Media and Journalism Research Center

08/09/2026

We were very pleased to see our work cited by the Maharat Foundation in its latest analysis of the developments around Lebanon’s Draft Media Law. This report was prepared as part of the project “Support to Media Reform in Lebanon to Enhance Freedom of Expression,” with the support of the European Union.
After more than sixteen years of discussions, consultations, and parliamentary deliberations, the Draft Media Law is now closer than ever to becoming law. This would mark a major step forward for media legislation in Lebanon and one of the most significant reforms the sector has seen in decades.
The proposed law would modernize the legal framework in several important ways, including replacing criminal sanctions with civil liability for publication-related offences, strengthening protections for journalists and their sources, increasing transparency around media ownership and financing, promoting media pluralism, and creating a more independent regulatory framework.
We were also glad to see our Director, Marius Dragomir, quoted in the analysis. Marius described the shift from criminal sanctions to civil liability as the defining achievement of the Draft Media Law.
He also spoke about the risks of broadly criminalizing false information. As he explained, democratic states generally do not create broad criminal offences simply because information is considered false. From a European perspective, Hungary provides an important example of how vaguely worded false-information provisions can be used in practice not necessarily against powerful disinformation networks, but against critics, journalists, and dissenting voices.
You can read the report below:

Maharat is a catalyst, defending and advancing the development of democratic societies governed by the values of freedom of expression and respect for human rights.

08/09/2026

We recently released a new study: the Hungary edition of the AI Information Map, a research project looking at which news and information sources AI systems surface when people ask questions about news, politics and public affairs.

The new Hungary study examines 10 major AI systems, including ChatGPT-4, Gemini, Claude Code, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok and DeepSeek. Researchers asked the same questions in both English and Hungarian, drawing on around 320,000 archived AI responses. The study looks not only at which sources AI systems cite, but also at which ones they recommend, warn users about, or associate with disinformation.

It also takes a closer look at Index.hu Zrt, which ranked as the 10th most-used source overall, accounting for 1.1% of all citations, and the fourth most-used Hungarian newsroom. Launched in 1999 from the earlier Internetto, Index.hu has been one of Hungary’s most-read news sites for more than two decades.

Hungary is the third country covered by MJRC’s AI Information Map, following earlier studies in Romania and Spain.
The wider project explores how AI is becoming a new intermediary between audiences and journalism deciding which sources to select, rank and recommend, and sometimes which ones to leave out, before users ever reach the original reporting. Find out more below!

https://journalismresearch.org/2026/08/ai-information-map-which-sources-ai-systems-surface-in-hungary/

The Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) has published the Hungary edition of its AI Information Map, a research project examining which sources AI systems make visible when people ask questions about news, politics and public affairs. The new Hungary study tests 10 major AI systems, includin...

07/09/2026

We're pleased to see our work cited in evidence submitted to the UK Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee as part of its inquiry into the BBC Royal Charter Review.

The UK government reviewed the BBC’s Royal Charter, which expires at the end of 2027. What gets decided now will shape the BBC for the next decade and beyond. Earlier this year, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport invited the public to respond to its Green Paper as part of the review.
The Committee is looking at some pretty fundamental questions about the BBC’s future: what its purpose should be, how it should be governed, and how it should be funded under the next Charter, which takes effect in 2028.

The evidence cites Marius Dragomir’s April 2026 study for MJRC, The Architecture of Media Capture: Typologies, Global Patterns, and the Tech Threat.

It’s a study we were excited about because it looks at the different ways media capture happens in practice. Using the Capture Typology Framework (CTF), the model Marius introduced in 2019, the study maps six different forms of media capture across Europe, the Middle East and the United States, from Hungary’s state-restructuring model and Turkey’s family-business model to Egypt’s intelligence-services model, Russia’s proto-authoritarian model, Israel’s billionaire-patron model and the tech-oligarchic model emerging in the United States.
We also recently featured the study on our podcast, on Spotify and it’s encouraging to see this work now contributing to an important public debate about the BBC’s future.

BBC Charter Review: The British Broadcasting Challenge calls for a permanent, independent BBC free from government influence

28/08/2026

As part of our State Media Monitor 2026 update, we're pleased to share our latest assessment of State and Public Media in South Asia.
South Asia is home to nearly 1.99 billion people almost a quarter of the world's population across eight countries, from India, with 1.46 billion people, to the Maldives, with just over half a million. Across the region, State Media Monitor maps 21 state media organisations.
Our analysis finds that 15 organisations—around seven in ten—are State-Controlled, meeting all three Matrix criteria: predominant state funding, state ownership or governance, and editorial control. Another five are classified as Captured Public, four of them in Sri Lanka.
There is just one exception. Kuensel, Bhutan's national newspaper, is the region's only organisation classified as Independent State-Managed/Owned. While it remains majority state-owned, its editorial independence is demonstrated in practice, even though it is not formally guaranteed by law.

Find out more below!
https://statemediamonitor.com/2026/08/state-and-public-media-in-south-asia-reform-on-paper-control-in-practice/

25/08/2026

As part of our Media Funding Series, building on an older, smaller study, we have just launched a new publication mapping more than €1 billion in EU funding for media and journalism related projects.
Tracing the Flows examines beneficiary-level funding recorded between 2014 and 2024 and provides a structural picture of how this money was distributed, through which institutions and for what kinds of activities.
The study covers €1.0615 billion in contracted amounts, 6,103 beneficiary entries and 2,166 organisations and entities.
We hope that the study will help establish a clearer evidence base for the next stage of work.
The research separates support-oriented funding from procurement spending, allowing journalism support, media development, research, audiovisual work and related activities to be distinguished from communication campaigns, media buying, monitoring, events and other services purchased by EU institutions.
The study does not assess individual grants or programmes. Instead, it provides a transparent and reproducible baseline that researchers can build on, policymakers can use to examine funding structures, and media organisations and advocates can draw on when making the case for better-designed, more accessible and more responsive support.
A study authored by Marius Dragomir and Flora Alfiero. Accompanied by a searchable database.

The Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) has launched Tracing the Flows, a new study providing a comprehensive structural analysis of European Union funding connected to media and journalism over an eleven-year period, between 2014 and 2024. Drawing on the EU Financial Transparency System, th...

25/08/2026

A new episode of our Audio briefs is out and this time, we look at the United States and the emergence of a new form of media capture shaped by tech power, platforms, regulation, and changing business models.
How is the relationship between media, politics, and Big Tech evolving? And what does the American case tell us about the future of media capture around the world?
Tune in to Spotify find out.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Gz9kO40cHkoWTpCjDKSLy?si=91835fafac3c461e&nd=1&dlsi=6cb6bae49a844a9e

MJRC Audio Briefs · Episode

11/08/2026

What does protecting journalists in times of war really mean?
A new report by Maharat Foundation examines the urgent need to protect journalists covering armed conflicts.
The report documents the risks journalists faced during the Israeli war on Lebanon, including direct attacks, harassment, and domestic pressures that hindered reporting and restricted access to information. Many also experienced displacement and harsh living conditions, further limiting their ability to work.
It warns that attacks on journalists not only endanger media workers but also undermine the public's right to information and the documentation of wartime violations.
While international conventions and legal frameworks exist to protect journalists, the report argues that implementation remains weak and offers key recommendations to strengthen protections.
From a European perspective, Marius Dragomir, our director, explains in a recorded video the international agreements that underpin press freedom protections. He also highlights the policies and mechanisms developed by the Council of Europe and the European Union to improve journalists' safety and strengthen responses to threats against the media.
Alongside Marius, the report features interventions from Nizar Saghieh (Legal Agenda), Jad Shahrour (Samir Kassir Foundation), Nagham Rabih, Mohamad Kleit, and Mohamad Zanaty.

This report was prepared as part of the project “Support to Media Reform in Lebanon to Enhance Freedom of Expression,” with the support of the European Union.

Media Crews Under Threat: Between the Fires of War and Domestic Pressures

11/08/2026

Most people won't meet quantum computing through a big breakthrough, but through a bank login, a phone update, a digital certificate renewing in the background.
Our Signal #7 of the Secure Internet Observatory looks at the latest development in the quantum tech: security firms shipping tools to help organisations find their own encryption, governments turning post-quantum security into a supplier requirement, Europe naming who will coordinate its quantum networks.
All of it this is infrastructure. And infrastructure decides who is protected by default, who has to pay, and who waits for a vendor to move.
With practical questions for newsrooms and eight story angles for reporters.
Available now on MJExchange.

Login to Media and Journalism Exchange community via email or SSO today.

07/08/2026

In a recent Journalism Studies article, Jacob Nelson and Seth Lewis argue that simply being transparent is not enough to rebuild public trust in journalism. Instead, they suggest that news organizations should practice what they call capital transparency—being open about how financial considerations shape their work and acknowledging the tension between commercial pressures and journalism's public service mission.

The authors recognize that this kind of honesty may expose uncomfortable truths and is unlikely to restore trust in the news industry overnight. But they argue it can make individual journalists more credible, help audiences distinguish outlets that genuinely serve the public interest from those driven mainly by profit, and, in the long run, strengthen trust in public interest journalism.

Our colleague Robert Nemeth has summarized the article for the Journalism Funders Forum newsletter, which our center curates in partnership with Philea - Philanthropy Europe Association.

In a research article in Journalism Studies, Jacob L. Nelson and Seth C. Lewis argue that transparency alone cannot rebuild trust; news organisations must

06/08/2026

What are the limits of regulating AI-generated political campaign speech in Hungary? In a new article for Frontiers, our expert Zsuzsa Detrekoi explores the legal and regulatory challenges posed by AI-generated, fear-based political communication.

Using the example of a widely shared Hungarian election campaign video depicting a fictional wartime scenario, the article examines how emotionally charged AI-generated content can frame electoral choices as matters of survival. It also considers what this means for the boundaries of lawful political speech in today's digital media landscape.

The article argues that the key issue is not whether fear-based campaign speech should be banned, but whether existing regulatory frameworks are equipped to address the increasingly sophisticated forms of AI-generated political communication in digitally mediated environments.

This article examines the regulatory challenges posed by AI-generated, fear-based political communication through the example of a Hungarian election campaig...