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Concept
World Press Freedom Index
Summary
The World Press Freedom Index (WPFI) is an annual ranking of countries compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) since 2002 based upon the organisation's own assessment of the countries' press freedom records in the previous year. It intends to reflect the degree of freedom that journalists, news organisations, and netizens have in each country, and the efforts made by authorities to respect this freedom. Reporters Without Borders is careful to note that the WPFI only deals with press freedom and does not measure the quality of journalism in the countries it assesses, nor does it look at human rights violations in general.
The WPFI is partly based on a questionnaire that previously used seven general criteria: pluralism (measures the degree of representation of opinions in the media space), media independence, environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, infrastructure, and abuses.
The methodology for the WPFI was dramatically changed in 2022 from the methodology used from 2013–2021, and the thresholds for each categorisation have been shifted accordingly. The scores are now evaluated against five distinct categories: political context, legal framework, economic context, sociocultural context and safety.
This category aims to evaluate the autonomy of media and the degree of support to the media to keep government and officials accountable.
The questionnaire takes account of the legal framework for the media (including penalties for press offences, the existence of a state monopoly for certain kinds of media and how the media are regulated) and the level of independence of the public media. It also includes violations of the free flow of information on the Internet.
This category aims to evaluate economic constraints put on the press by carrying out its mission.
This category aims to evaluate the social and cultural constraints put on journalists to self-censor against covering specific issues because it would be in opposition to the predominant culture of a country.
Official source
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