Uncovering, analyzing, debunking and researching sponsored disinfo - project summary

Since October 2023, the research institute Political Capital, the fact-checking site Lakmusz, and the media watchdog Mertek Media Monitor have been collaborating to detect, analyze, and debunk sponsored disinformation during the 2024 election campaign in Hungary. The project “The marketplace of (false) ideas: Uncovering, analyzing, debunking and researching sponsored disinfo” was funded by the European Media and Information Fund (EMIF).

In this report we present the findings of our project, which specifically focused on advertised disinformation during the European Parliament and (local) election campaigns in Hungary. The report consists of three parts: The first part presents the results of Political Capital’s monitoring of political ad spending and the promotion of hostile narratives. The second part presents the fact-checks and investigations conducted by Lakmusz’ journalists and the third part presents the in-depth analyses of campaign videos and the focus group and survey research conducted by Mertek Media Monitor.

The full report is available here (pdf, 1MB).