The political and ideological dimension of the measurement of freedom of information. Assessing the interplay between neoliberalism and the Freedom of the Press Index

Abstract

The article aims to analyse the role of measurement in legitimising a specific conception of freedom of information. From a neo-Gramscian perspective, the work draws attention to the way a political and ideological paradigm influences measuring instruments, as well as the contribution of such tools in strengthening the hegemony of that paradigm. By illustrating the rise of neoliberalism as a case in point, the study hypothesises a neoliberal influence on the measurement of freedom of information. To test such assumption, the work describes three ideal typical models of freedom of information – the liberal, egalitarian and neoliberal models – and their connection with specific conceptions of democracy. Then, the article focuses on the Freedom of the Press Index by Freedom House, that is the most used and recognised instrument for measuring freedom of information. Though the Freedom House contends to measure a liberal conception of freedom of information, the analysis of the indicators of the Freedom of the Press Index shows that they mirror the neoliberal model at least with respect to the role of State and Market on media systems, and the conception of media pluralism. The results bring into question the uncritical acceptance of the Freedom of the Press Index as the universal yardstick of freedom of information.

Keywords

Freedom House freedom of information Freedom of the Press Index hegemony indicators liberal democracy measurement neoliberalism

Introduction

Several concepts in social and political sciences must be addressed as ‘essentially contested concepts’ (Gallie, 1956). Examples are democracy, rule of law, human rights and freedom of information. The strong normative valence associated with such concepts can motivate users to prefer a particular meaning of the concept, while alternative usages are also correct and can circulate within political, media and academic discourse. Yet, the way a particular meaning of a concept can become hegemonic in such discourses, as well as the effects it produces on commonsense way people interpret the concept, are often underestimated.

The aim of this article is to show how measurement plays a crucial role in the legitimation of a specific conception of freedom of information. From a neo-Gramscian perspective, the work draws attention to the way a political and ideological paradigm influences measuring instruments, as well as the contribution of such tools in strengthening the hegemony of the dominant paradigm. By illustrating the rise of neoliberalism starting from the 1970s, the study hypothesises the influence of that paradigm on the measurement of freedom of information and stresses the cognitive and political consequences of the use of ratings and rankings provided by measuring instruments. The article analyses how freedom of information is conceptualised and measured by the most widely used and best known instrument (Becker et al., 2007), the Freedom of the Press Index (FPI) by Freedom House (FH). Several studies used the FPI for their analyses. Some scholars used it in efforts to identify new correlations between media freedom and democracy (Dahl, 2003), as well as to analyse the role of free press in promoting democratisation, good governance and human development (Norris, 2006). Other studies used the FPI for testing the diffusion of media freedom (Sobel et al., 2011), as well as the empirical relationship between human rights and governance (Kaufmann, 2005), free press and corruption (Brunetti and Weder, 2003; Freille et al., 2007), press freedom and democratic peace (Van Belle, 1997). The FPI ratings and rankings figure in political debate, in a broad range of foreign policy, journalism and aid-decision making all over the world. World Bank researchers use them when drafting papers that help determine how much aid a country will get. United Nations agencies, national and private aid organisations use the index in programming hundreds of millions of dollars of media development funding. The FPI is one of the source of the United Nations Development Programme handbook of good governance (UNDP, 2004), as well as one of the indicators used by the American government to determine country eligibility for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) program assistance.¹ Reporters and columnists employ it in discoursing on media freedom, diplomats in bringing pressure on governments that rank low (Burgess, 2010). Previous studies on the FPI include a comparative analysis both of the evaluators of freedom of information (Burgess, 2010) and the instruments (Becker et al., 2007), as well as the possibility and utility of such global comparisons (Holtz-Bacha, 2011). Some analysis focused on the influence of using alternative press freedom indexes in determining the relationship between development and press freedom (Tran et al., 2011). Critics of the FPI underlined incorrect scaling and some methodical difficulties (Becker, 2003). Furthermore, the FH is sometimes accused of having a pro-American bias (Chomsky and Herman, 1988; Giannone, 2010; Scoble and Wiseberg, 1981; UN, 2001). Nonetheless, an exhaustive study of the indicators of the FPI and their potential interplay with neoliberalism, as well as the political and ideological implications of the use of such instrument is lacking. The article aims to put the measurement of freedom of information in the political dimension. Indeed, as Gramsci (1971: 365) pointed out, ‘the realisation of a hegemonic apparatus, in so far as it creates a new ideological terrain, determines a reform of consciousness and of methods of knowledge: it is a fact of knowledge, a philosophical fact’.² Measuring instruments are the methods of knowledge that each counter-hegemonic paradigm creates. The diffusion and success of certain instruments are not only due to their methodological accuracy, but also due to the ideological and political demands they are able to fulfil. Therefore, an evidence of the neoliberal hegemony is the diffusion of neoliberal instruments to measure some relevant aspects of social reality. Hence, the study hypothesises that, though the FH maintains to measure a liberal conception of freedom of information, the FPI is influenced by neoliberalism. To verify such assumption, the study analyses the indicators used by FH to measure freedom of information and compares them to the leading values of the liberal and neoliberal models.³ The work starts with the reconstruction of three normative models⁴ of freedom of information and their connection with specific conceptions of democracy. Then, the article focuses on the political and ideological function of measurement and its role in legitimating the hegemonic model of freedom of information. Finally, the study tries to verify to what extent the indicators of the FPI mirror the neoliberal model of freedom of information.

Conceptions of democracy and freedom of information

As Gunther and Mughan (2000: 1) clearly pointed out, ‘the mass communications media are the connective tissue of democracy. They are the principal means through which citizens and their elected representatives communicate in their reciprocal efforts to inform and influence’. In this process, it is often taken for granted that freedom of information is one of the fundamental requisites of democracy (Dahl, 1971). Yet, some rigorous comparative studies (Voltmer, 2006, 2013) stressed the importance of thoroughly analysing the reciprocal relationship between freedom of information and the basic democratic character of political regimes. As far as established democracies are concerned, research proved that very different solutions have been found to the role of media in society, as well as the mix of journalistic rights, and obligations imposed on the media (Voltmer, 2013). Furthermore, a ‘paradoxical relationship’ (De Smaele, 2006: 36) between freedom of information and democracy has emerged in some of the so-called transition countries, where the process of democratisation has been sometimes used as a justification to limit press freedom. For such reasons, a preliminary step for a proper analysis of freedom of information is to differentiate the functions assigned to it by alternative models of democracy. Indeed, as Price (2011: 7) pointed out, ‘the architecture of the press, the role of new technology, ownership patterns and, of course, the demand patterns and behavior of readers are significant factors that respond to different versions of democracy’. In liberal democracy, for instance, freedom of information should provide individuals with information that indicates when their interests are at stake; help mobilise them to participate and promote their divergent interests; and make policymakers aware of the content and strength of people’s demands (Baker, 2004). In accordance with this model, three components are essential to freedom of information: the relative absence of government restraints on the media, the relative absence of nongovernmental restraints and the existence of conditions to ensure the dissemination of diverse ideas and opinions to large audiences (Weaver, 1977).

The liberal model of freedom of information is characterised by the relative dominance of market logic and commercial media. Freedom of information is a formal individual right which the more is guaranteed the less the State intervenes in regulating/controlling media systems. Indeed, the media provide for a free ‘marketplace of ideas’ where dissenting opinions compete for public recognition without the interference of the State. The liberal model emphasises internal pluralism, that is the ‘diversity of media contents, services and sources reflecting and generating a broad variety of opinions, views, representations and values of social, ethical, political and cultural nature’ (Klimkiewicz, 2009: 47). What is stressed is the theoretical possibility of confrontation of alternative ideas. In accomplishing such goal, the media have a passive role, serving just as ‘a forum where a variety of groups and individuals are given the opportunity to express their views’ (Voltmer, 2006: 2). A further distinctive characteristic of such model is the separation of State’s and Market’s spheres of jurisdiction. Public and private media may co-exist, but they comply with alternative visions and have different functions. Because of the separation principle, free market competition applies only to commercial media, whereas any subsidy by the State to the press is not permitted.

An alternative model of democracy is the egalitarian-welfarist model. Such model considers information as a public good and freedom of information as a substantial democratic right. Therefore, diversity means organised pluralism, with a ‘segmented structure of media outlets and providers representing different social groups, cultural communities and political orientations’ (Klimkiewicz, 2009: 47). What is at stake is both the actual possibility that alternative voices are represented in the public sphere (the Athenian agora), and that media convey different content. The public sphere metaphor moves beyond the mere exchange of ideas of the liberal marketplace, to focus on critical debate through which a rational consensus on public matters may be reached.

The media are assigned an active role in providing such diversity, because they are a central democratic institution which ‘should be thoughtfully discursive, not merely factual informative. [They] should support reflection and value or policy choice [and] be inclusive […] and comprehensive’ (Baker, 2004: 148–149). Freedom of information covers both the degree of freedom enjoyed by the media and the degree of freedom and access of citizens to media content (McQuail, 2000). The central issue is to protect free and open public expression of ideas and information and to guarantee the diversity of point of views. The State is in charge of opposing the concentration of ownership and monopoly of control, whether on the public and private media industries. There is no separation between State’s and Market’s spheres: in order to counterbalance the imbalances produced by the market, the State must intervene in regulating media systems, through subsidies to the press or public broadcasting open to all components of society. Historically, the success of such a model of freedom of information occurred over the so-called ‘golden age’, that is the period of 30 years (1945–1975) marked by a shared welfare state consensus, to the extent that the welfarist model was described as the most successful ideology and movement of the 20th century (Berman, 2006). Yet, starting from the 1970s, a third fundamental model of democracy, that is, the neoliberal one (Brown, 2003; Giannone, 2010), has risen. In a few years, such a model has become ‘hegemonic as a mode of discourse, and has [had] pervasive effects on ways of thought and political-economic practices to the point where it has become incorporated into the commonsense way we interpret, live in, and understand the world’ (Harvey, 2005: 23). In a neoliberal model, information is adapted to the needs of marketing in a way that makes it no different from any other product marketed. Information is a commodity, a valuable good, produced, sold and purchased in a market structure of private media ownership. The liberal metaphor of the free marketplace of ideas is ousted by the neoliberal ‘free flow of information’ (Hegbloom, 2008). What is exchanged is no longer ideas, but information which must be freed from any form of regulation and control. Whereas the free marketplace of ideas is based on the belief that no single voice should be allowed to prevail and fits well with conceptions in which freedom of information leads to the ascendance of the best possible solution, the free flow of information is based on free economic competition of private media having an active role in providing ‘market-driven’ information.

Freedom of information is largely understood in terms opposed to regulation: it follows that deregulation and privatisation are the way forward. Freedom of information is the right of economic actors (individual as well as corporations) to freely produce and sell information, as well as the consumers’ right to buy the information they like. Neoliberalism emphasises the ‘special nature of media products’ (Baker, 2004: 7): often two very different purchasers pay for the transfer of media content (that is information) to its audience. The media enterprise commonly sells media products to audiences and sells audiences to advertisers. The best available information is the one more suitable to that double transaction.

The rationale of the neoliberal model is that, through competition, market produces diversity, which, in turn, generates the best information consumers can buy. Hence, this model emphasises a conception of diversity as external pluralism, which is a ‘plurality of independent and autonomous media outlets and providers, multiple centres of ownership, production, performance and distribution control’ (Klimkiewicz, 2009: 47). What is at stake is the theoretical possibility that alternative private media outlets compete for the conquest of media market shares. Such pluralism is best guaranteed when the State doesn’t interfere in market dynamics. Just like in classic liberalism (Siebert et al., 1956), freedom of the press means freedom from governmental control. Yet, the liberal separation between State and Market fails, because, as long as the optimum of a State not possessing or controlling the media is not possible, then public media must conform to market logic and values. As Birch and Mykhnenko (2010: 7) pointed out, ‘neoliberalism involves the shifting of state intervention to new forms of governance underpinned by a “logic of competitiveness”’. Even the liberal function of denouncing government corruption or incompetence becomes, in the neoliberal model, only instrumental to the possibility to gain a profit.

Why measurement matters: The three functions of measurement

Once the function of freedom of information in the three models has been outlined, the next step is to understand how it is measured and why measurement matters. Measurement is the link between theory and data, and is ‘the act of establishing a correspondence between observations and concepts’ (Zeller, 2005: 665–666). The first and manifest function of measurement is cognitive and psychological: it provides knowledge to better understand social reality, considering that – as they say – ‘you can only manage what you can measure’. As a vehicle for assembling and sorting information, measurement ‘shapes what we attend to, simplifies cognition, and makes a complicated world seem more amenable to our control’ (Stevens and Espeland, 2005). In methodological terms, this process turns different events or objects into numbers in order to compare and evaluate them on the basis of a common metric. What this function conceals is that measurement is a process involving an instrument and an observer and that the instrument itself is necessarily based on a theory relating its function to what it is supposed to measure (Barsh, 1993). Moreover, you have to take into account the political and ideological conditions in which the observer lives and the theory is elaborated.

The political aspects of measurement are crucial because both political demand affects what and how to measure, and measurement only counts when it matters politically, when it affects decision-making and is not a ‘mere academic exercise’ (Munck, 2006). As Alonso and Starr (1987: 3) pointed out, ‘political judgements are implicit in the choice of what to measure, how to measure it, how often to measure it and how to present and interpret the results’. The political function of measurement is to respond to specific political demands about what aspects of social reality (in our case, which kind of information) it has to focus on. In doing so, ‘it reconstructs relations of authority, creates new political entities, and establishes new interpretive frameworks. Despite some advocates’ claims, it is not a neutral or merely technical process’ (Espeland and Stevens, 1998), because ‘part of the very function of establishing evaluative standards is to change the culture of the phenomenon that is being evaluated’ (Stremlau, 2011: 192).

Finally, measurement also has the ‘latent’ ideological function to legitimise the values and the ‘world view’ of a would-be hegemonic model.⁵ In the discursive struggle between alternative political paradigms, measurement, through its alleged scientific nature, constitutes both the instrument and the output of the ‘realisation of a hegemonic apparatus’ (Gramsci, 1971: 365). The rationale for this is that

a hegemonic ideology is more than just a collection of ideas that justify social relations; nor is it merely the normative, ontological, and epistemological framework around which social reality is understood and acted upon. A hegemonic ideology is this, but it is also a blueprint for the material organization of society, and as such it is mutually constituted by the same social, political, and economic institutions it serves to shape. (Neubauer, 2011: 200–201)

Thus, on the one hand, measurement is the new ‘method of knowledge’ that the would-be hegemonic paradigm should use to determine a reform of consciousness; on the other hand, once ‘a new ideological terrain has been created’, measurement is a formidable source of power acting as the scientific lens through which political and economic powers have the capacity to define frameworks and adjudicate facts, to include and exclude, to impose a system of thought and a set of values. If the frameworks of the ideological paradigm become the dominant ones through which most individuals interpret the social world, they become reified as the ‘common sense’ of a hegemonic system (Lakoff, 2010; Neubauer, 2011).⁶

A key role in such process is carried out by indicators. The production and use of indicators has the potential to alter the forms, the exercise and perhaps even the distributions of power in certain spheres of global governance (Davis et al., 2012). Although, traditionally, they have been defined as ‘indirect measures of underlying concepts, which cannot be observed directly’ (Barsh, 1993: 90), more aptly, as Kabeer (1999: 2) pointed out,

indicators can be seen as highly compressed summaries of information, meanings and values. They combine explicit empirical information with implicit assumptions about the meaning of that information. Furthermore, in selecting some categories of information over others, indicators also embody certain values about the kinds of information that ‘count’ in capturing the phenomenon being measured.

Indicators represent an assertion of power to produce knowledge and to define or shape the way the world is understood. As a result, attention should be paid to the social processes surrounding the creation and use of indicators, the influence of the conditions of production on the kinds of knowledge indicators provide, the way the use of indicators changes the nature of standard-setting and decision-making, and the way it affects the distribution of power between and among those who govern and those who are governed (Davis et al., 2012).

Moreover, because of the specific feature of freedom of information as an ‘essentially contested concept’⁷ the selection of indicators is a more value-laden and controversial process. It is not only a methodological procedure, but a political one too, because the values and standards of the measuring instrument would still be set through an essentially political process, and the responses to the results of measurement are, at their core, a matter of political judgment. Therefore, the choice of indicators must be interpreted not only in historical and political context, but also in a theoretical context. And such a theoretical context is normative. Be it with respect to freedom of information or with respect to democracy, we ascribe to a particular theory, even if it is implicit, as to what constitutes freedom of information or democracy. Analyses that purport to be ‘ideologically neutral’ or ‘theory free’ are based on implicit theories which are more usefully rendered explicit where their value can be examined and debated (Thede, 2001).

The measurement explosion under neoliberalism

It is not an accident that ‘the proliferation of agencies that monitor the behaviour of individuals, corporations, or nations with respect to debt, transparency, or honesty’ (Fourcade and Healy, 2007: 304) has happened over the 1980s, that is, the time of diffusion of neoliberalism. Firstly, during that time there was an expanding role of calculation and standardisation as strategies to manage uncertainty, which are central features of Western rationalism and crucial for the development of capitalism (Espeland and Stevens, 1998). Due to neoliberalism’s persistence in rationalising every aspect of human life, such strategies have increasingly used

the special status that is accorded to quantitative measures, given their association with science. Knowledge claims based on quantitative measures are commonly treated as though they had a distinct and superior status compared to claims based on other forms of information (Munck, 2009: 10).

The second reason for the measurement explosion under neoliberalism is the development and rapid diffusion of new information and communication technologies (ICTs). As Harvey (2005: 68) stated, ICTs are ‘the privileged technology of neoliberalism. [They are] far more useful for speculative activity and for maximizing the number of short-term market contracts than for improving production’. Since neoliberalism seeks to bring all human actions into the domain of the market, ‘this requires technologies of information creation and capacities to accumulate, store, transfer, analyse, and use massive databases to guide decisions in the global marketplace. Hence neoliberalism’s intense interest in and pursuit of information technologies’ (Harvey, 2005: 3). ICTs have made quantitative data more accessible and recordable and created ‘a revolution in the way in which information is produced and shared among different interest groups and individuals’ (Giovannini, 2008: 151). The third reason for the proliferation of measuring agencies and data production is that neoliberalisation entails the commodification of every human action and product. As Mosco (2009: 141) pointed out, ‘commodification demands the use of measurement procedures to produce commodities and monitoring techniques to keep track of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption’. If data are organised, accessible, and capable of being provided in manipulable and discrete units, they become a valuable good (Schiller, 1989). Therefore, in neoliberal democracy even statistics becomes a commodity. Data production becomes a profit-making business, and data are more and more produced and sold by private organisations on the basis of their capacity to produce information responding to the main political and economic demands. Neoliberalism takes to the extreme one of the crucial features for the development of capitalism, that is ‘decision making based on numbers, rather than duty, magic, or custom, [as] a radically new orientation toward business’ (Stevens and Espeland, 2005: 375). Such an orientation involves the depersonalisation of business relations and a more objective stance towards business choices.

By drawing up rankings (of democracy, debt, corruption, transparency, freedom of information and so on) between countries, measuring instruments are able to signal virtuous and non-virtuous actors, legitimising certain policies at the expense of others. They ‘are not only informational devices that grease the wheels of commerce, but profoundly disciplining ones as well’ (Fourcade and Healy, 2007: 304).⁸ Indeed, measurement provides standards against which people and states are judged and judge themselves. For such reason, measuring freedom of information is not just a matter of taking the pulse of the press of a country. It also enables to shape a model of freedom of information and citizenry’s perception of what (freedom of) information is and should be.

The shaping of a new model of freedom of information was at the core of the ‘Great Global Media Debate’ (Gerbner et al., 1993) in the late 1970s. It was a political and ideological struggle about communication rights, as well as the role of media for development and the balance between national sovereignty and international policy regimes. With the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) playing a major role in fostering the debate, many countries of the Global South, as well as Western powers and the socialist bloc were involved (for a detailed analysis see Carlsson, 2003 and Padovani, 2008). The Non-Alignment Movement of the South called for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) and criticised ‘a continuation of [Western] imperialism by other means: patterns of information flows clearly still mirrored a centre-periphery power relationship concerning content as well as infrastructure’ (Hamelink and Hoffmann, 2008: 2). They demanded new laws and practices to balance the free flow of information doctrine and an alternative to the concept of ‘freedom of information […] seen as an aid for those in power to maintain hegemony in a one-way process of information transmission’ (Hamelink and Hoffmann, 2008: 2). The Eastern states emphasised the responsibility of mass media in combatting racism, colonialism and imperialism, whereas the Western countries continued to stress the importance of the free flow of information, as well as the conception of freedom of information as an individual right (Carlsson, 2003). In particular, the US pushed the ‘free flow of information’ doctrine, arguing that the concept of freedom of information as a collective or ‘people’s right’ sidelined individual rights and strengthened the State’s intervention in people’s lives.

The International Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (the MacBride Commission), established by the UNESCO to respond to these issues, published a report, stating that the right to communicate should have been both an individual and a social right, and that its recognition would have helped democratise communication (MacBride Commission, 1980/2004). Yet, NWICO supporters encountered intense resistance from the Western countries, with the US and Great Britain the most outspoken critics, to the extent that they even withdrew from UNESCO. Indeed, these two countries saw the report as militating against the free flow of information (Carlsson, 2003) and the debates as challenging the profitable operations of US commercial media in foreign markets (Brooten, 2013). Furthermore, Western democracies were adamant that ‘the international flow of information should not be restricted by government regulation, decrying a heavy-handed infringement on press freedom and informational openness’ (Pickard, 2007: 133). Such arguments were consistent with the neoliberal emphasis on the free flow of goods and capital, as well as demotion of collective rights and demonisation of any State’s role in regulating/controlling markets.

The FPI was born in the midst of such ideological battles between alternative models of freedom of information. From the outset, its cognitive aims intertwined political and ideological goals. Indeed, the ‘press freedom index and its map were soon functioning as a lobbying tool’ (Burgess, 2010: 9) in the debate over the NWICO, with the FH and Leonard Sussman (the inventor of the instrument) putting the new study to use. While at that time some authors underlined that the FH indices reflected an ideological pro-American bias resulting from the overlapping in membership between the FH Board of Trustees and the US government elite (Scoble and Wiseberg, 1981), little attention has been paid to the political and ideological aspects of the indicators used by FH to measure freedom of information and their possible connection with neoliberalism.

The Freedom of the Press Index

The early surveys on freedom of information were conducted by FH in 1979 and today the FPI provides information about the state of the media in 197 countries in the world, offering a historical data series too. In order to measure freedom of information, the FH compiles a 100-point scale questionnaire,⁹ comprising ‘23 methodology questions and 109 indicators’ (or sub-questions).¹⁰ The questions and the indicators are divided into three broad categories: the Legal Environment (LE, comprising eight questions, scored on a 30-point scale), the Political Environment (PE, seven questions, scored on a 40-point scale) and the Economic Environment (EE, eight questions, scored on a 30-point scale). Among the weaknesses of the FH’s instrument are the lack of transparency of evaluation procedures and the recurring changes in methodology.

As far as transparency is concerned, the FH made public the 23 ‘methodology questions’ only in 2005 and the sub-questions only in 2009. This is an essential step forward towards greater transparency, but not yet conclusive. Indeed, as the FH states in its methodology note, ‘the sub-questions listed are meant to provide guidance as to what issues are meant to be addressed under each methodology question; it is not intended that the author necessarily answer each one’ (Freedom House, 2012; bold in the original document). It is a very important issue, because no one knows either what or how many the sub-questions are, that each evaluator took into account for the analysis. This prevents the replicability of measures, which is the ability of a community of scholars to reproduce the process through which the data was generated (Munck and Verkuilen, 2002). And any claims about either validity or reliability of the instrument hinge upon the replicability of its measures. Furthermore, you cannot know what indicators the score for each question is based on. It could be one, two, eight or…no one. Yet, as the indicators for each question deal with very different events, it makes a great difference what indicators each evaluator decides to include and to exclude in the assessment of a country’s press freedom. For instance, the question EE3 (‘Is media ownership highly concentrated and does it influence diversity of content?’ scored on a 0–3-point scale, see Table 1) addresses two different issues (the high concentration of media ownership and its influence on content diversity). Furthermore, it is provided with four sub-questions. The first one is very complex, since it involves four distinct phenomena (the ownership and control of broadcast systems and publications) and diverse subjects (‘industrial or commercial enterprises, or other societal actors’), ‘whose influence and financial power lead’ to still two different issues, that is, the ‘concentration of ownership of the media and/or narrow control of the content of the media’. The second sub-question deals with the ‘excessive concentration of media ownership in the hands of private interests who are linked to state patronage or that of other powerful societal actors’. The third sub-question surveys the existence of ‘media monopolies, significant vertical integration, or substantial cross-ownership’, whereas the fourth sub-question analyses the role of the state in implementing ‘laws concerning concentration, monopolies, and cross-ownership’. Besides the methodological inaccuracy of the questions, the choice of each evaluator to use or not to use one or more of these sub-questions influences the kind of assessment she is carrying on.

Table 1.

List of the indicators of the FPI used in the analysis.

Category	Indicators
Legal Environment (LE) (0–30 points)	LE6 Can individuals or business entities legally establish and operate private media outlets without undue interference? (0–4 points)
	LE6.3 Is there an independent regulatory body responsible for awarding licenses and distributing frequencies or does the state control the allocations process?
	LE6.7 Is there substantial media cross-ownership and is cross-ownership of media encouraged by the absence of legal restrictions?
	LE7.2 Does the state or any other interest exercise undue influence over regulatory bodies through appointments or financial pressure?
Political Environment (PE) (0–40 points)	PE1.4 Is there government editorial control of state-run media outlets?
	PE5. Do people have access to media coverage and a range of news and information that is robust and reflects a diversity of viewpoints? (0–4 points)
	PE5.1 Does the public have access to a diverse selection of print, broadcast and internet-based sources of information that represent a range of political and social viewpoints?
Economic Environment (EE) (0–30 points)	EE1. To what extent are media owned or controlled by the government and does this influence their diversity of views? (0–6 points)
	EE1.1 Does the state dominate the country’s information system?
	EE1.3 Does a state monopoly of TV or radio exist?
	EE3 Is media ownership highly concentrated and does it influence diversity of content? (0–3 points)
	EE3.1 Are publications or broadcast systems owned or controlled by industrial or commercial enterprises, or other powerful societal actors, whose influence and financial power lead to concentration of ownership of the media and/or narrow control of the content of the media?
	EE3.2 Is there an excessive concentration of media ownership in the hands of private interests who are linked to state patronage or that of other powerful societal actors?
	EE3.3 Are there media monopolies, significant vertical integration (control over all aspects of news production and distribution) or substantial cross-ownership?
	EE3.4 Does the state actively implement laws concerning concentration, monopolies and cross-ownership?

For the full list see: http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press-2013/methodology. In bold the ‘methodology questions’, in regular font the ‘sub-questions’.

As far as the methodological changes of the FPI are concerned, over the last 30 years some important deviations in the measurement procedure have occurred. The first change was the introduction of the 100-point scale in 1994, joining the pre-existing labelling system (‘free’, ‘partially free’ and ‘not free’ press countries). Such change was crucial, because the labelling system just allows the categorisation of countries into three groups. The introduction of a rating system brought to the creation of annual global rankings of freedom of information, which have enabled the comparability of countries, as well as constitute a pressure for countries’ competition and improvement as measured by the instrument.

Another methodological change was introduced in 1989. Up to 1988, the instrument provided two distinct indices of freedom, one for the press and a different one for the radio–television (TV) system. Over the period 1989–1993 the two indices have been unified. From 1994 to 2001, with the introduction of the scoring system, the instrument provided one total score and eight sub-scores (four for the print and four for broadcast), concerning respectively the legal, political and economic environment, as well as repressive actions.¹¹ In 2002, the methodology was ‘substantially revamped’ (Karlekar Deutsch and Radsch, 2012: 15). The distinction between print and broadcast was deleted again, as well as the ‘repressive actions’ category, with its score attributed to the ‘political environment’ category, since then accounting for 40 of the 100 points allocated in the survey methodology. The latter change was reasoned for the fact that controlling the power of framing messages as news ‘has been the policy of repressive governments ever since the introduction of broadcasting’ (Karlekar Deutsch and Radsch, 2012: 15), Since the ‘political environment’ involves the role of government in the ownership, regulation and control of media systems, the FH assumes that such role is more important than the role of private corporations (the economic environment, scored up to 30 points) or legal provisions (up to 30 points) in influencing freedom of information.

Moreover, despite all these changes, the FH keeps supporting the possibility of comparing the data covering the whole reference period (Freedom House, 2012).

In order to verify the relationship between the three models of freedom of information and the FPI, a detailed qualitative content analysis (Krippendorff, 2004) of both the so-called ‘methodology questions’ and the indicators of the FPI was realised (see Table 1). Indeed, the content analysis of the indicators should provide useful information about the evaluation point of each question. The qualitative content analysis is the most suitable method when there are relatively small amounts of textual matter that require a close reading. It consists of various steps. The first is to define the subject to be treated (freedom of information) and the alternative theoretical frameworks (neoliberalism, liberalism and egalitarianism) stressing its main characteristics. Then it follows the selection of the data and documents to be examined (the instrument of measurement), and the definition of the unit of analysis (the indicators of the FPI and the weight of each indicator on the total score of the index). Besides this, the crucial step is the choice of the categories of analysis that constitutes the actual link between the theoretical models and the indicators. Indeed, such categories are deduced from the ideal typical models and represent the discriminant elements between alternative conceptions of freedom of information. They also constitute the evaluation criteria to assert the extent to which the FPI indicators can be understood as mirroring a certain underlying conception of freedom of information.¹²

On the basis of the models of freedom of information above described, two categories of analysis were chosen: the relationship of the State to the Market and the different conceptions of media pluralism. These categories provide the basic elements for differentiating the three models of freedom of information. Indeed, as stated before, the egalitarian, liberal and neoliberal models assign a very different role to State and Market in managing and guaranteeing freedom of information; in addition, they emphasise alternative meanings of pluralism.

As far as the relationship of the State to the Market is concerned, specific questions to be addressed include the evaluation of the role of the State and Market in media systems. If the indicators of the FPI reward private media outlets and penalise state-owned or controlled media systems, as well as if they penalise any intervention by the State in regulating media market, and support market logic and values as a means to improve freedom of information, then it is a sign of the neoliberal influence on the FPI. In the event of two or more indicators supporting alternative models (for instance, rewarding both private and public ownership of media), the analysis takes into account the points assigned by the FPI to each indicator, as a further quantitative element for the evaluation of what model is more consistent with the instrument. A question with a greater score is accounted as dealing with a topic more important in determining freedom of information than a question with a lesser score.

As far as media pluralism is concerned, the focus is on the conception of diversity endorsed by the FPI. If the indicators reward diversity above all as external pluralism, that is pluralism fostered by the presence of several media businesses in a commercial media market, then it is a sign of neoliberal influence. A further analysis refers to the role of State and Market in guarantying such pluralism. Indicators assigning such function solely to the Market suggest an influence of neoliberalism, as well as indicators penalising any role of the State in that task.

As far as the first category of analysis is concerned, several times the indicators treat terms such as ‘State’, ‘Government’ and ‘political power’ as synonyms, thus generating inaccurate interpretations, since overlapped meanings are used for the analysis of different phenomena. Indeed, the State is ‘that human community which (successfully) lays claim to the monopoly of legitimate physical violence within a certain territory’ (Weber, 1994: 310–311), the government is the particular group of people, the administrative bureaucracy, that controls the state apparatus at a given time. That is, government is the means through which state power is employed.

The inconsistent terminology constitutes a serious methodological issue and also reveals the FH’s scarce consideration for the ‘public’ dimension of information. For instance, in a question related to the economic environment (EE1) they ask: ‘To what extent are media owned or controlled by the government and does this influence their diversity of views?’, while two specific sub-questions refer to the role of the State: ‘Does the state dominate the country’s information system?’ (EE1.1) and ‘Does a state monopoly of TV or radio exist?’ (EE1.3). Another sub-question asks: ‘Is there government editorial control of state-run media outlets?’ (PE1.4). These questions mix up very different phenomena: (1) the control and (2) the ownership of the media by government, which are assessed also through the analysis of (3) the state monopoly of TV or radio and (4) the state domination of information system. Moreover, it is interesting to observe that the FH makes no difference between ‘media owned’ and ‘media controlled’ by the government/State. However, as Whitten-Woodring (2009: 599) rightly pointed out, ‘government ownership or funding of media does not necessarily equate to government control of media’.

FH considers freedom of information as freedom from State/government control, because the aim of democratic systems is to ‘create checks and balances to minimize state domination of the news media’ (Freedom House, 2002; italics added). A sub-question of the legal dimension is: ‘Is there an independent regulatory body responsible for awarding licenses and distributing frequencies or does the state control the allocations process?’ (LE6.3). The question makes clear that the first solution is more desirable than the second one, clarifying that the State is not in charge of the assignment of the TV frequencies and licenses. Rather, as another sub-question (LE7.2) requests (‘Does the state or any other interest exercise undue influence over regulatory bodies through appointments or financial pressure?’), the State must not barely influence the nominees of the regulation authorities either. Media regulation mechanisms have to be produced and managed by the same editorial enterprises operating on the free market of information and, as another sub-question (LE7.5) clarifies, they have to be ‘permitted and encouraged, and viewed as a preferable alternative to state-imposed regulation’. Such a well-established conventional wisdom against State’s intervention in regulating media system derives from a normative neoliberal bias. Yet, as Gunther and Mughan (2000: 9) demonstrated, ‘key characteristics of a functioning, healthy democracy are not necessary enhanced by minimizing government regulation’ of media systems.

Similarly, private ownership does not guarantee media freedom. With ownership becoming increasingly concentrated and media conglomerates becoming vertically integrated, many news critics have raised concerns that the push to make news more profitable will result in poor news coverage that leaves many voices unheard. (Whitten-Woodring, 2009: 599)

Yet, the ‘predatory vision’ (Banda, 2011: 97) of the State by FH prevents it to address such crucial issues.

With regard to media pluralism, one of the questions of the FPI is: ‘Can individuals or business entities legally establish and operate private media outlets without undue interference?’ (LE6). It is an indicator of external pluralism, which is scored on a 0–4-point scale, thus contributing up to 4% of the total score of the index. Media pluralism seems to be conceived also from a liberal perspective, since the FPI scrutinises people access to media coverage and information that reflects a diversity of viewpoints (PE5, scored up to four points). In addition, one of the sub-questions concerns the access to sources of information ‘that represent a range of political and social viewpoints’ (PE5.1), that is a proxy indicator of organised pluralism. However, the latter is just a sub-question, and the evaluators are not compelled to take it into account.

As regards the other two kinds of pluralism, a cross analysis with the first category reveals the FPI propensity for external pluralism. Indeed, when taking into account the role of State and Market in fostering or challenging pluralism, the indicators of the FPI show that internal pluralism has to be protected only from State’s interference, while neither economic nor cultural influence of the so-called ‘megamedia’ (Alger, 1998) is taken into account. When the high concentration of private media ownership (EE3) is considered for the assessment of content diversity, it is scored up to three points that is just the half of the six points allotted to the State interference (EE1). Moreover, external pluralism is assessed through a sub-question focusing on the ‘excessive concentration in the hands of private interests who are linked to state patronage’ (EE3.2; italics added). The State gets the lion’s share, while the high concentration of media ownership is underrated as far as private corporations are concerned. Finally, the FPI appears to reward the presence of cross ownership of media as a means to foster freedom of information (‘Is there substantial media cross ownership and is cross-ownership of media encouraged by the absence of legal restrictions?’ LE6.7). This is a debatable point, since it is not clear how the ownership of multiple media businesses by a person or corporation can be considered a positive indicator of freedom of information. Furthermore, cross ownership is not the solution to the presence of few big media conglomerates controlling the global media system. While the FH concentrates on State’s intervention and regulation, the role of these giants in challenging media pluralism is almost neglected. Such a vision is consistent with neoliberalism. Indeed, as McChesney (2001: 5–6) pointed out, the incessant pursuit for profit of neoliberal deregulation

means the relaxation or elimination of barriers to commercial exploitation of media and to concentrated media ownership. […] This has laid the foundation for the creation of the global media system […]. Now in place, the system has its own logic. Firms must become larger and diversified to reduce risk and enhance profit-making opportunities, and they must straddle the globe so as to never be outflanked by competitors.

The FPI considers one of the logical outcomes of neoliberal globalisation as a given, as the natural order of things, and not as the consequence of economic, political and cultural choices, thus overlooking its potential impact on media pluralism.

Conclusions

‘What we measure affects what we do; and if our measurements are flawed, decisions may be distorted’ (Stiglitz et al., 2009: 7). With these words the authors of the ‘Report by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress’, created by Nicolas Sarkozy, underlined the strategic role of measurement and its impact on decision-making.

Though measurement is only in appearance a politically neutral process, it is just ‘the idea that evaluative measures are scientific – that they actually measure, and that they measure what we want them to measure – [that] poses a barrier to proper analysis’ (Stremlau, 2011: 191).

The diffusion of neoliberalism and its impact on liberal democracy produced a normative framework within which a new model of freedom of information has become hegemonic. Such a model considers information as a commodity and freedom of information as the result of a free market competition between private media owners, with no interference by the State. The neoliberal model influenced measuring instruments (Giannone, 2010), which have become ‘part of a system, part of a pattern of evolving norms that suggest how societies should be structured. The rankings and the questions themselves are charged with values’ (Stremlau, 2011: 191). Hence, some measuring instruments became the most used and diffused above all because they were able to respond to certain political and ideological demands. The reputation of the FH has been constructed over time through a combination of serving a need by offering to solve the information problem between buyers and sellers, and by providing that information in a reliable way, thus generating epistemic authority. Once become ‘the yardstick’ of freedom of information, the FPI works continuously for legitimating the hegemonic model of freedom of information. Indeed, through the use of its alleged scientific and politically neutral rankings, the values and the ‘world view’ of the neoliberal model have become so embedded in common sense as to be taken for granted and not open to question.

This is also due to the quantitative nature of FH’s data, which turn into numbers politically contested concepts and values, such as democracy and freedom of information. Numbers have a characteristic role in democracies.

Democratic power is calculated power, and numbers are intrinsic to the forms of justification that give legitimacy to political power in democracies. Democratic power is calculating power, and numbers are integral to the technologies that seek to give effect to democracy as a particular set of mechanisms of rule. Democratic power requires citizens who calculate about power, and numeracy and a numericized space of public discourse are essential for making up self-controlling democratic citizens (Rose, 2004: 200).

The overwhelming appeal of quantification in business, government and social research is linked to the ‘illusion of precision’ (Thede, 2001) that policy-makers, media practitioners, scholars and public opinion find in ratings and rankings. Expressed through measurement, democracy and freedom of information are associated with precision, objectivity and rationality, which constitute the three main features of modernity and science. Moreover, the difficulty to put into question what an instrument actually measures is also due to the fact that

once a quantitative measure is created, it will be used independently from the analysis that originally generated it. […] The process of fabrication of the statistic becomes invisible and the statistic therefore becomes ‘autonomous’ from the method that generated it. Clearly inappropriate statistics are thus often repeatedly and unquestioningly used (Thede, 2001: 264–266).

Measuring freedom of information through the lenses of the FPI entails to endorse (unconsciously or not) a certain model of freedom of information: although originated from a liberal matrix, the FPI is permeated by several elements that bring it closer to a neoliberal tool. In particular, the ‘demonisation’ of the State and a mainly economic meaning of pluralism emphasise a neoliberal vision of information which overlooks one of the main challenges to freedom of information: the actual excessive concentration of ownership in the hands of few media giants, controlling the majority of the amount of news and information produced worldwide (Baker, 2007).

The corporate media conglomerates are the ideological tool of global capitalism (Murphy, 2003), that measuring instruments underrate. This way, they are part of the slow but powerful ideological process of shaping both a moral order and common sense, aligning freedom of information with the cultural practice of consumption. Yet, ‘the social role or value of some goods may be perverted or undermined merely by being distributed through commercial exchange rather than being subject only to being earned or bestowed’ (Baker, 2004: 64). And this is the case of information. Once legitimated its meaning as a commodity, what is at risk is one of the cornerstones of liberal democracy: public discussion of alternative ideas.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

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