Data-driven Approach to Measuring the Level of Press Freedom Using Media Attention Diversity from Unfiltered News

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel, data-driven method to assess press freedom levels by analyzing media attention diversity from Unfiltered News, offering a potentially more efficient alternative to traditional survey-based indices.

Contribution

It introduces a new approach to measure press freedom using media attention diversity data, reducing reliance on costly and time-consuming surveys.

Findings

Media attention diversity correlates with press freedom levels.

The method provides timely updates compared to traditional surveys.

Preliminary results show promising alignment with existing indices.

Abstract

Published by Reporters Without Borders every year, the Press Freedom Index (PFI) reflects the fear and tension in the newsroom pushed by the government and private sectors. While the PFI is invaluable in monitoring media environments worldwide, the current survey-based method has inherent limitations to updates in terms of cost and time. In this work, we introduce an alternative way to measure the level of press freedom using media attention diversity compiled from Unfiltered News.