Who owns the 35 most powerful media companies in America? The Media Capitulation Index shows how these conglomerates came to dominate the U.S. media landscape. Using a chicken scale, Free Press rates their ability to defend democracy during a time of authoritarianism.
Democratic Ownership Funds: Creating Shared Wealth and Power
Recent decades have seen a rapid and little-discussed transformation in corporate ownership structure, with vital consequences for company behaviour and inequality.
Could this be the beginning of the end for the billionaire-owned media propaganda blitz?
A campaign to free our national press from foreign billionaires like Rupert Murdoch is gaining momentum and attracting big-name support
Web Browsers, AI, and the Politics of Media Power
The left keeps building media strategies on top of platforms built to undermine them. As browsers are rebuilt for mass surveillance and manipulation, the systems that decide what people see and who gets heard are being rewritten without us. Control over the browser is control over political reality.
The right-wing press: power without responsibility?
Behind the stirring, ostensibly patriotic headlines how much power do the UK’s right-wing press wield, and how much do the public know about it?
Media Influence Matrix – The World's Most Reliable Influence Tracker
This week’s edition reads five FY2025 reports against each other: Dnevnik (Slovenia), Delfi Latvia, Phoenix New Media (China), Hanza Media (Croatia) and Digi Communications (Romania). It finds two publishers separating their journalism from their balance sheets, a Croatian publisher closing a 35-year-old political weekly on a 1.1% net margin, a Chinese state-linked digital news group whose financial centre has quietly shifted from advertising to mini-program reading apps, and a Romanian telecom giant’s having its news channel walk off the must-carry list.
Media and Social Capital
We survey the empirical literature in economics on the impact of media technologies on social capital. Guided by a simple model of information and collective action, we cover a range of different outcomes related to social capital—from social and political participation to interpersonal trust—in its benign and destructive manifestations. The impact of media technologies hinges on their content (information versus entertainment), their effectiveness in fostering coordination, and the networks they create as well as on individual characteristics and media consumption choices.
State Media Monitor Global Dataset 2025
This dataset provides comprehensive information on the governance, funding, and editorial independence of state and public media outlets worldwide. In 2025, the State Media Monitor covers 170 countries, tracking changes in media governance models, funding mechanisms, and degrees of political control. The dataset underpins the annual State Media Monitor Global Study and supports comparative research in journalism, media policy, and governance. Access the full dataset here: https://www.statemediamonitor.com
Elon Musk and the right’s war on Wikipedia
The world's richest man has joined a growing chorus of right-wing voices attacking Wikipedia as part of an intensifying campaign against free and open access information.
Free Our Feeds
Social media is broken: controlled by a handful of billionaires who shape what people see, say, and believe. These platforms profit from division, exploit user data, and lock people into closed systems.
Owning media again - Kedara.eu
This year, one of my aspirations is to rely less on the big streaming services for my entertainment. Why? Well, for one thing, if we give too much power to large corporations by getting overly …
Beating the drums for independent press, publishers, and writers
Whose news? Whose story? Who gets to tell it?
people and governance
researching power and contestation in transnational media infrastructures
Directing the Herd
Social media platforms don’t produce a common public; they produce competing sub-publics, each with its own sense of what everyone knows.
Media Bias/Fact Check News
We are the most comprehensive media bias resource on the internet. There are currently 3900+ media sources listed in our database and growing every day.
How Elon Musk’s Own Account Dominates X (Published 2024)
The billionaire has effectively become the star of his social media platform, transforming X into a reflection of his personal views before the election.
Media Capture Watch — Mapping Big Tech's Influence on Journalism
An interactive investigation into Big Tech and AI companies' funding relationships with journalism and media organizations.