Introduction
Péter Bajomi-Lázár’s most important academic achievements include the publication of seven monographs (of which Hungary’s Media War [2001] was granted the Hungarian Pulitzer Memorial Award in 2002), and the editing or co-editing of seven volumes. His research in the past ten years focused on interactions between media and politics. His findings on how party systems affect media systems and published in the monograph Party Colonisation of the Media in Central and Eastern Europe (2014) suggest that the status of media freedom cannot be improved and consolidated without major reforms in the constitutional framework in general and election laws in particular (Media and Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe, a 7th framework project based by the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, 2009–2013). More recently, he have studied migration reporting with a focus on journalism ethics (Role of European Mobility and Its Impacts in Narratives, Debates and EU Reforms, a Horizon 2020 project based at the Oxford Migration Observatory, 2017–2019). His other scholarly achievements include the founding of the Hungarian media studies journal Médiakutató (2000–) and work as its editor-in-chief (2000–2016); membership in the editorial boards of the European Journal of Communication (since 2016), the Nordicom Review (since 2016) and Media Transformations (since 2013); membership in the Euromedia Research Group (since 2014); membership in the Social Sciences Committee of the Hungarian Higher Educational Accreditation Board (2008–2009); the writing and co-writing of research and policy papers for the International Federation of Journalists, the Culture and Press Commission of Hungarian Parliament, the Hungarian Radio and Television Board, the Center for Independent Journalism, the South-East European Network for Professionalization of the Media, the European Journalism Centre, and the European Journalism Observatory; as well as seventeen years of teaching experience (1999–2009 and 2013–2020); and the supervision of a number of BA and MA theses and two doctoral theses.