The coronavirus pandemic has brought with it countless challenges, and for Hungary, one of them has been an escalation of the government’s crackdown on independent media. In March 2020, Hungary’s parliament passed a law instituting jail time of up to five years for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus — which experts say effectively restricted independent journalists’ ability to cover the government’s response to the crisis.
This wasn’t the first time the Hungarian government has targeted press freedom. Through an effort to consolidate media ownership in the country, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ruling party, Fidesz, controls about 90% of Hungarian media outlets.
“In Hungary, fake news has another meaning than in Western Europe. This fake news is state propaganda, mostly,” says Gábor Polyák, a lawyer, media expert and professor in the Department of Media and Communication at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. “It is not typical that smaller websites are spreading fake news, but it is very typical that the public media and the biggest private media owned by politically affiliated guys are spreading disinformation, in line with the attention of the government.”
In addition to his university work as a teacher and researcher, Gábor is the director of Mérték Media Monitor, an NGO that evaluates media law and court decisions in Central and Eastern Europe, shares its analyses internationally and advocates for media freedom. And this work is urgently needed. Reporters Without Borders ranked Hungary 92 out of 180 countries on its 2021 World Press Freedom Index, which measures media independence, journalist safety and the range of legislative protections for the media in countries around the world. Hungary was one of the lowest-ranking European Union member states on the index; only Bulgaria ranked lower.
A primary goal of Gábor’s research is to show the international community the reality of the limitations on the press in Hungary, and to explore the opportunities for European Union-level legal intervention there. He says sharing his research with consumers and meeting with regulators are additional ways he works to build awareness of these issues beyond academia.
“It is also important to make the broad audience, the non-expert audience, aware of the situation,” Gábor says. “The only way you can maybe influence the situation in Hungary is to make clear for the foreign experts and the foreign policymakers what really happens here.”
Gábor regularly publishes academic papers, books and blog posts for the public. He’s currently working on a new Hungarian-language paper with a colleague about the spread of misinformation in Hungary, and how to handle it.
“You are, as a university teacher, sometimes also attacked in Hungary. Some media outlets are writing not-so-nice words about you, because you are not in line with the opinion of the government.”
- Gabor on the challenges of working in academia in Hungary
In 2020, Gábor was awarded the University of Potsdam's Voltaire Prize for his work on press and media freedom.
Gábor received a law degree in 2001 and a Ph.D. in law and media studies in 2008 from the University of Pécs in Pécs, Hungary. He then worked at the university as a lecturer and professor for almost 20 years, teaching media law, media policy and IT law. For much of his time working at the university, he was a member of the Faculty of Law, where he was part of a small team that studied law and communication.
“We were the first and only institute for media and IT law in Hungary,” he says.
Gábor took some short breaks from the University of Pécs, including to get an LL.M. degree from the University of Vienna from 2005 to 2006 and to work as a research fellow at the Westfälische Wilhelms University of Münster from 2014 to 2016.His diverse background means he’s at home both as a member of the law faculty and within the Faculty of Humanities, where his work as a Media and Communication Studies professor lies.
“I am the…media expert between the lawyers and I am the lawyer between the media experts, and it is a unique combination,” he says.
That combination gave him a particular understanding of the risk to independent media posed by Hungary’s 2010 election results, which brought victory for nationalist party Fidesz and current Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. In response, in 2011, Gábor co-founded Mérték Media Monitor as a way to scrutinize and share with others the government’s efforts to restrict media freedom.
“This is a watchdog organization,” he says. “We are publishing analyses about the media situation from the point of view of law, economics, [the] situation of the journalist, news consumption. It was, I have to say, a very important opportunity for me to work from day to day together with economics, with sociologists, with journalists.”
His interdisciplinary approach to research is also evident in how he utilizes ResearchGate. While he uses the platform to find references and citations for his work, it’s also where he puts into practice his focus on sharing information.
“ResearchGate makes my research accessible for a broader audience for the sake of colleagues,” he says. “I believe in open access. This is how science and social sciences should work.”
Gábor has been internationally recognized for his commitment to academic and media freedom; he received the Voltaire Prize for Tolerance, International Understanding and Respect for Differences from the University of Potsdam in January 2020.
“In 2010, we had a new government and Hungarian media issues became a European debate topic...It was clear that everything I thought about media, about media policy and media freedom is in danger.”
- Gabor on founding Mérték Media Monitor
