Knight Center director Eric Freedman recently gave two guest lectures at the University of Turku in Finland, sponsored by its Centre for East Asia Studies.
One lecture explored government efforts, primarily in Asia, to suppress cyber-dissent, including the imprisonment of bloggers and online dissidents, censorship, violation of international human rights, monitoring of blogs and websites, surveillance laws and blocking of oppositional websites.

Freedman also discussed the limited effectiveness of free press and free expression nongovernmental organizations in pressuring authoritarian regimes to loosen their constraints on the media, including social media and the Web.
His second lecture focused on recent trends in journalism and mass media research. They include growing scholarly attention to journalism practices and the media in developing countries, as well as research about nonprofit news organizations, changes in how newsrooms operate and diversity among news personnel.
During his visit, he also met with faculty of the university’s John Morton Center for North American Studies.