As part of its new strategic plan for 2026–2028, the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) has launched the Media Content Analysis Series—a research initiative that uses cutting-edge technologies and in-house expertise to design and carry out in-depth analyses of content drawn from media outlets, social media, and other digital platforms.
This project serves two core purposes:
a). To conduct rigorous content analysis on issues of significant public interest, contributing to informed public discourse;
b). To support MJRC’s financial independence by offering high-quality content analysis as a commercial service. Revenue generated from this work helps sustain the Center’s autonomy in selecting, conducting, and disseminating its research.
Content Mapping & Monitoring
Our content monitoring and mapping work is designed to track how topics, actors, and narratives are portrayed across various types of media, using scalable AI-supported analysis grounded in human expertise. This work can be used to measure visibility, framing, imbalance, or evolution of specific issues or entities across time, geography, or media ecosystems.
What We Can Analyze
MJRC’s media analysis capabilities are designed to be flexible and multi-modal, allowing us to process a wide range of content types across various platforms. This enables targeted analysis of how topics, actors, and narratives appear in public discourse across different media environments.
MJRC prioritizes responsible, transparent data practices. Therefore, content is collected using official APIs, licensed databases, or compliant scraping methods, depending on the context and access terms. We adhere strictly to platform policies, intellectual property laws, and ethical guidelines, ensuring all analyses are both technically sound and legally robust. Organizations that want to partner with us in this work may also contribute their own data sources to be integrated into the workflow when relevant.
What We Can Monitor & Map
Once content is collected and processed, MJRC’s system allows for structured, targeted analysis across a range of dimensions. Whether the goal is to understand how a company is framed in local media, track shifts in coverage of a social issue, or compare narrative trends across countries, we offer a modular framework to map media attention, sentiment, and bias with precision and contextual awareness.
To carry out this analysis, organizations that want to partner with us or clients who want to use our services may provide their own coding schemes or rely on MJRC’s internal expertise to define meaningful analytical categories.
- In the first case, we integrate the client’s indicators or typologies directly into the workflow.
- In the second case, MJRC experts draw on their research and policy knowledge to design appropriate framing or categorization strategies aligned with the project’s goals.
In both approaches, classification is supported by reasoning-aware AI, enabling not just surface-level but contextual interpretation. Leading language models are guided by tailored prompts, logic chains, and rule-based checks to ensure outputs align with both the coding criteria and the social context. Where appropriate, iterative or multi-step reasoning (“agentic” frameworks) can be employed for deeper interpretability. Human validation is embedded throughout, especially when nuance or ambiguity is involved.
How Insights Are Delivered
Once the analysis is complete, the findings can be delivered in a range of formats, tailored to the needs and capacities of our partners and clients. Whether the goal is internal decision-making, public communication, or academic publishing, MJRC ensures that the insights are presented in a clear, actionable, and visually engaging way.
Each format can include charts, timelines, coverage heatmaps, comparative breakdowns, or framing insights, all grounded in transparent methodology and expert interpretation. Where appropriate, MJRC may also support contextual framing of the results, helping translate analytical insights into strategic narratives, advocacy tools, or media engagement strategies.
Publications
Humanitarian Crisis Coverage Report (2025)
The Humanitarian Crisis Coverage Report offers a data-driven analysis of how media attention is distributed across 10 major humanitarian emergencies. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, the study reveals deep imbalances in coverage, critically interrogates how media frames these crises, and assesses how journalistic trends may influence public perception, humanitarian policy, and funding patterns.
The central research question — to what extent media representation aligns with crisis severity — underpins an analysis of 78,667 news articles spanning 10 of the world’s most urgent humanitarian crises, from Sudan and Ethiopia to Ukraine and Gaza. Drawing from English-language media in eight countries, the study is based mostly on Western sources and three non-Western outlets to offer a cross-sectional view of editorial priorities in the Anglophone information ecosystem.
Key findings demonstrate that global humanitarian coverage is highly uneven. Crises in Gaza and Ukraine dominate international media attention, averaging 58.5 and 19.4 articles per day, respectively. Conversely, some of the world’s most devastating, yet protracted crises—including those in Chad (0.06 articles/day) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (1.5 articles/day)—receive little sustained attention. This disproportionate focus does not correlate with humanitarian severity or affected populations. For example, the DRC, where over 21 million people need aid, garners a fraction of the visibility of Gaza, which affects 3.3 million people.
Support independent media research – your donation helps keep our work open.
Donate