Centennial Honors College
Western Illinois University
Undergraduate Research Day 2014
Poster Presentation
Sweden’s Press Freedom and How They Compare to Other Democratic Nations
Luke Johnson
Faculty Mentor: Yong Tang
Journalism
The purpose of this research is to look at the history and the present practices of the
country of Sweden’s media system from a media law perspective. This paper delves
into how Sweden’s media law conceptions and practices compare and contrast with
those of the United States and how different legal protections result in different press
freedoms. The research is primarily on the press freedom of each country and where
they rank against each other and other Western democracies. The study demonstrates
that, in general, that Sweden has much more press freedom than the United States.
This paper attempts to explain why Sweden and the rest of Scandinavia have the
highest rankings in the world. This article also provides some suggestions on how to
bring up the United States’ press freedom ranking. This study will be taking press
freedom rankings from Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, IREX and
Committee to Protect Journalists to compare and contrast how Sweden and America
has protected/trampled freedom of the press since 9/11 in 2001.