Study Launched: How to Measure Information Pluralism in the Age of Automated Communication
The Media and Journalism Research Center has published a new study, Who Owns the Answer: Pluralism and Power in the Automated Information Order, by Marius Dragomir. The report argues that traditional tools for measuring information pluralism are no longer enough in a world where citizens increasingly receive information through automated answers rather than through direct visits to newspapers, broadcasters or news websites.
For decades, media pluralism research has focused on who owns media outlets, how they are financed, how large their audiences are and whether they are editorially independent. These questions remain essential. But the study says they now capture only part of the picture. AI assistants and other digital interfaces are now overwhelmingly used to summarise, rank, personalise and deliver public knowledge directly to users.
The study is based on document analysis, a review of the emerging literature on AI, platforms and journalism, and interviews with regulatory experts in Europe conducted between September 2025 and February 2026.
The report introduces the concept of the Automated Information Order to describe this new environment. It also proposes mapping what it calls the Automated Information Infrastructure: the training data, AI models, computing power, user interfaces and alignment systems that shape automated answers.
One of the study’s central arguments is that power over information is moving from visible media institutions to less visible infrastructure. A news organisation may still produce original reporting, but an automated system may decide whether that reporting is cited, summarised, ignored or replaced by a short answer. This creates new risks for public-interest journalism, especially for local, regional, minority-language and smaller independent media.
To address this, the study proposes a practical framework called the Pluralism and Information Control Framework. It combines classical media-pluralism data with new indicators on automated systems, including source visibility, licensing inclusion, attribution, interface use and infrastructure dependencies.
The report also shows what data the framework would need if applied to seven jurisdictions: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Brazil, India and the Netherlands. It concludes that regulators, researchers and civil society should begin mapping automated information systems now, before today’s market structures become too entrenched to challenge.
Access the full study here.
Cite the study
Dragomir, M. (2026). Who Owns the Answer: Pluralism and Power in the Automated Information Order. Media and Journalism Research Center. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20322621
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