The Institute of Communication and Media Research in Cluj was created in the spring of 2010 at the initiative of doctoral students of media studies by the Medea Association. Its purpose was from the beginning – among others – to create the database of Hungarian written and electronic press in Romania/Transylvania, the analysis of the operation of the media system, and writing its history based on modern media theory.
What made this initiative inevitable? The fact that no comprehensive synthesis on the post-1790 history of Hungarian press in Transylvania has been written yet, there are only partial results. What are the previous researches we can rely on? First of all, the works of István Monoki, who created the database of the Hungarian press of Transylvania between the two World Wars, and Péter Kuszálik, who continued Monoki’s work; the articles on press history in the volumes of the Lexicon of Hungarian Literature from Romania; BA theses on the history of journalism written at the Department of Journalism of BBU since 1997; doctoral theses defended after 2009; articles published in the media research journal Me.dok, with a ten years long history. When the Institute of Communication and Media Research started, it was clear that it must undertake the organization of press history research in Transylvania/Romania. It must analyse the period of the formation of the Transylvanian (not only Hungarian!) press (1790–1848), the period of civil media publicity (1849–1920), the minority press in the inter-war period, the age of “socialist publicity” and the post-communist press. A durable analysis must be made on the role of journalism in this period in handling historical censorship, preparing the regime changes, the self-organization of minority society, and the display of the existential problems of Hungarians from Transylvania.
Researchers studying different periods:
- creating the bibliography of Hungarian press history research in Transylvania/Romania (Győrffy Gábor, Cseke Péter, Újvári Mária)
- exploring the sources of the Hungarian press of Transylvania/Romania, summarizing the results of previous research, beginning new research:
- from 1790 to 1848 (Győrffy Gábor)
- from 1849 to 1900 (Péter Edit)
- from 1900 to 1919 (Bodó Márta, Tibori Szabó Zoltán)
- from 1919 to 1940 (Bodó Márta, Cseke Péter, Szabó Zsolt, Vallasek Júlia)
- from 1945 to 1989 (Botházi Mária, Cseke Péter, Győrffy Gábor, Orbán Katalin, Rácz Éva, Szabó Zsolt)
- from 1990 to 2015 (Bodó Márta, Botházi Mária, Cseke Péter, Orbán Katalin, Péter Árpád, Rácz Éva, Szabó Zsolt)