When looking at the MapMF map, some countries have a higher number of documented alerts than others. Of course, this can be caused by more violations happening in some countries than in others. However, this does not mean that press freedom is most severely under attack in countries with the highest number of alerts. Instead, there are a number of other reasons why more incidents are recorded in some countries compared to others. Here are just some of them: 

• Population: differences in population size have an impact on the data. Smaller countries may have fewer journalists, which could result in fewer reported alerts, but this does not necessarily indicate that these journalists face especially low risks. 
• Media landscape: in some countries, media landscapes are more developed than in others. A wider range of media outlets, union activity or resources available to media workers more generally can have an impact on the number of incidents recorded.
• Monitoring networks: while MFFR strives to establish extensive networks in each monitoring country, some networks are stronger than others. Therefore, we are more likely to gain knowledge of violations in countries with good reporting networks
• Repression: in countries where press freedom is under severe pressure, some attacks might not make it to the news, nor be reported online or talked about to a third party at all. One reason can be that the victim fears repression or that media outlets cannot report independently on such violations. And in countries with effective repression, there can be very few violations because the media are already compliant.
• Perceptions of press freedom: while in some countries certain ‘minor’ incidents are reported or make the news, in other countries with more restrictive press freedom, similar incidents might be perceived as ‘normal’ or  insignificant and not be reported. A light push or insult directed at a journalist might, therefore, be reported and registered as a violation in some countries, while these cases go unreported in others. 

When analysing the MapMF data, it is also important to consider the different nature of violations recorded. The killing of a journalist can be considered as the most severe violation of press freedom, while certain verbal attacks count as comparatively minor incidents. Comparing countries based on pure alert numbers would mean to count a killed journalist with the same weight as a verbal attack. Because of this and also because of the other reasons listed above, countries cannot be compared by pure alert numbers. 

Please see below “How to analyse MapMF data?” on how you can analyse our data instead and gain insights into the press freedom situation of countries and regions.

Generally, MapMF records all press freedom violations in EU Member States and candidate countries we gain knowledge of and that can be verified. Though we have already built up a strong network over the past years, our networks and their activity might be stronger in some countries than in others. We continuously strive to expand and strengthen our networks, but we might not gain knowledge of each case. If we miss a case or you think a certain country is underrepresented, please reach out to us or report cases directly through the ReportIt form. For inquiries about collaboration, feel free to reach out through mfrr@ecpmf.eu.

With MapMF you can gain insights into the press freedom situation across Europe, identify country specific issues, or learn more about press freedom violations in regards to specific topics. The regularly published monitoring reports provide quantitative and qualitative analysis of the MapMF data.

Additionally, you can also analyse MapMF data based on your individual needs using the MapMF Alert Explorer. The filter options and the chart feature are probably the most helpful tools to use. In combination, they allow you to gain different insights tailored to your individual needs.

The filter options provide a flexible way to select the data according to your interests. You can filter for time spans, countries, EU membership status, as well as any categories the alerts are classified by (incl. type of attacks, type of perpetrators, or contexts where the violations happened, but also many more). Additionally, you can use the search bar. The filters can be flexibly combined which allows you to filter for both very general data (e.g. violations in EU member states since Jan 2020) or very specific data by combining multiple filter options, (e.g. physical attacks in Germany performed by police during protests in the past calendar year). 

The chart feature provides charts with statistics for your individually filtered data. The charts open when you click on the chart icon on the top left of the Alert Explorer. The charts provide insights on which types of attacks were recorded for your individually filtered data, (e.g. physical attacks, verbal attacks etc.), who were the main perpetrators (e.g. private individuals, police etc.), or where the attacks happened (e.g during protests, in the office etc.).

While looking at the charts you can filter for further sub-topics by adding or adjusting the filtering, or by clicking on the bars in the charts to filter for certain categories. The charts will immediately update to your new filtering. At any time you can switch to the alert list to see more details about the alerts by clicking on the alert list icon on the top left.

For alert numbers recorded for categories which are not shown in the charts (e.g. aspects like who was attacked, type of journalist, Gender, employment status, or specific topics), you can check the filter drop down list. The numbers beside each category show the number of alerts recorded for that category based on your individual filtering.

How can I compare countries?

Please note that the raw number of alerts should not be interpreted as press freedom severity in a country. In addition, countries should not be compared based on the raw number of alerts, due to differences in the nature of violations, country population, reporting situation due to fear of oppression, perception of what a press freedom violation is, as well as different activity levels of networks and unions. If you want to read more details on this, please see above. 

Different countries might have different country specific issues. While one country might have many attacks from private individuals during protests, in another country defamation lawsuits from companies might be an outstanding issue, or legislation and public officials verbally discrediting the media..

In order to gain first insights into country specific issues, the easiest way is to use the chart feature combined with the filtering. First of all, filter for your country and time span of interest. For a first insight into the major issues, click on the chart icon at the top left and see which types of attacks happened, which perpetrators where active, and in which contexts the violations happened. Beyond this, it might be interesting to identify outstanding issues by comparing these results with the results shown for the overall data of EU member states and/or candidate countries. Potential trends could be identified by comparing the statistics of the country with the statistics of the same country the year before. While comparing category values of different data, it might be advisable to focus on the percent values for both compared data, instead of the raw numbers, as the compared data might have different total alert numbers. 

Our process is three-fold, consisting of information gathering, verification, and publication.

Information gathering:

The information gathering is performed systematically through diverse but complementary sources including: 

• Established media networks such as journalists’ associations, unions, reporters in several media outlets, etc; 
• A mobile-friendly ReportIt form which enables anyone to submit alerts to the monitoring team
• The News & Tweets Observer, an Artificial Intelligence tool that automatically detects violations which are reported on Twitter or in news articles (more information below)

Verification

Before being published, the alert is verified by our network of experts. Sources are checked and further information is collected from other platforms and publications and through direct communication. 

Publication

If the incident was successfully verified, it is published as an alert on our platform. The alert contains a description of the incident, is geo-tagged, and classified based on our comprehensive category system, and is then viewable through the Alert Explorer.

Types of incidents: We cover incidents regarding physical attacks, harassment/psychological abuse, attacks to property, censorship, and legal incidents. For more details please see the classification system below.

• • Who:  We focus on threats to journalists and media workers. However, due to the complex nature of threats to media freedom we go beyond this and also document threats addressed to:
    • Persons who are being attacked due to their personal or professional connection to journalists and media workers, such as family members or journalists’ sources;
    • Media companies like media owners, media houses, or publishers;
    • Associations like trade unions or Non-Governmental Organisations fighting for press freedom
    • Threats or attacks aimed at the media in general, such as laws restricting press freedom or blocking access to websites or sources of information.
  • Types of journalists or media actors
    • • We categorise journalists and media actors as follows: journalists/editor, photographer/camera operator, translator/fixer, blogger/citizen journalist, whistleblower, media owner/broadcaster
  • Covered region/countries: Our main focus is incidents happening in European Union Member States and candidate countries. This also includes incidents that happened in these countries against individuals from outside Europe i.e. a non-European journalist who is attacked in a European country. Additionally, MapMF holds some historical data from before the start of MFRR in March 2020, including further neighbouring countries which are not maintained or updated anymore. Following a major category revision performed at the same time in order to reflect all threats faced by media workers, alerts recorded before 2020 may not be comparable to the current alerts. 

Each alert is categorised according to different aspects of our comprehensive category system. This allows for a flexible filtering on the Alert Explorer as well as detailed analysis and statistics which can be provided on the press freedom situation regarding different aspects.

The main aspects we classify:

• Type of attack
• Source of attack (type of aggressor)
• Context of attack (place where the attack happened)
• Who was attacked (such as journalist, media company, family member, journalists’ sources) 

For journalists and media workers, we additionally classify further profile information of the victim if it is available:

• Type of journalist or media actor
• Gender
• Employment status

Furthermore, there are also a number of specific topic labels, which allow labelling an alert when it is linked to this topic, such as::

• Coronavirus/COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2
• SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation)
• Environmental reporting
• Racism/Xenophobia
• Gender-based attacks
• Sexual orientation

The category system is regularly updated to reflect all threats faced by media workers. The detailed categories for each aspect above can be viewed within the Alert Explorer by expanding the filter.