Dr hab. Paweł Urbaniak wins the 2025 Paweł Stępka Award
We are pleased to announce that dr hab. Paweł Urbaniak from the Institute of Journalism at the University of Wrocław has been awarded the 2025 Paweł Stępka Award! The award ceremony took place today in Warsaw.
This year marked the 13th edition of the Paweł Stępka Competition, once again organized by the National Broadcasting Council (KRRiT) in cooperation with the Faculty of Journalism, Information and Book Studies and the Faculty of Political Science and International Studies of the University of Warsaw.
The competition aims to commemorate dr Paweł Stępka — a media scholar and distinguished KRRiT employee — by honoring the authors of outstanding doctoral dissertations and academic or popular science publications devoted to electronic media.
Dr hab. Paweł Urbaniak received the main award for his publication titled „System odpowiedzialności mediów w Polsce na tle systemów w innych krajach”, published in 2024 by the University of Wrocław Press. Our laureate is a sociologist and philologist specializing in the analysis of mechanisms of self-regulation, co-regulation, and regulation in media systems. His research interests also include media history, especially the underground press during the communist era in Poland, creative writing, and the theory and history of journalistic genres.
We now invite you to read an interview between Maria Kozan and dr hab. Paweł Urbaniak about his award-winning publication.
Maria Kozan: You’re known for your interest in the theory and history of journalistic genres, especially reportage and the Polish school of reportage. Yet in your latest book, “The System of Media Accountability in Poland in Comparison with Systems in Other Countries,” you focus on systemic mechanisms of journalistic accountability. What was the immediate impulse that prompted you to explore this issue from a comparative perspective?
Paweł Urbaniak: My latest book is undoubtedly the result of a search for answers to the question of how to make the media more accountable to society. I believe the starting point is to recognize that media have specific social functions to fulfill and should not be treated as typical profit-driven businesses. I am convinced that the media have the power to shape social reality, and the idea of social responsibility should guide their creators. The media can influence public behavior, foster civic attitudes, and contribute to public education, but they can also be dysfunctional, fueling social conflicts, unrest, or undesirable behavior. Media can accurately educate and inform, or they can distort reality, whether intentionally or due to incompetence. Many of the phenomena currently present in the Polish media landscape are concerning and demand diagnosis and definition. One thing is clear: Polish media, though by no means alone in this, fall far short of perfection and rarely fulfill only positive roles in society. They are increasingly politicized, biased, and driven by the pursuit of profit, often at the expense of quality. The core aim of the research presented in my book was to seek ways of improving both the quality and ethical standards of Polish media. I truly hoped to discover a way to align Polish media with the core principles of media ethics, such as those laid out in the Media Ethics Charter – a deontological document adopted by Polish journalists in 1995 – which include truthfulness, objectivity, separation of facts from opinion, honesty, respect and tolerance, priority of public interest, and the balance between freedom and responsibility. One way I explored this goal was by studying foreign media systems that more closely follow the paradigm of social responsibility. I conducted comparative research to analyze how media accountability systems function in other countries.
What are the key differences between the Polish and Western European approaches to media self-regulation?
To begin with, in some European countries, media self-regulation is more effective, meaning the tools used genuinely influence journalists’ everyday practices. In Poland, self-regulation remains weak and contributes little to improving media quality. This is partly due to the relatively short history of media self-regulation in Poland, which began only after 1989. The effectiveness of self-regulatory mechanisms is strongly linked to long-standing traditions within a country’s journalistic culture. My research confirms a clear correlation between the length of time a country has had a freely developing media accountability system and its overall effectiveness. This correlation is especially evident when we observe that the most advanced and effective accountability systems are found in countries without recent authoritarian histories, such as the UK, Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. In contrast, post-communist countries, which only began building their accountability systems in the 1990s, still struggle with effectiveness.
Countries like Finland, the Netherlands, and the UK have rich and diverse accountability mechanisms – from press councils to media-monitoring platforms and even innovative tools like blogs devoted to media ethics. But it’s not only about the number of tools – it’s about their actual impact on journalism. And in the countries mentioned, self-regulation genuinely shapes journalistic behavior. While no system makes media perfect or entirely replaces governmental regulation, in some contexts, self-regulation really does work.
Based on the interviews you conducted, how would you assess the ethical state of the journalistic profession in Poland? Are journalists becoming more ethically aware, or do opportunistic attitudes prevail?
Most of us can judge the state of journalism in Poland just by observation – you don’t need academic tools to see that many journalists act with little regard for professional ethics. And journalists themselves confirm this. In the interviews I conducted, they spoke critically of the ethical condition of their profession. The vast majority said that disregard for ethical norms is a serious or very serious problem in Polish media. Not a single respondent claimed that the problem didn’t exist. The causes they cited include the collapse of journalistic ideals, the decline of mission-driven journalism, the politicization of media, and the dominance of profit-oriented logic, which promotes clickbait and sensationalism, fueling the broader trend of tabloidization.
The most troubling conclusion is that when media are treated only as businesses – or worse, as political tools – they cannot uphold high ethical standards. Media should serve as an essential bridge between reality and the public, helping explain social, political, and cultural processes. Without that role, ethical journalism becomes impossible. And ethical journalism is, at its core, about reliably and objectively conveying the truth. That’s all — and at the same time, it’s everything.
Let’s talk about your empirical findings. What were the most surprising conclusions from your interviews with media professionals? Which hypotheses turned out to be most accurate, and what do they suggest?
Before starting my research, I formulated three main hypotheses. First, I assumed that the coexistence of both regulatory and self-regulatory tools helps improve the quality of national media. Second, I believed that the effectiveness of self-regulation depends mostly on its long-standing tradition within a country’s journalistic culture. And third, I hypothesized that the most effective self-regulatory tools are those tied to economic incentives. All three hypotheses were confirmed by my research. The third one may lead to the most important insights about self-regulation. It reveals a fundamental truth about the Polish system: appealing solely to journalists’ consciences rarely shows results. Ethical codes are typically general frameworks meant to guide journalistic behavior and apply moral pressure. But when these tools rely only on a journalist’s internal sense of duty, they tend to be ineffective. According to my research, the most effective tools are those that can directly impact a journalist’s material situation.
When ethical behavior is beneficial from the individual perspective of a journalist, it becomes their choice. When it brings no advantage, and at the same time, disregarding an ethical norm poses no threat to the individual’s interest, it is easy to abandon it in everyday actions out of disregard for upholding the principles of professional deontological codes. In other words, relying on journalists’ consciences or the journalistic ethos is futile when constructing systems of media accountability. The most effective way to influence journalists’ behavior through self-regulatory actions is by using tools associated with sanctions that can either bring tangible benefits to the journalist or negatively affect their interests. A journalist primarily looks after their interests, and if they maintain high standards of quality and ethics in carrying out their professional duties, it is mainly because, in doing so, they are also safeguarding their interests.
We now live in the age of digital journalism. Many people rely primarily on social media to access and filter information. In your view, does the current development of these platforms help or harm media self-regulation?
Social media fall outside the reach of traditional regulatory and self-regulatory tools – tools that still have some effectiveness in conventional media environments. Social media represent an entirely new model of information transmission, one that includes every user as a potential publisher. As such, they escape traditional media theory frameworks and, by extension, traditional self-regulatory tools.
If self-regulation struggles to influence even journalists working in established media institutions, relatively small and defined professional circles, how can it possibly shape the behavior of millions of social media users?
We are a long way from finding effective strategies for promoting responsible behavior among social media users. And this is particularly troubling, given how massive an impact these platforms have on public knowledge, opinions, and behavior – a role that continues to grow.
Translated by Zuzanna Kazimierowicz (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
Date of publication: 24.06.2025
Added by: M.K.
