A MEDIA SYSTEM ABANDONED: The Hungarian media under siege and without support (Soft Censorship 2023)

Freedom of expression is essential for well-functioning democratic societies, and one of the basic conditions for this is that journalists can do their work safely. If they are harassed, abused, or unduly interfered with, it can jeopardize the functioning of a democratic society. Yet violence and harassment of journalists have increased globally over the past decade. Data for Hungary is often incomplete and the situation of journalists working here is not comparable to those working in open dictatorships, war zones, or other conflict zones. Yet Hungary is moving further and further away from European democracies where freedom of the press is a fundamental value. The Hungarian media environment has significantly changed since 2010, as evidenced by the decline in international press freedom indices.

After 2010, the Hungarian media system gradually became polarised, basically split in two. In one part, there are media outlets that the government ensures loyalty by providing unlimited access to public resources. The other half is made up of media outlets that are cut off from such resources. The media loyal to the government have a political mission, for which the professional and ethical rules of journalism can be set aside at any time. The non-government media are ideologically diverse and are clearly defined by the professional and ethical rules of journalism.

The transformation of the Hungarian media system after 2010 has on the one hand avoided violence against journalists and open censorship of critical media. On the other hand, it is so profound that pro-government actors dominate at every point of the information and revenue flow, from printing capacity to newspaper and broadcasting networks to media agencies. This makes independent journalism very difficult, leaving independent media actors in a completely unstable position. However, the pro-government media are openly centralized and manually controlled, which makes the application of censorship in the traditional sense highly unlikely. Therefore, the Hungarian media policy as a whole has been described by the term soft censorship since 2014.

Under the concept of „soft censorship” or indirect censorship, we include those media policy interventions that significantly increase the chances of some viewpoints reaching the audience and significantly reduce the chances of others by shaping the structure of the media market and manipulating the allocation of media market resources. We interpret soft censorship as an arbitrary interference in the structure of the media market and the economic scope of media companies. It aims to strengthen those companies in the media market value chain as a whole that help to broadcast the government’s views, while at the same time weakening, economically destabilizing, or forcing media outlets that are critical of the government to abandon their critical views.

Soft censorship brings relatively slow but lasting changes to the functioning of the media system as a whole. It does not directly influence the production of specific content, but shapes the content available in its entirety, and targets media companies rather than individual journalists. Soft censorship is perceived directly by media owners and media managers, and these interventions can influence editorial and journalistic practice through them.

In addition to the usual economic and legal analyses, our 2023 Soft Censorship Report focuses on the relationship between Hungarian content providers and platforms, and on the Hungarian experience so far in implementing European platform regulation. Furthermore, the chapter on public service media is a detailed description of our European state aid case launched in 2016.

There was no radical shift in the Hungarian media market in 2023, which means not only that Fidesz did not gain any spectacular new positions, but also that the situation of independent media did not become more stable. Two factors, however, give further cause for concern. The European regulation of global platforms does not seem to bring any substantial change in the relationship between Hungarian content providers and platforms, but it will further strengthen the position of the media authority, which has been occupied by Fidesz since 2010. On the other hand, the failure of our European complaints will also take the last legal tools out of our hands, which we could have used to bring the over-politicized media system and the distorted media market at least partly into line with democratic standards.

The Sovereignty Protection Act and the European Media Freedom Act are not yet covered by the 2023 report but will be included in the 2024 Soft Censorship report.

Full analysis: A MEDIA SYSTEM ABANDONED: The Hungarian media under siege and without support

 

This study was drafted as part of the Hungarian Digital Media Observatory (HDMO) project. In the framework of the 30-month project, the researchers of Political Capital and Mérték Media Monitor studied the spread of disinformation and the efficacy of the measures taken against it; the journalists of the French news agency AFP and the Hungarian online news site Lakmusz performed fact-checking; the staff of the Idea Foundation held trainings about conscious media consumption; while Epresspack provided the digital infrastructure for the HDMO. Just as the project’s first phase, the second phase was also co-financed by the European Commission. The members of the HDMO’s consortium, which enjoys full independence in all of its activities, were selected in an open competition by the European Commission.

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Health and Digital Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.