Uploading as political strategy: The European Parliament and the Hungarian media law debate

Using the 2010 Hungarian media law as case study, this article traces the process in which an issue in the domestic politics of a (‘new’) EU member state is transformed into a transnational political conflict. How and why do political actors upload issues to the EU level, specifically, into the European parliamentary arena? How do others, with conflicting interests, resist such a change? The analytical framework is based on venue shopping, a concept hitherto mainly utilised in the context of interest group behaviour. Contestation around the Hungarian media law illustrates that a number of conditions, to do with the existing links of the uploading political actor with the new venue and the nature of the issue itself, are necessary to make uploading a viable strategy.