messages posted on Facebook by parties seeking office during national elections in 2021, with the ruling ANO party and the two opposition coalitions running highly negative campaigns against one another. In total, 52% of contributions in the Czech Republic were understood as negative, compared to 17% in Lithuania, the lowest among the selected countries.
The report suggests that certain policy issues tend to be especially linked to negative messaging, such as the economy and finance, labour and social issues, corruption, foreign policy, and LGBTQ+ issues. Amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, healthcare was also strongly associated with widespread negative communication by political parties.
According to the study, negative political messaging is understood as the presence of “negative statements, disapproval, criticism, and attack statements” in the text, but also negative emotions in facial expressions and gestures in images and videos, which are “hostile or of a halting nature”, and often linked to salient electoral topics.
Negative posts were understood to generate higher levels of user engagement, in terms of likes and comments, compared to ‘positive or neutral’ comments. Scholars have also pointed to negativity in political discourse as a contributing factor towards increasing polarisation and eroding trust in democratic institutions.
Differences between Central and Eastern European countries and the West also emerged from the study, with negative political communication apparently more prevalent in the former. National election campaigns in Central and Eastern Europe also demonstrated greater emphasis on economic issues, and less on immigration policy, environmental policy, political radicalism, and religious fanaticism. Corruption, on the other hand, remained a constant theme.
