Factual relativism and distrust of news sources among the Hungarian public

The nature of modern disinformation is that it seeks not to persuade but to confuse. One of the most important parts of disinformation is the reinforcement of doubt about objective facts and reality. It is precisely this kind of doubt that is the hotbed for belief in fake news and conspiracy theories; and strongly present in domestic online and offline public discourse, as well as in public opinion. This phenomenon we will refer to as “factual relativism”. In this paper, we focus on how this phenomenon manifests in the Hungarian public opinion.

In Hungarian society, factual relativism and distrust of news sources are relatively widespread. Two-thirds (67%) of Hungarian respondents fully or partly agreed with the statement that “Many things that are quoted in the press as facts are really just opinions” and 76 per cent agreed with the statement that "We cannot be sure about what is reported as fact is true”. Strikingly, 59 per cent of the respondents also agreed with the statement “Objective reality does not really exist, there are only different opinions”.
Based on the aggregated answers to the five questions, respondents were divided into four groups. 36 per cent of the respondents were found to be strongly fact-relativist, and 38 per cent are moderately fact-relativist – which means that the overwhelming majority of Hungarians are strongly skeptical about the factuality of the information environment that surrounds them. Only 18 per cent firmly believe that facts can be known, and 8 per cent of the respondents could not be classified because they did not answer at least one item.

Factual relativism is a hotbed of belief in conspiracy theories and fake news. According to our data, factual relativism is higher among believers of conspiracy theories and geopolitical (e.g. Kremlin disinformation statements) and medical hoaxes (including conspiracy theories about vaccines). At the same time unrelated to age, education, and gender. Type of settlement makes some difference: people living in Budapest were less likely than those living elsewhere in the country to agree with relativist views of facts.

Factual relativism is party-independent and strong across all voter bases. Partisanship is typically a strong predictor of most opinions in Hungary, where tribal political cleavages are becoming deeper, and polarization is growing. Critical views on facts and reality do not differ substantially among supporters of one party or another and thus do not reflect the political polarization that pervades domestic public opinion on most issues. Factual relativism is thus a phenomenon that cuts across socio-political fault lines, is widespread in Hungarian society and offers ample scope for manipulation.

The current information environment explicitly reinforces doubt about the facts. This phenomenon is clearly related to both the growing political divisions and propagandistic media environment dominated by government campaign narratives and to the nature of these crises – the COVID-19 pandemic, then Russia's invasion of Ukraine – which have allowed the public to experience the confusion that conflicting news and opinions can cause.

The full study is available here (pdf).

This study is available in Hungarian here.

The study was carried out in the framework of the HDMO (Hungarian Digital Media Observatory) project.

This publication was funded by the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.

Our study draws on data from a public opinion survey supported by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF).
The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom is not responsible for the content of this publication or any use which may be made of it. The views expressed herein are those of the project owner and do not necessarily reflect the views of the FNF.