CMDS has launched the Media Influence Matrix project to investigate the profound influence that rapid shifts in policy, sources of funding and technology companies in the public sphere are having on journalism today.

The project seeks to research the changing landscape of:

• government and policy space, with a focus on the changes in the policy and regulatory environment; 
• funding, with a focus on the key funding sources of journalism and the impact on editorial coverage; 
• technology in the public sphere, with a focus on how technology companies, through activities such as automation and algorithm-based content distribution, impact news media and journalism.

The project emphasizes news media in particular, including newly emerged players. The study is neither aimed at exhaustively mapping the entire media industry nor is it intended to target specific media sectors. Instead, we map the most popular and most influential news media on a country-by-country basis and analyze their changing relations with politics, government and technology companies.

Media Influence Matrix publishes a series of articles, analytical papers and datasets. They feed into the project’s final output, which will be a collection of country reports and comparative overviews.