Europe & Eurasia

IREX/MSI

IREX marks its tenth year of studying media sustainability in Europe & Eurasia with its 2011 edition. With three notable exceptions—Belarus, Russia, and Uzbekistan—the media sector in the countries included in the first edition of the MSI in 2001 have over time either improved or stayed more or less the same in the past ten years. The 2011 MSI looks at some issues that troubled panelists in 2001, such as the lack of transparency surrounding broadcast licensing and the changing nature of self-censorship, and compares how panelists saw those problems in 2001 with their views today. The 2011 edition also documents the growth of new media over the past decade. The use of the Internet, social networking tools, and mobile platforms in Southeast Europe and Eurasia today may, in some cases, still have some catching up to do to approach that in neighboring Western Europe. Nonetheless, contrasting the current situation now to 2001 is stunning in how fast these technologies have become entrenched.

Read more on IREX’s site…

Freedom House

For the combined CEE/FSU region, 8 countries (28 percent) remain classified as Free, 10 (36 percent) are Partly Free, and 10 (36 percent) are Not Free. However, a majority of the people in this region (56 percent) live in Not Free media environments, while only 18 percent have access to Free media. In 2008, the regionwide average score showed the biggest drop of any region, with particularly noticeable slippage in the political category.

Read more on Freedom House’s site…

Reporters Without Borders

For the first time since 2002, the press freedom index’s top 20 is not quite so European. Only 15 of the 20 leading countries are from the Old Continent, compared with 18 in 2008. Eleven of these 15 countries are European Union members. They include the top three, Denmark, Finland and Ireland. Another EU member, Bulgaria, has been falling steadily since it joined in 2007 and is now 68th (against 59th in 2008). This is the lowest ranking of any member of the union.

Read more on RSF’s site… 

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