Taiwan continued to drop down the list of countries with a free press, a new global study on press freedom shows.

In a survey released on Monday by the Washington-based think tank Freedom House, Taiwan ranked 48th in the world in press freedom last year. It ranked 47th in 2009 and 43rd in 2008.

The nation scored a total of 24 negative points compared with 23 in 2009 and 20 in each of the previous three years.