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

The paper explores post-modern campaign techniques based on p2p (peer-to-peer) communication. On the basis of the Hungarian example, we argue that the SMS and e-mail-campaign realizes a new type of political communication. Utilizing conceptual frameworks of sociology, political science, communication theory and business marketing, we argue that interactive  marketing strategies, particularly viral marketing in online networks could be used effectively for political purposes. We elaborate the concept of viral political marketing in the mobile political (m-political) context and analyze how it was used for direct political mobilization and the dissemination of partisan political humor. Finally, we juxtapose long, argumentative e-mails with political SMS-s; and viral political marketing with the normative concept of the public sphere.