“The most important factor enhancing the consolidation of media freedom in post-communist societies is a timely and well-designed reform of the institutional system,” writes Hungarian media critic Peter Bajomi-Lazar in “Freedom of the Media in Hungary, 1990-2002,” an article published on the website for Budapest’s Central European University. This new term coined by Lazar – the “consolidation of media freedom” – refers to media freedom as both “the abolition of formal censorship and the creation of a plural media landscape” and “the degree to which that freedom can actually be used by citizens.” The crux of Lazar’s argument, then, is that an institutional framework for the media is vital because it can both liberate media from constraint, and can substantiate that freedom through regulations that make media more accessible and more meaningful to the public.
Reining in Free Media
JVF Conference Papers
