RESEARCH

The Centre for Freedom of the Media is an international research centre which specialises in the critical examination of media freedom and standards addressing issues of threats to the former and the decline of the latter. The Centre welcomes expressions of interest, proposals for collaboration or the pooling of knowledge from individual researchers, research groups and bodies in these areas.

CURRENT RESEARCH AREAS

The EU and journalism practices

Work under this heading incorporates an analysis of the regulatory EU environment and the various economic conditions under which journalism operates. It also explores differing journalism practices within the EU, as well as in EU neighbouring states, and the ways in which civil society organisations interact with media. An important part of this work will be to explore how ICTs are changing the media landscape and professional journalism practices.

Leading this research, currently via a Framework 7 bid on Media Freedom, is Professor Ralph Negrine whose current work includes looking at the nature of media and journalism independence in Europe. He is currently writing a book on the media and media policy in Europe with Professor Stylianos  Papathanassopoulos, National and capodistrian University, Athens.

The News Environment in Africa

This research is designed to analyse and assess the current news environment in Africa. This involves case studies, profiles, current developments, trends analysis and impact studies. Of special interest is the relation between journalists, the state and society. Also of interest are issues involving media development, journalism education and training in Africa, and the ways in which globalized standards and ethical frameworks are contextualised within local journalistic practices. While the focus falls on Africa, these issues are also viewed comparatively within the broader context of journalism in the Global South.

Leading this research is Dr Herman Wasserman whose work focuses on the media in post-apartheid South Africa. He is involved in several international collaborative projects, including a working group on global media ethics and a collaborative investigation, funded by the British Academy, on political communication in new democracies. He is participating in a research team comparing journalism in South Africa and Brazil, and a research group examining press freedom and ethics around the world. He is also the editor of the internationally refereed journal Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies (opens in new window) The purpose of the journal is to foster a better understanding of journalism, media, and mass communication in the
context of Africa.

This research explores way in which public service standards of journalism can be maintained and in some case extended in the contemporary media environment. Two themes are of particular concern. First, the way news journalism can sustain a commitment to the highest standards of accuracy and sincerity in the modern media environment in order to fulfil and even extend its civil role. Second, the way contemporary public service communication can and should fulfil a social role through the provision of mediated welfare services.

Leading this research is Professor Jackie Harrison who has written on the civil and social dimensions of public service communication, the architecture of news and the media in the EU. She is currently looking at different forms of news censorship and is researching, with Professor Lorna Woods, EU audiovisual and communication regulation and policy.

Doctoral Projects

Stefanie Pukallus
Stefanie Pukallus is a PhD student at the Department of Journalism Studies at the University of Sheffield critically examining the communication strategy of the European Commission in terms of its civil and political aims and effectiveness. The concept of EU citizenship and subsequently the EU citizen form the central thread of the study’s investigation of EU communication. The study is broken down into two periods, 2001-2004 and 2005-2009, forming a comparative study of approaches to communication and media relations under the Prodi and the Barroso Commission.

Muhammad Jameel Yusha'u (opens in new window)
is a PhD student in the Department of Journalism Studies working on the comparative coverage of corruption scandals between  northern and southern press in Nigeria. The research is exploring the factors that influence the reporting of corruption such as clientelism, regionalism,ownership, press freedom etc. The methodology used is qualitative interviews and qualitative content analysis. The research framework modifies the criteria proposed by Hallin and Mancini (2004) in their study of media systems, and applied within an intra-national context.

Lada Price (opens in new window)
is a part-time PhD student at the Department of Journalism in theUniversity of Sheffield.  Her PhD explores the changes in the Bulgarian media that have taken and still are taking place (from 1989 until 2007) from the journalists perspective.

Monica Alejandra Pena Corona (opens in new window)
Monica's PhD study in the Department of Journalism Studies at the University of Sheffield aimed to examine to what extent the close relationship that the Mexican media and the government traditionally held during most of the 20th century had changed as a product of recent political transformations. The research adopted the concept of political clientelism of a media system as a theoretical framework, in order to identify aspects in which the Mexican media system had altered from how it occurred in the past. The study relied on the use of two types of qualitative research methodologies, interviews with Mexican journalists, as well as content analysis of newspaper articles.

• Bob Bennett - Press Freedom vs Accountability
• Nick Jones
• William Horsley - article for The World Today, Chatham House's monthly journal, on the popular demand for free media and free expression in the Soviet bloc at the time of the 1989 Year of Revolutions and the link between limits on free expression and other political freedoms and rights in Russia and other FSU countries now, twenty years later (download as PDF)
• Maria Lipman of Carnegie Moscow Center Constraints on freedom of the Russian media and impact on Russia's chances of developing a plural democracy (commissioned)

• William Horsley 45-page Reports and texts from the Fronlines of Media Freedom online publication, based on material I commissioned and edited for the AEJ Congress in Linzx, Austria on Nov 22nd. Available here 
• Council of Europe standard-setting committee (CDMC)
• Speaking of Terror by David Banisar
• The role of public service media for widening participation in European democracy
• Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA)
• CI WebWorld Weekly Newsletter
• Goodbye to Freedom? A Survey of Media Freedom across Europe is edited by William Horsley and published by the Association of European Journalists.
  William Horsley is the AEJ Media Freedom Representative and a former BBC news correspondent. He is also Chairman of the AEJ's UK Section. The Survey is available free of charge here
• The Joint Declaration on broadcasting diversity is available here
• ARTICLE 19 is an independent human rights organisation that works globally to protect and promote the right to freedom of expression. It takes its name from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees free speech. 
• On Europe: Goodbye to Media Freedom? - the latest Updated Survey of Media Freedom in Europe published on 28 February 2008 by the Association of European Journalists (edited by William Horsley) available here
• Goodbye to Freedom? The first 20-nation Survey of Media Freedom Across Europe published on 10 November 2007 by the Association of European Journalists (edited by William Horsley) - incorporating the  separate country reports of the February 2008 Update, here
• Transcript of the Brussels Presentation to the press by William Horsley as the AEJ Media Freedom Representative of the AEJ Survey Update, here
• "Dangers Grow for Journalists" appeared on the BBC News website to mark World Press Freedom Day in 2007.