Our director, Marius Dragomir—who also serves as editor of the Media Capture Monitoring Report—has been awarded the 2025 Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award for his work on the Media Capture Monitoring Report, a research project conducted jointly by the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) and the International Press Institute (IPI). Dragomir co-authored with Zsuzsa Detreköi the Overview report summarizing the key findings of this research.
Additionally, a special Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award 2025 was presented to Basil Kerski for his book Europejczycy z kantonu Polska (Europeans from the Canton Poland; Kraków, Budapest, Syracuse: Wydawnictwo Austeria, 2024).
The Selection Committee recognized Dragomir for the originality and rigor of his research, highlighting its systematic and pioneering approach to examining media ownership, regulatory frameworks, and the intricate links between media and politics.
Dragomir is also a researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) in Spain, specializing in journalism, research design, advocacy, and media policy. He is leading a series of comparative research projects such as the Media Influence Matrix, the State Media Monitor, Media Power Monitor, and Global Media Finances Map, which explore the interaction between media, business, and politics worldwide.
The following publications were also nominated for the Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award in 2025:
- Václav Štetka and Sabina Mihelj for their book The Illiberal Public Sphere: Media in Polarized Societies (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave MacMillan, 2024), recognized for their unique perspective on the role of the media in processes of illiberal social change
- Tales Tomaz for the article Media Ownership and Control in Europe: A Multidimensional Approach (European Journal of Communication, 39(5), 498–511, 2024), acknowledged for the theoretical and methodological contribution to research on media ownership transparency.
The official Award Ceremony will take place during the 7th Congress of the Polish Communication Association, which will be held in Katowice on September 22–25, 2025.
Dr Karol Jakubowicz (1941-2013) was one of the most recognized experts on media freedom in Europe. The award named after him, affiliated with the Polish Communication Association, was established by Małgorzata Semil-Jakubowicz in 2018. It is granted for outstanding scholarly works that fall within the area of interest of the Award’s Patron, i.e. the study of democracy, human rights, media policy, journalistic ethics and public media.
Detailed information about the Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award is available on the websites of the Polish Society for Social Communication (https://www.ptks.pl/en/awards/the-media-and-democracy-karol-jakubowicz-award; https://www.facebook.com/ptks.pca/) and the Central European Journal of Communication (https://cejc.ptks.pl/Blog; https://www.facebook.com/CEJCjournal).