[ecrea] New study on Hungarian media laws

Greetings and a very happy new year to you all,
The CMCS is very pleased to start the new year with the release of our 
most recent study,* Hungarian Media Laws in Europe: An Assessment of the 
Consistency of Hungary’s Media Laws with European Practices and Norms. *
Please find below a brief summary of the study and its findings. The 
full report and executive summary can be downloaded from our website at: 
cmcs.ceu.hu,
All the best,
Kate Coyer, Director
Amy Brouillette, Lead researcher on the study
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(Hungarian version of the text below available on our website at 
cmcs.ceu.hu)

*05 Jan 2012*

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*Press contact: Eva Bognar (Phone: +36 1 327 3000 x2609, email: 
(bognare /at/ ceu.hu) <mailto:(bognare /at/ ceu.hu)>) *

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*The Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) announces the 
release of the study:*

*/Hungarian Media Laws in Europe: An Assessment of the Consistency of 
Hungary’s Media Laws with European Practices and Norms/***

A new CMCS study led by researcher Amy Brouillette analyses the 
consistency of the Hungarian media regulations with European practices 
and norms. It addresses a key international policy debate regarding the 
conformity of Hungary’s new media legislation to European and EU 
media-regulation standards. The study also contributes to the ongoing 
policy making process regarding Hungary’s media laws—particularly in 
light of the recent rulings by Hungary’s Constitutional Court which 
requires several provisions to be amended by 31 May 2012—as well as 
contributing to the debate around other areas of concern that have been 
raised by the European Commission, European lawmakers, and domestic and 
international stakeholders.

In December 2010 and January 2011, the Hungarian Government released two 
statements summarising the main criticisms of its new laws and providing 
examples of regulations from 20 European and EU-member states as 
precedents for Hungary’s media legislation. For this study, the Center 
for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) commissioned media policy 
experts in each of these 20 countries to examine every example cited by 
Hungary’s Government. The findings of this report are based on the 
expert assessments of these examples. The purpose of this study is to 
examine the accuracy of the precedents cited by the Hungarian Government 
in order to shed light on the more critical question of how consistent 
Hungary’s media laws are with other media systems in Europe.

The study finds that Hungary’s media laws are largely inconsistent with 
the cited European practices and norms, based on an examination of the 
legal precedents provided and on the expert analyses of how these 
precedents are implemented in these European and EU-member countries. In 
a majority of examples, experts report that the Hungarian Government’s 
references omit or inaccurately characterise relevant factors of the 
other countries’ regulatory systems, and as a result, the examples do 
not provide sufficient and/or equivalent comparisons to Hungary’s media 
regulation system. In many examples, the Hungarian Government accurately 
presents a portion of a legal provision or regulation, however in these 
cases the reference either excludes elements of how the regulation is 
implemented or the regulation cited does not correspond with the scope 
and powers of Hungary’s media laws or Media Authority. Overall, this 
study finds that the European media regulations cited by the Hungarian 
Government do not serve as adequate precedents for Hungary’s new media 
laws.

The study also reveals a wide disparity in media-regulation policies 
among European and EU-member states and highlights some key deficiencies 
in a number of other European systems that may inhibit press freedom in 
ways that do not appear to conform to European free-press norms.

A copy of the report can be downloaded on the CMCS website at: 
www.cmcs.ceu.hu.


The Center for Media and Communication Studies is a research center of 
Central European University in Budapest dedicated to advancing media and 
communication scholarship and policy and the democratic potential of the 
media.

Kate Coyer, PhD
Director
Center for Media and Communication Studies
Central European University, Budapest
http://www.cmcs.ceu.hu/