Professor Jackie Harrison and Dr Diana Maynard gave a presentation entitled 'Towards a journalist risk barometer using AI to understand contextual predictors of violence' at the World Press Freedom Day Academic Conference.
Professor Jackie Harrison (School of Journalism, Media and Communication) and Dr Diana Maynard (School of Computer Science), along with Jos Bartmann (Free Press Unlimited) presented some key results from their project in a panel at the World Press Freedom Day Academic Conference in Brussels on 5 May, 2025.
This collaborative research aims to collect and assess data from a range of sources relating primarily to non-lethal human rights violations, informing the development of a journalist risk barometer through the use of machine learning to identify patterns and indicators, helping to identify contextual risk factors that elevate threats, such as online harassment, legal intimidation, democratic backsliding, civil conflict, and physical violence.
Following an overview of the risk barometer, and an investigation of correlations between legal threats to journalists and political regimes and the extent to which political polarisation amplifies legal threats, Dr Maynard presented some key findings relating to the relationship between democratic indicators and media conflict events, providing insights into which aspects of democracy are most strongly associated with different types of political contention. For example, a strong coorelation is found between restrictions imposed on media and a rise in protests in the following months.
A case study on India between 2010-2023 reveals a democratic erosion process characterised by bidrectional relationships between institutional change and civil resistance. Finally, Prof Harrison discussed some findings from her recent research relating to the diverse communicative scenarios under which news journalism is required to operate by the state, identifying four scenarios of state power and the political communicative conditions they represent.