“It’s the Economy, Stupid!”, Is it not? The Relationship between Press Freedom and the Status of the Economy in Western Media Systems.

Abstract

The existing literature presents several studies which show that thelevels of press freedom can affect the state of the economy. Whathas not thus far been investigated is whether the economy canaffect the levels of press freedom, the specific economicconditions that mainly affect it and the differences among variouscountries. This study attempts to analyze the impact of economicconditions on the degree of press freedom, in 18 countries of thewestern world based on a quantitative analysis for the period2002–2019, and advance our understanding of this relationship.Wefind that the state of the economy within a country can affectthe level of press freedom while the effects of economicconditions on the degree of press freedom seem to vary amongdifferent media systems of the western world.