An Assessment of Bangladesh’s Media Landscape: Free, Independent, and Pluralistic Media

This study, a collaboration between UNESCO and the UN Development Programme, responds to the increasing calls for reforms of the media sector in Bangladesh, voiced in the wake and aftermath of last summer’s mass uprising. Based on the research conducted between July and December 2024, the lead experts – Dr. Joan Barata Mir of The Future of Free Speech, Vanderbilt University, and Dr. S M Shameem Reza of the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Dhaka – evaluate the legal, political, institutional, and financial challenges that Bangladesh’s landscape is currently facing. These findings inform the report’s key recommendations, grounded in international human rights standards, for legal and institutional reforms.