International media assistance is a small but important form of international democracy-promotion aid. Media assistance boomed after the 1989 transitions in Central Europe, but now flows to virtually all regions of the world. Today the media assistance industry is focused on the problem of sustainability: How are free and independent public affairs media supposed to maintain their editorial mission while facing hostile political systems or the demands of the consumer marketplace? Many media in developing countries have been or are grant-dependent. When grants are exhausted or withdrawn, media that were funded to further democratic consolidation typically wither and die. Some become mere grant chasers. Others abandon public service to the demands of market competition, or political patronage. As a result, governmental and non-governmental grant makers now emphasize the need for sustainability in considering grants in the media sector. Many grant recipients have grown frustrated, sometimes bitter, and have sought to take a much more active role in the way assistance programs are put together. Just how is sustainability to be achieved while also ensuring a public-service editorial mission? Exporting Press Freedom examines the history and practice of media assistance, and argues that the dilemma of media independence and sustainability is best understood as an economic problem rather than one of poor editorial standards or lack of will. It includes profiles of news and public affairs media in developing and democratizing countries, and also of two non-governmental organizations that have pioneered the use of low-interest loans in media assistance. These profiles exemplify strategic and entrepreneurial approaches to developing and supporting public service media. Such approaches may be of use not only in the developing world, but in the consolidated Western democracies as well, where concern has grown about poor journalistic performance and its consequences f

The Media Freedom Analyzer developed by Laura Schneider is a new way to measure global media freedom in a more objective, unbiased and transparent way. Grounded in the opinions of around 1000 experts from 126 countries, the index is the first empirically validated tool to assess free and independent media across the world. The existing press freedom rankings are frequently criticized for being arbitrary and having a Western bias. This book tackles this very problem. In times of widespread populism, disinformation and mistrust in the media, it is vitally important to have an assessment tool that is accepted across cultures.

Religious freedom is widely recognized today as a basic human right, guaranteed by nearly all national constitutions. Exporting Freedom charts the rise of religious freedom as an ideal firmly enshrined in international law and shows how America’s promotion of the cause of individuals worldwide to freely practice their faith advanced its ascent as a global power. Anna Su traces America’s exportation of religious freedom in various laws and policies enacted over the course of the twentieth century, in diverse locations and under a variety of historical circumstances. Influenced by growing religious tolerance at home and inspired by a belief in the United States’ obligation to protect the persecuted beyond its borders, American officials drafted constitutions as part of military occupations—in the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, in Japan following World War II, and in Iraq after 2003. They also spearheaded efforts to reform the international legal order by pursuing Wilsonian principles in the League of Nations, drafting the United Nations Charter, and signing the Helsinki Accords during the Cold War. The fruits of these labors are evident in the religious freedom provisions in international legal instruments, regional human rights conventions, and national constitutions. In examining the evolution of religious freedom from an expression of the civilizing impulse to the democratization of states and, finally, through the promotion of human rights, Su offers a new understanding of the significance of religion in international relations.

Journalists are actors in international relations, mediating communications between governments and publics, but also between the administrations of different countries. American and foreign officials simultaneously consume the work of U.S. journalists and use it in their own thinking about how to conduct their work. As such, journalists play an unofficial diplomatic role. However, the U.S. news media largely amplifies American power. Instead of stimulating greater understanding, the U.S. elite, mainstream press can often widen mistrust as they promote an American worldview and, with the exception of some outliers, reduce the world into a tight security frame in which the U.S. is the hegemon. This has been the case in Afghanistan since 2001, particularly as emerging Afghan journalists have relied significantly on U.S. and other Western news outlets to report events within their government and their country. Based on eight years of interviews in Kabul, Washington, and New York, Your Country, Our War demonstrates how news has intersected with international politics during the War in Afghanistan and shows the global power and reach of the U.S. news media, especially within the context of the post-9/11 era. It reviews the trajectory of the U.S. news narrative about Afghanistan and America's never-ending war, and the rise of Afghan journalism, from 2001 to 2017. The book also examines the impact of the American news media inside a war theater. It examines how U.S. journalists affected the U.S.-Afghan relationship and chronicles their contribution to the rapid development of a community of Afghan journalists who grappled daily with how to define themselves and their country during a tumultuous and uneven transition from fundamentalist to democratic rule. Providing rich detail about the U.S.-Afghan relationship, especially former President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai's convictions about the role of the Western press, we begin to understand how journalists are not merely observers to a story; they are participants in it.

This book examines the media reform processes and re-democratization projects of Ghana and Nigeria’s emerging democracies. It evaluates and critiques these reform processes, arguing that because of dependency approaches resulting from the transplanting of policy framework from the West into these emerging democracies, the policy goals and objectives of the reforms have not been achieved. Consequently, the inherent socio-cultural, economic and political factors, coupled with the historical antecedents of these countries, have also affected the reform process. Drawing from policy documents, analyses and interviews, Ufuoma Akpojivi argues that the lack of citizens’ active participation in policy processes has led to neo-liberalization and the continued universalization of Western ideologies such as democracy, media freedom and independence. Akpojivi posits that the recognition of socio-cultural, political and economic factors inherent to these emerging democracies, coupled with the communal participation of citizens, will facilitate true media reform processes and development of these countries.

The last quarter of a century has seen an unprecedented wave of democratization around the globe. In these transitions from authoritarian rule to a more democratic order, the media have played a key role both by facilitating, but frequently also inhibiting, democratic practices to take root. This book provides an accessible and systematic introduction to the media in transitional democracies. It analyses the problems that occur when transforming the media into independent institutions that are able to inform citizens and hold governments to account. The book covers the following topics: normative conceptions of media and democracy; the role of the past in the transition process; the internet as a new space for democratic change; the persistence of political interference in emerging democracies; the interlocking power of media markets and political ownership; the challenges to journalistic professionalism in post-authoritarian contexts; the role of the media in divided societies; The book takes a global view by exploring the interplay of political and media transitions in different pathways of democratization that have taken place in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia. It will be of interest to advanced students and scholars who want a better understanding of the media outside established Western democracies. The book will also be of great value to policymakers and activists who are involved in strengthening the media in transitional democracies.