In 2021 Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) alongside several partners launched Pluralis, an impact investment mechanism to support independent media across Europe. The focus of the fund is on media captured environments.
As part of its efforts to measure the impact of the fund, Pluralis with feedback from Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) has developed an Impact Dashboard where it assesses media outlets it invests in from three vantage points, namely long-term sustainability, plurality, and accessibility to information.
As part of this initiative, MJRC has been invited by the MDIF to provide expertise on independent media at risk of powerful business and state capture. This expertise fed into the creation of a Media Plurality Matrix aimed at evaluating if the investments Pluralis make help to “shift the balance of power that captured media outlets have over the audience in each market.” Our center has also worked on estimating the audience reach of captured media versus that of independent media with a view to understand the impact that Pluralis has on society.
For more details, please, see the Pluralis Impact Dashboard.