The study ““It’s the Economy, Stupid!”, Is it not? The Relationship between Press Freedom and the Status of the Economy in Western Media Systems” by Theodora A. Maniou from University of Cyprus and Elena Ketteni from Frederick University in Cyprus investigated the impact of economic conditions on press freedom.
There are existing studies on the matter, but most look at the subject from the other side: how press freedom impacts the economy. Less studies exist on how the economy impacts press freedom. Dutta and Roy (2009) showed that Foreign Direct Investments are a major determinant of press freedom. Alam, Z and Shah (2013) showed a bidirectional relationship between economic growth and press freedom.
Media systems vary in organization and in classification regarding press freedom. The commonly used Freedom House classification of media as free, partly free, and not free is not applicable here, as the study dealt with Western media systems that are all free.
Hallin and Mancini (2004) use a categorization system that divides the western world into three media systems: the Mediterranean/polarized pluralist in Southern Europe; the North European Democratic/corporatist in continental Europe; and the North Atlantic/Liberal model in much of the anglosphere.
Notwithstanding the criticism towards the above model, the study by the authors chooses to use it in analyzing the effects of the economy in different media systems. They also add media systems of post-communist countries as a fourth category in their analysis.
The authors quantitatively analyzed data from 18 countries in the time period of 2002-2019. One dependent variable was Press Freedom, and it was extracted from the Press Freedom Index. The other is variable Freedom House measurement.
The independent variables, on the other hand, are economic variables: GDP per capita growth (annual %); Gross domestic savings (% of GDP), Unemployment (% of total labor force); Inflation (consumer prices, annual %), General government debt (% of GDP); General government fiscal balance (revenues-expenditures, % of GDP); and Interest rates (long-term government bond yields, 10-year, and short-term policy interest rate). They were based on literature.
In the study, the authors had two hypotheses. They were:
H1. The state of the economy within a country can affect the level of press freedom.
and
H2. The effect of economic conditions on the degree of press freedom varies among different media systems.
The hypotheses were confirmed by the study. The economic conditions affect press freedom in all the systems studied, and there were differences between the systems.
In Democratic/Corporatist countries, inflation and corruption were the most significant variables. In Mediterranean/polarized systems, GDP per capita growth, government debt and fiscal balance, corruption and both interest rates were the variables that affect press freedom.
In Liberal systems, unemployment, inflation, and government debt as well as corruption affected press freedom the most. Lastly, in post-Communist media systems, press freedom was affected by GDP per capita growth, savings, inflation, and government fiscal balance.
In summary, James Carville’s 1992 quote: “it’s the economy, stupid!” was verified in every country. This has implications to debates on press freedom, as they have to take economic conditions into account. However, being focused on the economy, the study cannot determine whether other sociopolitical factors have a greater or lesser impact on press freedom.
The article ““It’s the Economy, Stupid!”, Is it not? The Relationship between Press Freedom and the Status of the Economy in Western Media Systems” by Theodora A. Maniou and Elena Ketteni is in Journalism Studies. (open access).
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