Media in Hungary: Three Pillars of an Illiberal Democracy

Gábor Polyák looks at the media and politics in illiberal Hungary. This chapter examines some of the typical methods that illiberal regimes, such as that of Hungary in recent years, employ and combine into a sustainable state censorship system. These systems are neither hold-overs nor re-makes of the preceding totalitarian control systems. Limitations are imposed simultaneously on media pluralism, on freedom of opinion, and on freedom of information, both in the legacy, and in the online, media. In Hungary, Viktor Orban’s second arrival to power in 2010 gave him a constitutional majority in Parliament, which he has used to an extent unprecedented in the EU, although it is will have many familiar aspect to those schooled in the world of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. His establishment of ruling party domination has relied heavily on the use of media laws, coupled with control of the both the regulatory bodies and the media market. The chapter gives and overview of the major objectives of these policies and the means employed to effect the ensuing transformation in the media landscape.