media freedom
Podcasts
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
News
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
News
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
News
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
Podcasts
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
Interviews
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
News
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
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
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
