Media Freedom
Media Freedom
Social Media, AI-Chatbots and the Death of the Evening News: How to Restore Trust in a Fragmented Media World – A Conversation with Raluca Radu
In a conversation for the Review of Democracy, Raluca Radu explains how social platforms like TikTok, WhatsApp groups, and AI-driven chatbots reconfigure the trust towards information. As Raluca Radu clearly emphasizes, COVID-19 marked a shift in media consumption. During the pandemic, the main source of information became the short-form video content on platforms such as TikTok. Some newsrooms recognized that their audiences migrated elsewhere and rushed to follow. They tried to adapt to this changing landscape by establishing social media presence. By now, social media is not only an additional channel of dissemination but, in some cases, the only way to reach citizens who do not read traditional websites or watch TV. Thus, social media and algorithms redefine the public sphere worldwide.
8.12.2025
Media Freedom
Will AI Crack the Foundations of Democracy? Dean Jackson and Samuel Woolley on Longer-term Threats and Ways to Counter Them
In this episode of our special series produced in partnership with the Journal of Democracy, we explore “AI’s Real Dangers for Democracy,” the new article penned by Dean Jackson and Samuel Woolley (Journal of Democracy, Vol. 36, No. 4, October 2025)
3.11.2025
Media Freedom
The European Media Freedom Act: The Solution to Capture or Just Fine Print?
As the EU pushes new media freedom standards, the threat of media capture is persistent across Europe. In this op-ed, Oliver Money-Kyrle analyzes the threat, examining how governments manipulate media through control of public service media and regulatory bodies, ownership structures, and state advertising, and what measures are needed to safeguard editorial independence.
26.03.2025
Media Freedom
Disinformation in Africa: A Distinct Landscape Compared to Global Trends?
Digital Disinformation in Africa is a book about how disinformation through digital tools is playing an increasing role on the African continent in distorting elections, inflaming internal conflicts and disrupting crucial policy debates across the continent on issues such as vaccination, gender and reproductive rights. This book is part of the Digital Africa series, which studies the effects of new technologies on the African continent. On one hand, these technologies have certainly facilitated the exercise of democratic rights and freedoms; on the other hand, they have been used by repressive regimes to restrict those rights.
14.02.2025
Media Freedom
Why Misinformation Thrives in Autocracies: Spread from the Top, Delivered by TV, Believed by Partisans
Misinformation thrives in competitive autocracies, where governments manipulate information to control narratives and foster uncertainty around political events. Yet, its dynamics in these contexts remain underexplored. Our recent study on Turkey reveals that partisanship and selective exposure drive misinformation beliefs – but surprisingly, not via social media, rather through television.
11.02.2025
Media Freedom
Authoritarian Regimes Learn from Each Other – In Conversation with Mikal Hem
In our new podcast, Mikal Hem discusses what modern dictators and autocrats seem to have learned from their predecessors, reflects on what might drive voters toward leaders with autocratic tendencies, considers what democratic societies can learn from the survival strategies of dictators, and contemplates how the resilience of free media could be strengthened in autocracies.
12.11.2024
Media Freedom
Pro-Kremlin Disinformation Is Distorting Democracy in Central and Eastern Europe
In Central and Eastern Europe, democracy has been deliberately eroded by disinformation. There has been a troubling surge of pro-Kremlin messaging since 2021, with Hungary serving as a regional epicenter of state-sponsored mistruths.
8.10.2024
Media Freedom
How to Overturn the Tech Coup? – Marietje Schaake on the Erosion of Democracy, the Need for Global Regulation, and the Democratic Internet Policy of the Future
In this conversation, Marietje Schaake – author of the new book The Tech Coup. How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley – discusses how tech companies have been eroding democracy and what makes their growing power into a systemic problem; compares the policies of democratic and authoritarian regimes; identifies issues where regulation would be urgently needed on the global level; and spells out crucial aspects of a specifically democracy-focused internet policy.
17.09.2024
Media Freedom
Media Freedom Is in Peril Across the EU, and We Need More Than a New Law to Save It
By Jonathan Day The European Media Freedom Act aims to protect independent news organizations and journalists in EU member states, but it contains too many loopholes ripe for abuse. EU bodies must keep a constant eye on how key provisions will be enforced, but it is also the responsibility of civil society, self-regulatory bodies and journalists’ associations to play an active role in monitoring the implementation. Russia’s recent decision to ban 81 news outlets from European Union countries is a timely reminder that accurate, unbiased reporting is a source of dread for authoritarian governments – and an essential pillar of democracy. Yet despite its importance, media freedom is facing an existential crisis even within the EU. To survive, it needs more than just new legislation. That legislation, the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), entered into force this May with the aim of better protecting independent journalists and media outlets in member states. Although legislative [...]
15.07.2024
Media Freedom
For Money Laundering To Occur, All That Authorities Have To Do Is Nothing
In this conversation with RevDem editor Robert Nemeth, Dean Starkman and Neil Weinberg (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) talk about Cyprus Confidential, the investigation exposing how Cyprus-based financial services firms have enabled the Russian elite — including Vladimir Putin’s inner circle — to shelter their wealth and shield billions of dollars in assets from the threat of impending sanctions. They explain how this system worked and what enabled it, but also share insights into how journalists work on cross-border collaborative projects on such scale.
15.12.2023
Media Freedom
Informal Power in Hungary and Poland: In Conversation with Edit Zgut-Przybylska
Formal Rule of Law backsliding in Hungary and Poland has been well-publicized. Yet this is just the tip of the iceberg of a system of informal power connections that are undermining the Rule of Law and democracy. In this RevDem Rule of Law podcast Oliver Garner discusses this informal power with Edit Zgut-Przybylska.
12.05.2023
Media Freedom
The Hungarian Government Became Hostage of Its Own Propaganda
In this conversation with RevDem Editor Robert Nemeth, Hungarian journalist Szabolcs Panyi talks about the Hungarian government’s response to the war in Ukraine, why it is not willing to counter Russian infiltration in Hungary, the reasons behind the anti-US sentiment of Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his inner circle, and anti-Western propaganda in Hungary. He also discusses how being targeted by the Pegasus spyware impacted him.
16.12.2022
Media Freedom
For a Democracy, It Is Vital to Be Able to Tell Facts Apart
Our editor Robert Nemeth talks to Marius Dragomir and Astrid Söderström, authors of a recent study on the state of state media globally, which covers 546 state media outlets in 151 countries in the world, and it found that government control has reached extremely high levels: nearly 80% of these state-administered media companies lack editorial independence.
13.04.2022
Media Freedom
Democracy’s Least Appreciated Strength Is Its Ability to Reform Itself – Dean Starkman on The Pandora Papers
In conversation with RevDem editor Robert Nemeth, Dean Starkman, senior editor at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, talks about the Pandora Papers and how tax avoidance and secrecy endangers democracy.
2.11.2021
