An Evaluation of Press Freedom Indicators

Abstract

Despite uncertainties about the popular measures f media freedom, no systematic analyses have been undertaken of their development, of the assumptions that lie behind their different methodologies, of the reliability of the resultant measures, or of the consistency of conclusions across the different measures. This article examines four measures, by Freedom House, Reporters sans frontières, IREX and the Committee to Protect Journalists, and finds considerable consistency in the measurement. In addition, the Freedom House measure, which has been in existence for more than 20 years, varies in meaningful ways across time. The article examines the conceptual implications of these findings and offers suggestions for their use by researches in the future.