Abstract

Following a landslide victory in the Hungarian elections of April 2010, the new Hungarian government embarked on a program of wide-ranging legislation, beginning with comprehensive changes to the laws on the media – both print and broadcast – from June 2010 onwards. These attracted widespread international attention and criticism. This paper considers only one limited aspect of this vast and enormously complex network of media legislation, in particular the deployment of language in some of the laws enacted, illustrating some possible consequences from a case that the NMMH (National Media Authority) attempted – unsuccessfully but revealingly – to pursue against the niche broadcaster Tilos Rádió in December 2010-January 2011. As this summary is being written in July 2011, following the end of Hungary’s presidency of the European Union and thus its presumed retreat from the international spotlight, a slew of amendments to the media laws are being enacted, many apparently making them more stringent still.