Policy and Politics

As part of CEU School of Public Policy (SPP), our center has been following developments in media policy throughout its entire existence. The center’s summer schools and public events have a strong policy component.

With the rise of new technologies, debates about the need of fresh policies and regulations is heating up. The policy framework governing media fails almost everywhere to accommodate the changes that internet and new technologies have brought about. Much of media policy today is antiquated; and for obvious reasons: it was originally built to provide rules for last century’s media industries, primarily broadcasting.

Moreover, there is a big disconnect between policy and people. Media policies affecting the lives of many are still the fiefdom of politicians and small groups of businesses. This “policy disconnect” has been identified as a major challenge to media freedom in the CMDS 2017-2019 strategy: “There is a widening disconnect between regulatory authorities, political bodies and society. Policy priorities are increasingly decoupled from the real problems that affect media and internet freedom, and independent journalism in particular.”

The center thus devotes much of its research work to policy-related issues in media and journalism. Some of them are the intersection of policy and politics. Much of this research work is designed and positioned to feed into policy debates. A Media Policy Hub led by distinguished policy experts was launched in spring 2018 to follow up on our research, advise on new topics and areas and use the findings of our investigations to write policy analysis and recommendations.