- Most Africans (72%) support media playing a role in holding governments accountable (Figure 1).
- Support for the media’s watchdog role is the majority position in every surveyed country, ranging above eight in 10 in Mauritius (86%), Nigeria (83%), Uganda (82%), Ghana (82%), Congo-Brazzaville (81%), and Chad (81%).
- And even in countries where support for media reporting on government mistakes and corruption is relatively weak, such as Mozambique (58%), Angola (56%), and São Tomé and Príncipe (54%), only minorities prefer avoiding reporting on negative events.
- Nearly two-thirds (65%) of citizens support media freedom, including majorities in all surveyed countries except Tanzania (49%) and Mali (27%) (Figure 2).
- In several countries, support for media freedom exceeds three-fourths of the population, including Mauritius (86%), Seychelles (85%), Congo-Brazzaville (80%), Lesotho (77%), Chad (76%), and Botswana (76%).
- Assessments of whether the media is free are mixed: 53% of respondents say the media in their country is largely free, but 43% see it as subject to censorship or government interference (Figure 3).
- Perceptions of media freedom vary widely across Africa, from highs of 81% in Tanzania and 77% in Liberia and to just 28% in Comoros and 16% in Congo Brazzaville.
- Across 30 countries surveyed in both 2019/2021 and 2024/2025, perceptions that the media is free have declined by 4 percentage points (Figure 4).
- The largest drops in the share of respondents who perceive the media as free were recorded in Guinea (-34 percentage points), Lesotho (-22 points), Nigeria (-22 points), and Botswana (-20 points).
- Over the same period, Liberia has seen an enormous 58-point jump in perceived press freedom, moving from the least free to the second-most free. Gabon (+24 points) and Zambia (+22 points) also recorded large gains.
- People who see the media in their country as largely free are somewhat less likely to support media freedom than who see their media as unfree (63% vs. 69%) (Figure 5).
Most Africans are supportive of media holding government to account and favour press freedom over government regulation, the latest Afrobarometer Pan-Africa Profile shows.
While support for a free press is a majority position in nearly all surveyed countries, substantial minorities in most countries – and a large majority in Mali – favour government control over what the media can publish.
The new report, based on 45,600 interviews across 38 African countries in 2024/2025, also shows that citizen assessments of whether media freedom is protected in their country are mixed. Only a slim majority see the media in their country as largely free, and that perception has declined slightly over the past half-decade.
The findings further suggest ambivalence: Support for media freedom is somewhat lower among respondents who perceive their country’s media as free than among those who see it as unfree.