Tamas Tofalvy
Biographic Data
| ID | 245173 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tamas Tofalvy |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tamas |
| FAMILY NAME | Tofalvy |
| SIGNATURE | TOFALVY T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Budapest University of Technology and Economics |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6477-0854 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Between the state and the platforms: A socio-technical analysis of changing practices in Hungarian digital journalism
In recent years, the field of digital journalism in Hungary has undergone a profound transformation. One of the driving forces behind this change is the global platformisation of journalism, which has had far-reaching effects on journalism's business and practices. Another, local factor is the government's increasing intervention in the media industry and journalism. Using Telex.hu, one of Hungary's most read independent online news sites as a ca…
“The blog cage was a horror”: Socio-technical boundary work in the institutionalization of blogging in online journalism
The paper examines how the integration of blogs as a new media into online journalism took place in Hungary in the mid-2000s through a case study of the cooperation between Blog. hu, the largest blog platform in the country at the time, and Index. hu, the leading online news site. Building on the intersections between the Social construction of technology (SCOT) and Boundary work theory (BWT), the concept of Socio-technical boundary work (STBW) p…
Histories of Digital Journalism: The Interplay of Technology, Society and Culture
In this chapter, I propose a genealogy of the tensions between the figures of the professional and the worker in the history of journalistic labor in Canada. By examining the case of the newspaper Le Devoir in Quebec (Canada), I first look back at the historical tensions between the typographers’ pressroom and the journalists’ newsroom. In the mid-20th century, a porous line separated manual workers from journalists with relative autonomy in news…
Bridging boundary work theory and the social construction of technology from a historical perspective
One key discourse on the nature of digital journalism concerns the role of technology: how technological affordances, such as digitization, affect the practices of the profession. Another concerns the blurred state of the profession, the difficulties of distinguishing a journalist from a non-journalist, and the negotiation of the hierarchies of practices and practitioners. Although the two phenomena are closely related, as debates about the natur…
The offline part was the essence of it” – the social history of iWiW, the Hungarian online social network
iWiW was one of the first Hungarian online social networks (OSNs) and the largest ever. The site was launched in 2002, and at its peak in 2010 it had 4.5 million members, more than two-thirds of all internet users in the country. The site was shut down in 2014 by its then-owner, Hungarian Telekom. As the first socio-historical account of the site, based on oral history interviews, this paper aims to shed light on a lesser-known chapter of local d…
Splendid Isolation”: The reproduction of music industry inequalities in Spotify’s recommendation system
In this article, we argue that offline inequalities, such as core–periphery relations of the music industry, are reproduced by streaming platforms. First, we offer an overview of the reproduction of inequalities and core–periphery dynamics in the music industry. Then we illustrate this through a small-scale network analysis case study of Hungarian metal bands’ connections on Spotify. We show that the primary determinant of a given band’s internat…
We have never been part of the journalistic profession’: Self-perceptions and professionalization of online journalists in the early era of Hungarian digital media
This paper is an examination of the self-perceptions and professionalization of online journalists who worked for the first two Hungarian content-providing ventures, Internetto and the Content Project, and their successors, Index.hu and Origo.hu, respectively, between 1995 and 1999. I have analyzed how organizational cultures and values attached to technology interacted with the process of professionalization. The evolution of Hungarian online jo…
Popular Music, Technology, and the Changing Media Ecosystem: From Cassettes to Stream
MySpace bands’ and ‘tagging wars’: Conflicts of genre, work ethic and media platforms in an extreme music scene
In this paper I interpret the transformations that took place in an extreme metal scene due to online fan interactions during the first wave of music–related online social media between 2004 and 2008. I show how the online success of a band on MySpace led to the devaluation of a whole genre, and also to the decreased reputation of MySpace as a medium among fans, coining the term ‘MySpace band.’ I describe how this judgment was strongly interrelat…
Splendid Isolation”: The reproduction of music industry inequalities in Spotify’s recommendation system
In this article, we argue that offline inequalities, such as core–periphery relations of the music industry, are reproduced by streaming platforms. First, we offer an overview of the reproduction of inequalities and core–periphery dynamics in the music industry. Then we illustrate this through a small-scale network analysis case study of Hungarian metal bands’ connections on Spotify. We show that the primary determinant of a given band’s internat…
We have never been part of the journalistic profession’: Self-perceptions and professionalization of online journalists in the early era of Hungarian digital media
This paper is an examination of the self-perceptions and professionalization of online journalists who worked for the first two Hungarian content-providing ventures, Internetto and the Content Project, and their successors, Index.hu and Origo.hu, respectively, between 1995 and 1999. I have analyzed how organizational cultures and values attached to technology interacted with the process of professionalization. The evolution of Hungarian online jo…
Popular Music, Technology, and the Changing Media Ecosystem: From Cassettes to Stream
MySpace bands’ and ‘tagging wars’: Conflicts of genre, work ethic and media platforms in an extreme music scene
In this paper I interpret the transformations that took place in an extreme metal scene due to online fan interactions during the first wave of music–related online social media between 2004 and 2008. I show how the online success of a band on MySpace led to the devaluation of a whole genre, and also to the decreased reputation of MySpace as a medium among fans, coining the term ‘MySpace band.’ I describe how this judgment was strongly interrelat…
We have never been part of the journalistic profession’: Self-perceptions and professionalization of online journalists in the early era of Hungarian digital media
This paper is an examination of the self-perceptions and professionalization of online journalists who worked for the first two Hungarian content-providing ventures, Internetto and the Content Project, and their successors, Index.hu and Origo.hu, respectively, between 1995 and 1999. I have analyzed how organizational cultures and values attached to technology interacted with the process of professionalization. The evolution of Hungarian online jo…
Popular Music, Technology, and the Changing Media Ecosystem: From Cassettes to Stream
Splendid Isolation”: The reproduction of music industry inequalities in Spotify’s recommendation system
In this article, we argue that offline inequalities, such as core–periphery relations of the music industry, are reproduced by streaming platforms. First, we offer an overview of the reproduction of inequalities and core–periphery dynamics in the music industry. Then we illustrate this through a small-scale network analysis case study of Hungarian metal bands’ connections on Spotify. We show that the primary determinant of a given band’s internat…
Histories of Digital Journalism: The Interplay of Technology, Society and Culture
In this chapter, I propose a genealogy of the tensions between the figures of the professional and the worker in the history of journalistic labor in Canada. By examining the case of the newspaper Le Devoir in Quebec (Canada), I first look back at the historical tensions between the typographers’ pressroom and the journalists’ newsroom. In the mid-20th century, a porous line separated manual workers from journalists with relative autonomy in news…
Bridging boundary work theory and the social construction of technology from a historical perspective
One key discourse on the nature of digital journalism concerns the role of technology: how technological affordances, such as digitization, affect the practices of the profession. Another concerns the blurred state of the profession, the difficulties of distinguishing a journalist from a non-journalist, and the negotiation of the hierarchies of practices and practitioners. Although the two phenomena are closely related, as debates about the natur…
The offline part was the essence of it” – the social history of iWiW, the Hungarian online social network
iWiW was one of the first Hungarian online social networks (OSNs) and the largest ever. The site was launched in 2002, and at its peak in 2010 it had 4.5 million members, more than two-thirds of all internet users in the country. The site was shut down in 2014 by its then-owner, Hungarian Telekom. As the first socio-historical account of the site, based on oral history interviews, this paper aims to shed light on a lesser-known chapter of local d…
“The blog cage was a horror”: Socio-technical boundary work in the institutionalization of blogging in online journalism
The paper examines how the integration of blogs as a new media into online journalism took place in Hungary in the mid-2000s through a case study of the cooperation between Blog. hu, the largest blog platform in the country at the time, and Index. hu, the leading online news site. Building on the intersections between the Social construction of technology (SCOT) and Boundary work theory (BWT), the concept of Socio-technical boundary work (STBW) p…
Between the state and the platforms: A socio-technical analysis of changing practices in Hungarian digital journalism
In recent years, the field of digital journalism in Hungary has undergone a profound transformation. One of the driving forces behind this change is the global platformisation of journalism, which has had far-reaching effects on journalism's business and practices. Another, local factor is the government's increasing intervention in the media industry and journalism. Using Telex.hu, one of Hungary's most read independent online news sites as a ca…
Computer Science (6 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Journalism (4 works) · Media Studies and Communication (4 works) · Digital Games and Media (3 works) · Digital media (3 works) · Media studies (3 works) · Music History and Culture (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Social media (3 works)