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The citizens’ perspective on media freedom deals with the question of “freedom to”, which means, on the one hand, the free access to the media and, on the other hand, the freedom to express through the media. In contrast to answering the question of “freedom from”, which the commonly accepted defination of press freedom uses to evaluate from the media structure and content restrains, the citizens’ perspective pays more attention to the free access to media and the media output. This citizens’ perspective to analyze the freedom of the press drew back to Picard (1985), who came up with two aspects: negative press freedom (the absence of legal controls, such as censorship) and positive press freedom (the ability of individuals to use the media). In the democratic society, media freedom is a basic right of the citizens, which corresponds to Human Rights; especially the right to freedom of expression.

Some scholars narrow the concept into the “citizen voice”. In a study from Thomas Jacobson, Lingling Pan and Seung Joon Jun named “Indicators of Citizen Voice for Assessing Media Development: A Communicative Action Approach”(forthcoming), “Citizen voice” is “the expression and circulation of the full range of citizen opinions in the public sphere… “. In their definition, all citizens are able to participate in the media, they are able to express their interests in ways that the media pick up and multiply, and that the government hears; most important, the voices of marginalized peoples are heard, especially those who are in need of poverty alleviation, social recognition, and political representation.

The importance of the citizens’ perspective when measuring media freedom

Despite of the two perspectives to analyze the degree of the media freedom, in the three prevailing indices of media freedom from Freedom House, the International Research and Exchanges Board and Reporters Without Borders, the participations of citizens are mostly taken granted. These indicators concentrate primarily on “the practice of journalism- the type of coverage and the range of coverage- as opposed to the reception (and use) of information from the media.” Audience study has been a long tradition in the media analyses; however the experts’ perspective and opinions dominate the existing indices. Such perspective from experts may be more professional to assess the issue, but it would be informative if such an approach with the perspective of the audience is also taken into consideration.

With the highly developed cyber communication, the boundary between elite and the citizen are getting ambiguous. Billions of information is now being created, distributed and accessed through the internet and mobile equipment. New media play a crucial informational role, especially in a more closed society, “not least because they have expanded both the media’s and audiences’ possibilities of accessing and acquiring content from local, national international and global sources” . Under this context of the new media, audiences are also the producers of content, “members of the public are actively contributing and challenging the parameters of traditional notions of information access and freedom of expression.”

The most influential part when taking the citizens’ perspective as an important part to evaluate the media freedom, is that the informed citizenry could contribute to the democratization. Republican concepts of democracy emphasize “the active role of citizens in exercising freedom of expression”. Although freedom of expression is a basic right guaranteed by nearly all constitutions worldwide, it is obvious that in many states this right is more of an empty talk. “Feeling free to express one’s thoughts, however, is an important facilitator of political conversation.” The media could contribute to the democratization by informing the citizenry, improving the awareness of the political participation, providing a forum to be engaged in public life and other political actions.

In the democratic societies, journalism has not only the obligation to inform the public about potentially crucial issues, ”but also to act as a forum for the debate: the media should inspire people to participate in the public discourse, and journalism should give voice to groups that need to express themselves in public to make their cause heard.”

The existing measurements

In recent years there are already some, though not far-reaching but exploring, studies and reports about measuring the media freedom from the citizens’ perspective, like the field research conducted by BBC on media development interventions across Africa, Asia and the Middle East (BBC World Service Trust), public confidence in the media research from the Gallup World Report and a questionnaire involving media freedom carried out by WorldPublicOpinion.org.

• Gallup World Report

Gallup, Inc., is primarily a research-based performance-management consulting company, whose world headquarters locates in Washington DC.

In 2005 and 2006, Gallup conducted a “single-question survey” in the residents from 128 countries. The questions are: “in this country, do you have confidence in each of the following or not? How about quality and integrity of the media? ” Interviews were carried out telephonically and face-to-face with roughly 1,000 persons aged 15 and older. The results were quite negative: “In half the countries surveyed, less than a majority of residents expressed confidence, and confidence among residents in many of the world's leading nations is relatively low”. The survey also showed residents in Central and South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. They were generally likely to express confidence in the quality and integrity of media in their countries. In comparison with the ranking in 2007 from Freedom House, ironically, it tends to be that people have less confidence in the higher ranking countries; people of a country may have more confidence in the quality and integrity of their media, though the press freedom in their country was rated by Freedom House as limited. Comparing in a perspective from an individual country, “there are also clear differences between citizens' confidence in the quality and integrity of their media and Freedom House's measures of press freedom in that nation”. The Study from Becker L. and Vlad T. also shows that the correlations between the measurements from the two organizations are quite low, which indicates that they have measured two quite different concepts.

In 2010, Gallup conducted a similar survey in 112 countries worldwide asking the question: “Do the media in this country have a lot of freedom, or not?” The results showed 67% of the people worldwide consider the media in their own country to be free. “This view varies, however, ranging from as low as 27% in Chad to as high as 95% in the Netherlands.”

• WorldPublicOpinion.org

WorldPublicOpinion.org is an international collaborative project, whose aim is to give voice to public opinion around the world on international issues.It is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

In 2008, it conducted a questionnaire named Freedom of the Media in 20 countries. Six questions were asked ranging from the degree of the media that they have in their country to the right to access different media including the internet. The study from Becker L. and Vlad T. showed a high correlation between the WorldPublicOpinion.org and Freedom House, which means, “the WorldPublicOpinion.org measure of press freedom taps from the point of view of the citizens the same concept as what the expert evaluations of Freedom House and Reporters without Borders are assessing”

Criticism on the existing measurements

• Measured dimensions

The questions from Gallup and WorldPublicOpinion.org are quite ambiguous and could not provide the core of the concept of media freedom itself. Like a question from WorldPublicOpinion.org: “Do you think: The media should have the right to publish news and ideas without government control or The government should have the right to prevent the media from publishing things that it thinks will be politically destabilizing?” It is a question implying more of the political attitudes instead of the degree of media freedom.

Referring to the confidence and dignity question from Gallup, to what extent are the confidence and media freedom correlated? Take Singapore as an example, where the media is strictly controlled by the government and ranks 154th in the Freedom House list, the highly educated and informed citizenry have more confidence in the media than even in Finland, which in contrast ranks 1st in the Freedom House list.

• New Media Consideration

Undoubtedly, the new media has provided citizens more platforms to get the information and enabled them to participate more in the public communication. The Australian scholar Terry Flew has “pointed out the high hopes for the internet as a means of revitalizing politics through its impact on the public sphere.” The immense growth and intensity of use of the internet has changed the profile of how and whether citizens are informed. In China, despite thorough controls, filters and even robust censorship,the usage of the internet is vibrant and pervasive with the growing number of netizens. More and more people in China tend to express and exchange their public opinions on the internet. Could this active internet usage be counted as a dimension of media freedom? “The rise in Information Communication Technologies is having an influence on the structure and appearance of a country’s media environment and therefore deserving of its own analysis.”

See also

• Quality and Integrity of World’s Media Report from Gallup

http://www.gallup.com/poll/103300/Quality-Integrity-Worlds-Media-Questioned.aspx#1

• Freedom of the Media from WorldPublicOpnion.org

http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/may08/WPO_PressFreedom_May08_quaire.pdf

References

• Price, M., "Press freedom measures: an introduction", in S. Abbott,L. Morgan& M. E. Price (ed.), Measures of Press Freedom and media contributions to development. Evaluating the evaluators, New York: Peter Lang, pp. 2–19 {{citation}}: Text "2011" ignored (help)

• Becker, L.; Vlad, T., "The conceptualization and operationalization of country-level measures of media freedom", Measures of Press Freedom and media contributions to development. Evaluating the evaluators, New York: Peter Lang, pp. 23–41 {{citation}}: Text "2011" ignored (help)
• Godfrey, A.; McCurdy, P.; Power, G., "When theory meets practice: critical reflection from the field on Press Freedom indices", in S. Abbott, L. Morgan& M. E. Price (ed.), Measures of Press Freedom and media contributions to development. Evaluating the evaluators, New York: Peter Lang, pp. 47–66 {{citation}}: Text "2011" ignored (help)
• Burgess, J., "Evaluating the Evaluators. Media Freedom Indexes and What they measure", Washington, D.C.: Center for International Media Assistance, pp. 38-40) {{citation}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); Text "2010" ignored (help)
• Trappel, J., "Why Democracy Needs Media Monitoring", in J. Trappel, H. Niemienen,L. Nord (ed.), The Media for Democracy Monitor. A Cross National Study of Leading News Media, Göteborg: Nordicom, pp. 11–27 {{citation}}: Text "2011" ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)