About The Centre for Freedom of the Media
The Centre for Freedom of the Media (CFOM) is an interdisciplinary research centre based at the Department of Journalism Studies at the University of Sheffield that studies issues of media freedom and standards.
The founding principle of CFOM is to illuminate where news media freedom is undermined or abused and to examine news media standards of independence and truthfulness.
CFOM is a unique university-based body which will for the first time form a research network by bringing together journalists, experts and scholars of the media, with public figures and the newsmakers themselves to research and evaluate the role of free and independent news media in building and maintaining political and civil freedom.
Aims and Objectives
To endorse journalism of the highest standards around the world. To be an interdisciplinary centre of knowledge and research into media freedom and standards across all media through the study of:
- The contested nature of the terms ‘media freedom’ and ‘freedom of expression’
- Areas of global conceptual commonality with regard to media freedom, standards and governance
- The behaviour of governments
- The effects of laws and regulation/deregulation
- The new media landscape opened up by fast-changing and newtechnologies
- The effects of increasing commercialisation of the media sector on news media
- The effectiveness of the media as civil journalism
- The links between media freedom and other parts of civil society and democracy
