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“[Freedom of the media is] the freedom for every journalist to report on all issues without having to concern or fear …  about punishment … legal punishment or harassment or being threatened or intimidated by the government or by the powerful people in the business.”

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Why building solidarity is important

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This project aims to interrogate these variations and privilege the voices of media workers in the region in its methods. We employ a variety of methods, from focus group discussions, personal interviews, to exploratory surveys. Through this, we seek to expand our understanding of media freedom in Southeast Asia and transform our research findings into inclusive, operationalisable programmes to support the fight for a freer, democratic Southeast Asia.

In conducting research, it is impossible to avoid questions of positionality. Even with small numbers of participants, they can still tell their own stories. By conducting research as activism to engage, educate, and empower, we aim to answer a simple question: “What does media freedom mean to you, and what immediate steps can we take to achieve it?” Their answers informed the report-writing process, and suggested the importance of creating a media freedom network. While our insights may consider the broad scope of media work, from art to newsmaking, we believe that these findings remain applicable to independent media workers supported by the network.

In our first research report, we discuss the unique experiences faced by independent media workers – those not working in state-owned or affiliated media – in navigating the Southeast Asian media space. Independent media struggle more than their counterparts in mainstream or state-owned media, including how they are targeted by hostile governments. Our conversations with independent media workers about media freedom reveal how various forms of attacks, financial precarity, and a lack of access to information exist – but equally importantly, they also demonstrate resistance. The second uses an exploratory quantitative survey to explore the various threats facing regional media workers. Hard statistics of injustices alone do not sufficiently emphasise existing structural problems, including but not limited to repression within newsrooms and indirect pressure such as harassment and intimidation from the government and the public. There is an urgency for more intersectional and gendered understandings of safety in building a safe and independent regional media scene.

The third takes a different path by outlining pathways towards change,  given that threats against independent media workers also undermine democracy. Our suggestions are not representative of all Southeast Asian media workers, but we emphasise the importance of sustainability and alternative funding models, a cognisance of gendered and marginalised experiences, as well as safety and security – these are starting points for collective action. More overt incidents and statistics of media repression tend to overshadow how threats to media workers unfold in everyday lived experiences, from  job security to gendered discrimination. Therefore, ensuring media freedom and freedom of expression requires an intersectional approach, interwoven with the broader ethos of our media freedom project.

Based on all this research and the findings which emerged along the way, we are now setting out on a fourth series, with individual publications to be released between 2023 and March 2024. Specifically, we aim to platform the gendered experiences of newsmakers from across the region in order to understand the media ecosystem. We set out from a position of wanting to effect change—for this reason, research means taking a political stance. Read our first publication to find out more!

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Explore more publications from the series: