About

Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) is an independent media research and policy think tank that seeks to improve the quality of media policymaking and the state of independent media and journalism through research, knowledge sharing and financial support. MJRC continues the work of the Center for Media, Data & Society (CMDS), which until October 2022 operated as a unit of Central European University (CEU).

Research is our core activity. We conduct research about the impact of media and information policy on society and practice, particularly journalism. Besides projects that we generate on our own, we partner with think tanks, academics and journalists to conduct joint research projects and investigations.

You can read more about our work in our strategy, covering the period 2023-2025, launched in November 2022.

We use our research to teach and explain media policy. The center runs courses and workshops at a dozen of universities worldwide, provides trainings and organizes exchanges through workshops, lectures and conferences on current developments in the field.

Our research does not only sit on library shelves.

We take the findings of our research into policy debates and forums and share expertise with practitioners, experts and civil society involved in the policy making process.

We support regulators and market players by providing them expert analysis about policy and legal developments as well as data and information and about media and journalism.

Our reporting includes:

• Bespoke analysis: firsthand accounts on political changes, regulation and policy developments
• Country profiles and comparative reports: description of regulatory and policy frameworks and analysis of regulatory trends across a range of countries
• Data: information about funding and ownership in media and journalism

The Media and Journalism Research Center was founded in 2022 by media scholar and journalist Marius Dragomir who continues here the research work that he carried out in the past as director of the Center for Media, Data & Society. The center is operated by Media and Journalism Research Center OU, an Estonia-incorporated company organized as a social enterprise, funded through philanthropic grants and commercial revenue. Media and Journalism Research Center OU invests all its earnings into in research projects. To date, MJRC has implemented research projects financed by Open Society Foundations (OSF), National Endowment for Democracy (NED), European Union, Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF), Internews Network, and Prague Civil Society Center.

MJRC 2023-2025 strategy

MJRC community of experts

MJRC expertise

The research group Novos Medios was born in 1999 at the Faculty of Communication Sciences at the University of Santiago de Compostela. Led by Prof. Xosé López, the group’s main research focus has been from the beginning on studying the impact of technologies on communication, both on production as well as dissemination and reception. In 2012, Novos Medios merged with the research team led by Carlos Ferrás Sexto, known as GIS-T (Grupo de Investigación Sociedad, Tecnología y Territorio), which led to the creation of a group of 21 researchers who work collaboratively to produce academic contributions from a multi-disciplinary perspective. In the past decade, Novos Medios has led more than 20 publicly funded research projects and carried out work for dozens of practice-oriented projects through contracts with private entities.

See more on Novos Medios website.