In terms of the connection between the media and political parties, Mazzoleni (2002) argues that the press has always shown more party bias than the radio or television. This statement also explains the current choice of the texts for analysis: articles published in the press make party bias more visible than other mediatised genres do. As for the possible reasons for the phenomenon of increased party bias in the press, Mazzoleni (2002) enumerates the following two causes. First, the press has always had the opportunity to reflect more extensively on different political opinions along the course of history due to its comprehensive coverage of events. Second, traditionally certain papers were established to be the instruments of groups of people (e.g. parties) with a view to serving the economic and political interests of these groups. A third cause, in our view, may also be that, due to political and ideological reasons, certain moneyed groups will financially support newspapers airing certain ideologies even if such a venture does not produce (immediate) financial returns. Obviously, if that is the case, such a paper will have no other choice but to exhibit the political and ideological bias shared by its owner.

Discussing the relationship between the press and the political elite, Mazzoleni (2002) also adds that quality papers have always aimed at reflecting the opinions and the points of view of the cultural and political elite. It is also noteworthy, Mazzoleni (2002) claims, that the quality press is seeking a privileged position and connections with the political elite and profits from them. In terms of bias, this clearly means that a quality paper linked with the cultural and political elite that feeds it will lean, i.e. exhibit bias, towards it.

This trend is obviously present with reference to the two Hungarian dailies selected for the purposes of the current research. Népszabadság and Magyar Nemzet represent the opinions of the two opposing poles of the Hungarian cultural and political elite. Népszabadság is a left wing, while Magyar Nemzet is a right wing paper, and both newspapers are closely associated with the given two elites: the papers publish, publicize and explain the points of views and opinions of these respective power elites.

Concerning the relationships between the media and political parties, Semetko et al. (1991) point out that a close connection exists between the political parties and the media in Europe: the media is traditionally an ideological agent in society, therefore it is subordinated to parties and their leaders. In terms of bias, this suggests that, depending on the political party with which the given newspapers are linked overtly or covertly, the papers will communicate the given party’s stance, will represent its interests in issues that are publicised and will reproduce its ideology. As a corollary to this, it can be stated that the newspapers that are linked with parties in government will tend towards advocacy journalism, while opposition related papers are likely to work along watchdog journalistic lines (Semetko et al. [1991]). Advocacy journalism presents and defends the government’s standpoint, whereas watchdog journalism criticises and attacks the government. Hungarian dailies are obviously no exception and seem to follow the same trend (cf. Szabó [2003]).

If we accept that parties do influence the media, it seems pratical to establish to what extent this happens or can happen. With reference to the party bias of the media, Blumler and Gurevitch (1990) distinguish the following four levels of party bias:

With respect to potential media bias in a given political environment, Mazzoleni (2002) claims that non-biased normative and ethical principles of journalism are a key factor that influences the level of media bias: the higher the level of keeping to the normative and ethical principles of journalism, the fewer instances of advocacy and watchdog journalism can be observed. Hungarian journalism, in fact, is far from this state, in our interpretation. On the other hand, this state of affairs also justifies the selection of the source texts in the current research: as these texts are taken from Hungarian daily papers, they are likely to exhibit bias and thus yield plenty of research results.