A qualitative companion to the Global Media Freedom Dataset, the Historical Guide to World Media Freedom is an analytical history of media freedom that examines both the concept itself and definitions utilized as evaluation, description, and explanation shifts in the media environment over time. Chapter 1 introduces the topic. Chapter 2 addresses the difficulties in defining and measuring press freedom. Chapter 3 presents an overview of the history of media freedom from the printing press to Twitter. Chapter 4 describes changes and developments in media freedom from 1948 to 2012, in each country. Chapter 5 concludes with challenges to media freedom and patterns. There are references, about the authors, further readings, notes, and Appendix A: Media Freedom by Region, and Appendix B: The Global Media Freedom Dataset: Data Gathering Methods, Guidelines for Using the Data, and Merging the Data with Freedom House Data. Annotation ©2014 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)