In the early 1990s the Department of Media and Communication was one of the first higher education institutions in Hungary to offer a program in Media Studies. Initially, the program provided professional training for the new generation of journalists in the young democracy. Later, our curriculum gradually shifted its emphasis to the interdisciplinary study of contemporary culture and media phenomena.
Today the Department is Hungary’s leading institution in the field of Media Studies. The Department has been consistently ranked as first in national academic rankings based on research, teaching quality and career opportunities.
The Department regularly organises conferences, workshops and public debates to address the most important – sometimes exciting, other times alarming – developments in contemporary media and culture. Students have had a significant role in initiating and organising these events. Previous events focused on reality shows (2002), the media coverage of the Paris banlieue riots (2005), the riots in Budapest (2006), media hacks (2007), political change – cultural change (2008) and public broadcasting (2009). In 2010, the Department organized two roundtable discussions on the media discourse on the Roma minority, the representation of gender in the media and a panel discussion on the new media law.