According to an analysis conducted by the ChinfluenceCE international project, the vast majority of reports in Hungarian media about China are neutral. The pro-government media is rather positive, the opposition media is negative.

“Based on data, we found out media sources close to the Orbán’s government published significantly more positive and good news about China, while media sources connected to opposition published more negative or bad news than positive ones. Still, neutral news dominate the discourse”, expert Tamas Matura writes.

According to the analysis, “Hungarian media discourse on China is one sided, focuses overwhelmingly on pure economic data and developments on the one hand, while it is strongly politicized on the other. The assessment of Hungarian-Chinese relations in the media is strongly influenced by the political attitude of the given media source towards the government. Consequently, a productive and useful discourse on China and on bilateral relations has never evolved in Hungary, and the public sentiment is mostly influenced by a handful of agenda setters, whom are mostly politicians and not experts of the matter”.

The full figures and charts are available here.

Hungary Journal
Photo: MTI