Project Overview
Media freedom is a fundamental right at the heart of open societies. It helps to reduce corruption, hold governments to account and increase social inclusion.
In 2022, this crucial right is under attack. Governments around the world are harassing and attacking journalists, attempting to discredit their work and intimidate them into silence. The COVID-19 pandemic has only compounded the situation, with many states using the crisis as an excuse to crack down on journalism and free speech.
This independent research project, supported by an AHRC Global Challenges Research Fund Urgency Grant, is a real-time study of a major new international campaign that is attempting to reverse these trends, prevent attacks on journalists, and promote media freedom.
It studies the work of the Global Campaign for Media Freedom (GCMF), launched by the UK and Canadian governments in July 2019. With an independent, international team spanning the UK, Sudan and the Philippines, the research project studies the design, management and impact of the GCMF.
Its overarching goal is to contribute to what we know about the effective promotion of media freedom, and the role that nation states may (or may not) play in this process.
The Global Campaign for Media Freedom (GCMF)
In 2019, the UK government announced that media freedom would become its number one foreign policy issue. Then Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt appointed Amal Clooney as the UK’s Special Envoy on Media Freedom and launched the Global Campaign for Media Freedom (GCMF). The campaign includes:
• A Media Freedom Coalition of 35+ member states that have pledged to lobby against those who harm journalists. The coalition is co- chaired by Canada and the UK.
• A High-Level Panel of Legal Experts developing tools to promote media freedom.
• A task force that helps countries develop National Action Plans to promote Media Freedom.
• An annual Global Media Freedom conference.
• A Global Media Defence Fund administered by UNESCO.
Chrystia Freeland, Amal Clooney and Jeremy Hunt at the launch of the GCMF at the Media Freedom Conference in London, July 2019
This research project studies and evaluates the GCMF. We are working independently from the GCMF to track the original commitments made by officials when the campaign was launched, as well as those made subsequently by members of the Media Freedom Coalition.
More generally, and theoretically, we are interested in the fact that the campaign has been initiated by nation states, rather than NGOs and multilateral organisations. Our research explores the opportunities, tensions and conflicts this may create.
In addition, the project explores the extent to which the campaign includes and prioritises the needs of Global South stakeholders, or whether these perspectives are marginalised.
The project studies the operations of the GCMF at the international level. It also includes two contrasting case studies of countries in which the GCMF is operating and attempting to promote media freedom – Sudan and the Philippines.
Newscaster Lady Belinda Juaw
at the community radio station Spirit FM 99.9 Yei in South Sudan.
Photo: Werner Anderson/Norwegian People’s Aid.
