NMHH’s Institute of Media Sciences (MTMI) invited for the third time papers from students participating in the government and law studies section of the biannual competition of the National Scientific Students' Associations Conference (OTDK); the deadline to be met by students for submitting their papers was last December. By sponsoring submissions in the subject area of media and communications law, MTMI aims to incentivize research by students working on the subject and to support the entry of young people into the specialist fields of media and communications.

On Thursday NMHH President Monika Karas ceremonially handed over the prizes to twelve students and their supervisors from four universities. The Authority awarded a total cash prize of one million forints for ten papers (two of which were co-authored), while consultant supervisors received a combined total of HUF 500,000.

“It believe that it is worthwhile to invest in media and communications in the future. Progress is mostly in the hands of those who will set the trends in the future. These professionals are currently students at universities, writing their academic papers and theses with full enthusiasm. These professionals, the hopefuls of the future are none other than you, the recipients of these prizes”, – said Monika Karas at the ceremony.

The President of the NMHH added that the Authority’s commitment to professional education is also manifest in the fact that it launched the NMHH Media Workshops scheme. So far, the Authority has opened eight media workshops (a link to the latest news: http://nmhh.hu/cikk/172171/Nyolcadik_egyetemi_mediamuhelyet_nyitotta_meg_az_NMHH) at different higher education institutions across the country.

“We consider our scheme to be a success: after all, five years have passed since the authors of the best papers were first rewarded. This year too, we received high-quality submissions”, said Levente Nyakas, head of the NMHH Institute of Media Sciences, praising the authors of the papers. “In our experience, the papers are increasingly focused on the online phenomena of the present: approximately eighty percent of them deal with this question, so the focus is always on topical subjects. Conventional media are not neglected, either: there were several comparative studies and their quality is clearly demonstrated by the fact that half of them were prize-winners at the OTDK competition as well.”

The award-winning submissions included a paper about European law, a comprehensive analysis of sports broadcasting rights, a paper looking into the child/parent relationship and the protection of minors, studies discussing press photos, the right of journalists to refuse confession and data protection, and other papers delving into the issues surrounding hate speech, online harassment and cybercrime.

All prize-winning papers will be available in full on the website of the Institute from next week on (http://mtmi.hu/).

PRIZE-WINNING OTDK PAPERS