Keyword – media regulation

Koltay, András – Nyakas, Levente:

Question marks on the European regulation of the media in relation to the proposal of the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA)

This analysis reviews the proposal of the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) from an EU and media law perspective. Examining the legal basis of the regulation, it presents the criteria for media regulation at the EU level and, applying it to the proposal, questions the basic objective of the proposal (i.e., the maintaining of the healthy functioning of the EU internal market) and thus the necessity and the form of regulation. Examining certain regulatory subjects of the EMFA proposal, the authors conclude that in its current form violates the principle of subsidiarity and the sovereignty of the member states. If the regulatory purpose of the proposal were to be directed at cross-border services, general guarantee rules would be acceptable without specifying the detailed rules for their implementation in the form of a directive or of a recommendation.

Keywords: EU law, EMFA, media regulation, subsidiarity, member state sovereignty

Vicsek, Ferenc:

Mass media versus mass informedness

The Political Propaganda Indicator (PPI) measures abuses of information management, following the models of the Democracy Index created by Freedom House and of the Corruption Perceptions Index compiled by Transparency International. It is a method for measuring how corrupted the information disseminated to the public is. The PPI shows what percentage of people accept news items spread by political propaganda as true, even though they are otherwise often difficult to verify as factually correct. It shows what share of the public has a false perception of reality because of propaganda and manipulated news services. It also shows what percentage of people fall prey to false news streams and, consequently, how many of them decide in free elections on the basis of misleading, deliberately false information or concealed information as compared to a situation in which there is a level informational playing field.

Keywords: brainwashing, fake news, information policy, informedness, media regulation, media system, propaganda, press freedom, social media