MiklÛs S¸kˆsd, a political scientist, media researcher, and Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at Central European University and Endre D·nyi, sociologist, Editor-in-Chief of eDemocracy Newsletter, and member of the eDemocracy Association in Hungary,have written an important paper on the influential role of mobile communications in recent Hungarian elections.

This is happening faster than I thought it would, and I wouldn’t venture a guess at this point whether electoral smartmobbing will degrade or enhance democracy. I have no doubt, however, that the introduction of peer to peer mobile communication networks into the campaign and election process is already growing disruptive of existing electoral systems.

(Thanks, Stanislas!)

The Hungarian parliamentary election campaign in April, 2002 brought fierce party competition and extremely close election results. In the last two weeks of the campaign (between the two rounds of the elections), technologies of interactive, interpersonal communication have become suddenly utilized on a mass scale. In a country of 10 million, where ca. 53% of the population has mobile phones and 15% are Internet users, millions ofpolitical mobile text messages (Short Messaging System ñ SMS) and e-mails were exchanged

by party supporters. (Daily SMS traffic has increased 20-30%, i.e., by ca. 1 million messagesbetween the two rounds of the elections.) For two weeks, political spam became an everydayexperience. The significant role of new technologies during the campaign is unprecedented in Hungary and rather unique in global terms.