Analysis of Viktor Orbán’s speeches between 2010 and 2020

Investigating the issue of migration

Abstract

Politicians are key figures in defining and shaping public discourse in a country, in Hungary migration being a prime example in recent years. Our research examines the speeches of Viktor Orbán between May 2010 and December 2020, which are available online, focusing on the issue of migration, thus contributing to the understanding of the socially relevant messages of the speeches and to the exploration of the way migration is discussed.

Using the basic descriptive tools of natural language processing and text analytics, our study provides information about the migration-relevant aspects of the speeches. In our work, we cover the social context of the issue of immigration, previous analyses of the political communication related to the topic of immigration, and we also conduct a quantitative text analysis based on the theoretical framework. In our study, we point out the changes in relative frequency and temporal dynamics of words of particular importance for migration and compare their occurrence in speeches in Hungary and abroad.

The keywords defined for the research include “refugee”, “immigrant”, “migrant”, as well as “migration” and “immigration”. For example, the results of our analysis can be used to identify at what point Viktor Orbán’s political communication changes; when the use of the words “refugee” and “immigrant” becomes less frequent, and the term “migrant” becomes dominant in his speeches. We also reflect on previous research insights, as the ones we found fit nicely with them.