Scholars of international relations and international communications view the extent of media freedom from country to country as a key comparative indicator either by itself or in correlation with other indices of national political and economic development. This indicator serves as a bellwether for gauging the health and spread of democracy.

Historical Guide to World Media Freedom is a new reference from CQ Press that brings together comprehensive historical data on media freedom since World War II. It provides consistent and comparable measures of media freedom in all independent countries for the years 1948 to the present. The work also includes country-by country summaries, analyses of historical and regional trends in media freedom, and extensive reliability analyses of media freedom measures.

The key information provided is designed to help researchers connect these historical measures of media freedom to Freedom House's annual Freedom of the Press survey release, enabling them to extend their studies back before the 1980s when Freedom House began compiling global press freedom measures.

The reference covers three major areas

-introductory chapters discuss the theoretical premises behind the nature and importance of media freedom, operational definitions of media freedom, the challenges of compiling reliable measures, historical trends, and the challenges of coding for media freedom in a way that ensures consistency for comparison.

-the heart of the book includes alphabetical, country-by-country summaries of the ebb and flow of media freedom paired with national media freedom measures over time. This is essential reading for researchers to connect the dots in understanding global media freedom.

-concluding material provides a detailed discussion of the historical patterns in media freedom, consideration of how media freedom tracks with other cross-national indicators, and discussion of the reliability of the information available on media freedom.

Accessible to both students and scholars alike, this groundbreaking new reference will be essential to collections in political science, international studies, and journalism and communications.

Portugal: 1948–2012

Portugal: 1948–2012
Portugal Year by Year
YearMediaGovernment
1948Not FreeAutocracy
1949Not FreeAutocracy
1950Not FreeAutocracy
1951Not FreeAutocracy
1952Not FreeAutocracy
1953Not FreeAutocracy
1954Not FreeAutocracy
1955Not FreeAutocracy
1956Not FreeAutocracy
1957Not FreeAutocracy
1958Not FreeAutocracy
1959Not FreeAutocracy
1960Not FreeAutocracy
1961Not FreeAutocracy
1962Not FreeAutocracy
1963Not FreeAutocracy
1964Not FreeAutocracy
1965Not FreeAutocracy
1966Not FreeAutocracy
1967Not FreeAutocracy
1968Not FreeAutocracy
1969Not FreeAutocracy
1970Not FreeAutocracy
1971Not FreeAutocracy
1972Not FreeAutocracy
1973Not FreeAutocracy
1974Not FreeAnocracy
1975Not FreeAnocracy
1976Not FreeDemocracy
1977Not FreeDemocracy
1978Not FreeDemocracy
1979Not FreeDemocracy
1980Not FreeDemocracy
1981Not FreeDemocracy
1982Not FreeDemocracy
1983Not FreeDemocracy
1984Not FreeDemocracy
1985Not FreeDemocracy
1986Not FreeDemocracy
1987Not FreeDemocracy
1988Not FreeDemocracy
1989Not FreeDemocracy
1990Not FreeDemocracy
1991Not FreeDemocracy
1992Not FreeDemocracy
1993Not FreeDemocracy
1994Not FreeDemocracy
1995FreeDemocracy
1996FreeDemocracy
1997FreeDemocracy
1998FreeDemocracy
1999FreeDemocracy
2000FreeDemocracy
2001FreeDemocracy
2002FreeDemocracy
2003FreeDemocracy
2004FreeDemocracy
2005FreeDemocracy
2006FreeDemocracy
2007FreeDemocracy
2008FreeDemocracy
2009FreeDemocracy
2010FreeDemocracy
2011FreeDemocracy
2012FreeDemocracy

Media Freedom History in a Nutshell

  • Media freedom was not part of the burst of freedoms arising with end of Fascist rule
  • Economic growth and efforts to integrate into European cooperative institutions eventually led to a relatively sudden transition to media freedom
  • Massive economic challenges threaten media freedom
  • As of 2011, Portugal had a total of eighteen daily newspapers; all eighteen were paid-for daily newspapers, with a total average circulation per issue of 572,980 (World Association ...
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