Sources: Historical Guide to World Media Freedom: A Country-by-Country Analysis
Historical Guide to World Media Freedom: A Country-by-Country Analysis. By Jenifer Whitten-Woodring and Douglas A. Van Belle. Los Angeles: Sage Reference, 2014. 575 p. Alkaline $150 (ISBN 978-1-60871-765-1). Online edition (978-1-45223-422-9) available, call for pricing.
This work fills a gap in the literature by providing a global and historical perspective on media freedom. Much of the information presented here is available in geographic and historical literature about various countries or in journal literature about media freedom. This work brings this information together into a useful format.
Whitten-Woodring and Van Belle provide entries for a comprehensive number of nations worldwide. Each entry provides year-by-year chronology that identifies the type of government in place in that year, such as democracy or autocracy, and a rating of the media as “free,” “imperfectly free,” or “not free.” Along with this, the work provides a two-page essay for each country, summarizing the developments in media freedom over that country’s history. Each essay ends with a paragraph about the present state of the media in that country and useful bibliographic notes.
A number of free Internet resources, such as Freedomhouse.org and World Press Freedom Index, provide reports about media freedom in various countries at present or in recent history. These resources lack the historical perspective provided by Historical Guide to World Media Freedom: A Country-by-Country Analysis.
Another difference from the Internet resources is that Whitten-Woodring and Van Belle attempt to define media freedom positively, rather than defining it based on various kinds of infringements and restrictions on media freedom. As they point out, every country has a large number of exceptions to media freedom, if such freedom is granted, such as military secrets or privacy laws protecting individual citizens. Instead, Whitten-Woodring and Van Belle define media freedom as the ability to openly criticize the government or government officials.
According to their definition, in a country with “free” media, criticism is protected. In a country with “imperfectly free” media, criticism may take place, but there may be a direct cost for that freedom. Media that is “not free” is likely controlled by the government or is otherwise prohibited from criticizing the government. Even so, the authors allow for some degree of variation within these categories. For example, the United States’ media is rated as free, but the authors acknowledge that media freedom groups have expressed concern about efforts to extradite and punish Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and National Security Administration whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Whitten-Woodring and Van Belle strive to maintain a broader understanding of media that transcends the traditional formats of print and broadcast journalism. Their positive definition of media freedom as the ability to criticize the government and public officials prevents the focus of this work from expanding too far into free speech more broadly, while allowing for coverage of newer information formats that emerge with technology.
The work includes three introductory chapters and one concluding chapter that come across as a concise textbook about the historical development of media freedom and some of the issues related to studying media freedom. These chapters go well beyond the usual depth and complexity of a standard introduction to a reference work. These essays are as interesting as they are informative, and they even provide boxes with interesting asides and grayscale photographs.
The work provides a useful index of people, places, and significant events. It is published in a single, attractive, hardcover volume.
Historical Guide to World Media Freedom belongs on the shelves of academic libraries, particularly those supporting undergraduate programs in journalism or mass communication. It is readable and accessible enough to warrant inclusion in secondary school libraries and public libraries.—Steven R. Edscorn, Executive Director of Libraries, Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, Oklahoma