Historical Guide to World Media Freedom

A Country-by-Country Analysis

Jenifer Whitten-Woodring, Douglas A. Van Belle

• Publisher: CQ Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781608717651
• eBook ISBN: 9781483359861
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Scholars of international relations and international communications view the extent of media freedom from country to country as a key comparative indicator either by itself or in correlation with other indices of national political and economic development. This indicator serves as a bellwether for gauging the health and spread of democracy.

Historical Guide to World Media Freedom brings together comprehensive historical data on media freedom since World War II, providing consistent and comparable measures of media freedom in all independent countries for the years 1948 to the present. The work also includes country-by country summaries, analyses of historical and regional trends in media freedom, and extensive reliability analyses of media freedom measures. The book's detailed information helps researchers connect historical measures of media freedom to Freedom House's annual Freedom of the Press survey release, enabling them to extend their studies back before the 1980s when Freedom House began compiling global press freedom measures.

Key Features:

• A-to-Z, country-by-country summaries of the ebb and flow of media freedom are paired with national media freedom measures over time.
• Introductory chapters discuss such topics as the theoretical premises behind the nature and importance of media freedom, historical trends, and the challenges of coding for media freedom in a way that ensures consistency for comparison.
• Concluding material covers the historical patterns in media freedom, how media freedom tracks with other cross-national indicators, and more.

Accessible to students and scholars alike, this groundbreaking reference is essential to collections in political science, international studies, and journalism and communications.

Chapter 1

Introduction

A journalist is a grumbler, a censurer, a giver of advice, a regent of sovereigns, a tutor of nations. Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.

—Napoleon Bonaparte

For hundreds of years, people have assumed that news media are a powerful force against corruption, repression, and dictatorship, but only as long as media are free from government control. Media freedom is seen as critical to democracy and perhaps even a key to spreading democracy. Human rights organizations advocate for media freedom in nondemocratic countries, and Western democracies spend millions on media assistance programs aimed at encouraging the development of media freedom, providing better access to media and improving the quality of journalism in developing countries. Almost every country on the planet has some sort of constitutional guarantee of media freedom, and each of these countries also has laws that restrict media freedom. Even in countries with limited media freedom, journalists risk their lives to bring people news that is critical of government (see the picture and story about Japanese photographer Kenji Nagai who was killed while trying to document the Burmese military’s brutal treatment of protesters) (Human Rights Watch 2007). Although there is great demand for media freedom, we know very little about it and how it has evolved and devolved across countries and over time. With this book we seek to answer some basic questions about media freedom. How has media freedom developed and changed in different countries? How have governments sought to limit media freedom? What is the role of media freedom in democratic and nondemocratic countries? And what exactly is media freedom?

BOX 1.1

A DEADLY PROFESSION

September 2007, Yangon, Myanmar (also known as Burma): Japanese photographer Kenji Nagai was trying to document the Burmese military’s brutal crackdown on nonviolent protesters when he was fatally shot. We see him here pleading for his life. Reuters Chief Photographer Adrees Latif won a Pulitzer Prize for this photo.

In an effort to keep the rest of the world from learning about the crackdown, the Burmese generals silenced mobile phone networks and halted Internet traffic. These measures constrained the flow of information to a mere trickle, but some news did reach the rest of the world.

Some enterprising and brave individuals found ways to get mobile phone video footage of the demonstrations and crackdown out of the country and onto the world’s television screens. This provided a small window into the violence and repression.

Source: Human Rights Watch (2007).

Kenji Nagai of APF tries to take photographs as he lies injured after police and military officials fired upon and then charged at protesters in Yangon’s city center, in Myanmar (Burma) on September 27, 2007. Nagai, 50, a Japanese video journalist, was shot by soldiers as they fired to disperse the crowd. Nagai later died.

Source: Reuters/Adrees Latif.

Defining media freedom is surprisingly difficult—so difficult that most people who defend it, study it, and measure it fail to specify what they really mean by media freedom. Defenders of media freedom document violations of it. For example, since 1950, the International Press Institute (www.freemedia.at) has been monitoring and interceding when governments imprison, harass, and sometimes even murder journalists, but this focus on government infringement on media freedom only tells us what prevents media freedom. It does little to explain what media freedom actually is. Freedom House (www.freedomhouse.org) provides annual press freedom scores for all available countries, but again the focus is on what constrains media freedom. Defining media freedom is a challenge that we take up in Chapter 2. For now, let’s just say that media freedom has to do with whether journalists are able to function independently of the government so that they are able to safely let people know what the political leaders are doing, even if those leaders would prefer that journalists not provide this information. Because independence from government control is an important aspect of media freedom, we will sometimes refer to media freedom as media independence.

You may have noticed by now that we are using the term media freedom instead of press freedom. Actually, we use both terms interchangeably throughout the rest of this book. Literally, press freedom has to do with freedom of printed journalism, meaning newspapers and magazines, but most people who use the term press freedom are concerned about violations of journalistic freedom in other media as well. Print journalism came first (well, actually after town criers, wandering minstrels, and marathon runners—and even those early purveyors of information had to be careful about the messages they communicated, but that is going back a bit too far). Because print journalism was the first mass medium for communicating information, it was also the first medium that those in power, especially government leaders, sought to systematically control through censorship, taxation, intimidation, imprisonment, and sometimes even murder. With the emergence of radio in early 1900s and then television in 1940s, the printed press was no longer the only game in town. From the beginning, broadcast journalists faced similar pressures and attacks as print journalists. Now, with the increased popularity of the Internet, bloggers and tweeters are facing similar threats. The Committee to Protect Journalists (www.cpj.org), an organization that tracks attacks on journalists, is now documenting a number of attacks on online journalists:

Laws like the Computer Crime Act [in Thailand], originally presented as targeting hackers and those who commit fraud, are being applied to reporters and news websites around the world. And in many cases, from Angola to Saudi Arabia, governments are using claims of online disorder as a cover to introduce far more repressive laws that unashamedly target journalists and the right to free expression. (O’Brian 2012, para. 4)

Journalists are vulnerable to censorship regardless of the medium they use. So when we talk about press freedom these days, we actually mean media freedom, and we apply these terms to any medium used to transmit news and information.

Media freedom is part of a larger group of rights that fall under the umbrella of the right to freedom of expression. According to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (www.un.org/en/documents/udhr):

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. (United Nations 1948)

Similarly, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html) provides a list of rights that are included under the freedom of expression:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Thus, freedom of expression includes freedom of artistic expression, freedom of religious expression, freedom of speech (for everyone, not just journalists), freedom to assemble, and freedom to petition, as well as freedom of the press (these days meaning journalists using any medium).

Today, ideals and idealism reverberate through every discussion of freedom of expression and, in particular, media freedom. In an ideal world, journalists who are free to do so would provide citizens with important information about political candidates, public officials, government agencies, business leaders, and businesses, and this information would be unbiased so that people could form their own opinions. In this same ideal world, newspapers, radio stations, television stations, and online news sites would provide a voice for the voiceless and give ordinary citizens a platform to express their own ideas. And finally, these same journalists would investigate the actions and policies of political officials, government, businesses, and business leaders. Thus independent news media are expected to provide a venue for people to express their ideas and concerns about their political leaders; they also provide a forum for candidates for political offices to let people know where they stand on important issues and how they compare to their competitors. To put it simply, news media are expected to facilitate political competition. News media are also seen as providing information that is critical to the democratic process. Indeed, without this information, it would be difficult for people make informed decisions when they step into the voting booth. In short, freedom of the press and freedom of expression are seen as crucial to democracy.

In fact, some have argued that freedom of expression, and by extension freedom of the press, is more important to democracy than the right to vote because, “if citizens have the right to complain, to petition, to organize, to protest, to demonstrate, to strike, to threaten to emigrate, to shout, to publish” (Mueller 1992, 984), government will be more responsible and more responsive. In addition to providing information to help people make voting decisions, independent news media are expected to serve as watchdogs over government. In this view, news media are a powerful check on government, or as Irish political philosopher Edmond Burke put it, a fourth estate, meaning a powerful, but not officially recognized, political force. Thus advocates for press freedom claim that free media will hold government accountable, shine a spotlight on corruption, and improve human rights. “By exposing human rights abuses and giving voice to marginalised parts of the community, the media can at its best encourage the proper application of justice and stimulate debates” (Amnesty International 2006, para. 19).

Whether independent news media actually fulfill this expectation is the subject of much debate among scholars and media critics. In particular, scholars of media and politics in the United States argue that reporters rely too much on official government sources, and that this makes it difficult for news media to serve as watchdogs over government (for more on this critique, see Bennett 2009; Bennett, Lawrence, and Livingston 2007; Entman 2004; Gans 1979; Parenti 1986). Of course, these critiques are based on the idealistic notion that news media should function as watchdogs. While there is much debate about whether news media fulfill this idealized role, there seems to be a consensus—among media critics, consumers, and in particular, journalists—that this is the role that news media should play in society.

In fact, the idealistic view of news media and media freedom is probably the biggest challenge we faced in writing this book. Media freedom is an all but sacred cultural meme, and this normative, emotional investment in media freedom as an ideal biases every discussion of the topic, even down to our definitions of media freedom (as you will see in Chapter 2). Because there is a consensus (especially in the United States and Western Europe) that media should be free, most discussions about media freedom focus on how to spread, support, and enhance media freedom. These assumptions also create a hostile environment for questions about whether media freedom should always be spread, supported, and enhanced in all economic, social, cultural, or political contexts.

Make no mistake, independent news media are sometimes irresponsible, disreputable, and even dangerous. Consider the tabloids in the United States that publish lurid stories detailing celebrity love triangles and alien abductions. Consider the Sun, a top-selling British newspaper that regularly features photos of topless women. And consider the Ugandan weekly the Rolling Stone (pictured here) that published pictures of people it claimed were homosexual with a banner reading “Hang Them” (and no, this Ugandan paper has no connection to the American magazine). Sometimes journalists and citizens use the platform provided by news media and social media to publish material that is deliberately offensive, and the consequences can be deadly. For example, in 2006, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published twelve cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad. Depicting the image of Muhammad is considered blasphemous by many Muslims, and these cartoons were particularly provocative because they were intentionally unflattering (one portrayed Muhammad with a bomb in his turban). The cartoons sparked protests around the world, some of which turned violent. In Nigeria, more than 100 people died in riots (Polgreen 2006).

BOX 1.2

WHEN MEDIA ARE FREE TO SPREAD HATE

October 2010, Kampala, Uganda: The weekly tabloid Rolling Stone published 100 pictures of people it claimed were homosexual. The paper also reported that homosexuals were raiding schools and urged readers to “Hang Them” (in a yellow banner on the front page). One of the men pictured on this front page was gay-rights activist David Kato. In January of 2011, Kato and two other activists won a lawsuit against the paper, but just weeks after this victory, Kato was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. Homosexual sex is illegal in Uganda and lawmakers have considered a bill that would impose life imprisonment or the death penalty on those found guilty of engaging in sam...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• About the Authors
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Defining and Measuring Media Freedom
• 3 The Historical Development and Correlates of Media Freedom
• 4 The Evolution (and Devolution) of Media Freedom Since World War II: Introduction
• 5 Conclusion: Challenges to Media Freedom and Patterns in Its Evolution and Devolution
• Appendix A. Media Freedom Region by Region
• Appendix B. The Global Media Freedom Dataset: Data Gathering Methods, Guidelines for Using the Data, and Merging the Data with Freedom House Data
• Index
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