HUNGARY. Critical junctures in the media transformation process.
Date
2022
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In the research period between 2000 and 2020 several critical junctures can be determined that
have universally designated the development of media not just in Hungary, but in other participating
countries as well. There are some country-specific developments, too. The advent of
online media thanks to the broadband Internet technologies from 2000, joining to the European
Union in 2004, the rise of social media from the second half of the first decade, the world economic
crises from 2008, the constitutional majority victory of Fidesz in 2010, the migration
crisis, the so-called “Orbán-Simicska war” in 2015 and the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Some
of these junctures created risk and opportunities in all domains of the media system, the legal
environment, the media market and the situation of journalism, the media usage habits and the
field of media literacy. The Hungarian media situation is particularly complex. If we look at the
variables defined in the theoretical background of the Mediadelcom project, which aims to
capture the guarantees that ensure the conditions for deliberative communication, we can see
that there are few areas in this respect where we cannot identify serious risks.