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Hooked on the Feed: An Analysis of How Facebook, TikTok, and X Shape Information Consumption in Eastern Europe

Marius Dragomir, Adrian Anton, Eva Bognar et al.

London: Thomson Foundation; Media Journalism Research Center (MJRC) (2025), 69 pp.

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Media Capture Monitoring Report: Overview. The European Media Freedom Act: The solution to Capture or Just Fine Print?

Zsuzsa Detreköi, Marius Dragomir

Vienna: International Press Institute (IPI); Media Journalism Research Center (MJRC) (2025), 30 pp.

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The Capture Effect: How Media Capture Affects Journalists, Markets and Audiences

Marius Dragomir

Central European Journal of Communication, volume 2, issue 36 (2024), pp. 162-184

"As the literature aimed at defining and explaining media capture has grown in recent years so has the interest in documenting the impact of capture in greater depth. There is still a relatively wide gap between the literature focused on defining and describing the concept, which is rich and increas ... more

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How Artificial Intelligence is Changing Media and Journalism in Central Europe: A study mapping the use of AI by newsrooms in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia

Marius Dragomir (ed.)

Thomson Foundation; Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) (2024), 18 pp.

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EU Funding in the Media: An Analysis of Journalism Projects Financed by the European Union

Nikolas Schäfer, Marius Dragomir

Tallinn; London: Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) (2024), 19 pp.

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Investing in Facts: How the Business Community Can Support a Healthy Infosphere
Inspiring Practice

Marius Dragomir

Washington, DC: Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA); Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) (2023), 33 pp.

"This report builds off research conducted in Czechia, Romania, and Serbia by an international team of media experts. The research aimed to identify inspiring and impactful ways that the private sector in these countries is engaging in efforts to counter disinformation and bolster independent journa ... more

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From Puppet to Powerhouse: A Global Study of the Independence of State and Public Media

Marius Dragomir, Astrid Söderström

London: Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC) (2023), 28 pp.

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Matriz de influencia de medios: Argentina. Gobierno, política y regulación

Marius Dragomir (ed.)

Budapest: Data and Society (CMDS) Center for Media (2022), 35 pp.

"En Argentina la libertad de expresión está garantizada oficialmente desde la sanción de la primera constitución en 1853. Los medios de comunicación operan en un marco formal de libertad, no exenta de presiones por parte del Estado y de los intereses comerciales. La prensa escrita no cuenta con ... more

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The Debunking Effect: Recent and Upcoming Challenges for Fact-Checking Organizations
Inspiring Practice

Robert Nemeth, Marius Dragomir

Budapest: Data and Society (CMDS) Center for Media (2022), 50 pp.

"The CEU Democracy Institute's Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) embarked in November 2020 on a one-year project aimed at mapping and analyzing the work of the world's fact-checking groups, with a focus on their challenges, needs and successes. The project started with a survey of 30 fact-ch ... more

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A Framework for Assessing the Role of Public Service Media Organizations in Countering Disinformation

Minna Horowitz, Stephen Cushion, Marius Dragomir, Sergio Gutiérrez, Manjón Pantti, Mervi Pantti

Digital Journalism, volume 10, issue 5 (2022), pp. 843-865

"Public service media (PSM) are widely acknowledged as part of the variety of solutions to disinformation. The remit of PSM, formed around values of universality, equality, diversity, accuracy and quality, implies a responsibility to fight disinformation by producing fact-based news content and find ... more

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The State of State Media: A Global Analysis of the Editorial Independence of State Media and an Introduction of a New State Media Typology

Marius Dragomir, Astrid Söderström

Budapest: Data and Society (CMDS) Center for Media (2021), 93 pp.

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What Keeps Fact-Checking Organizations Up at Night

Robert Nemeth, Marius Dragomir

Budapest: Data and Society (CMDS) Center for Media (2021), 15 pp.

"One of the main challenges for fact-checkers seems to be to better and more effectively reach their audience. That means, on the one hand, improved skills and capacity to reach out to a specific group of followers, but also techniques to more efficiently use social media as an audience generation t ... more

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Media Influence Matrix: Jordan. Technology, Public Sphere and Journalism

Mohammad Abu Hawash, Marius Dragomir

Budapest: Data and Society (CMDS) Center for Media (2021), 28 pp.

"As for internet use, the percentage of the population with access to internet rose to 89% in 2019 from 48% in 2015. Access to a mobile phone and internet in Jordan has become a matter of choice rather than affordability or accessibility. The Syrian refugee crisis explains the overshooting in mobile ... phone penetration in Jordan during the 2010s. During the past decade, the Jordanian telecommunications industry has transformed from duopoly to oligopoly. Jordan’s three major telecommunications companies together worked to protect their positions in the Jordanian telecoms market. The market saw constant growth and a rapid introduction of new media technologies. Due to these technological advancements, the country has become known in the region as an increasingly influential tech hub [...] In the public sphere, Jordan has experienced an unstable legal and regulatory landscape for the media. The government constantly revises its audiovisual media and publications laws. This places those media networks with a proximity to the state at an advantage, since they have deeper insight into the expectations of the state. Independent media, on the other hand, suffers from the successive governments’ meddling in the foundational laws of the media industry. The work of journalists has been often obstructed by the blocking of hundreds of websites for failing to comply with one or another rendition of the publications law. Many journalists found their employers losing investors and/or funding after the state issued a registration requirement for websites publishing content out of Jordan. Due to strong public pressure, this requirement in the publications law was later revised. Jordan’s journalism sphere had a more difficult decade than the technology field. Restrictions on internet access and high taxes on independent media (compared with tax-exemption status for some media agencies that are close to the government) hurt several media organizations. Stagnation and decline in consumption of print media added to the woes. Jordanian newspapers are enjoying higher readership than ever but also the lowest revenues per reader in history. This is due to declining subscription rates. Jordanian journalists were stunned in the first half of the 2010s to see Jordan’s daily newspaper Al-Arab Al-Yawm end print circulation and shut down operations completely a few years later. Subscriptions to daily newspapers declined by 50% compared to their 2000s levels." (Pages 4-5) more

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Media Influence Matrix: Slovakia

Marius Dragomir

Budapest: Data and Society (CMDS) Center for Media, 2nd, updated ed. (2020), 110 pp.

"Seemingly, Slovaks have access to a wealth of news sources. In reality, though, the market is concentrated in the hands of a few large players. Powerful financial groups such as Penta Investments and J&T, and a handful of magnates including Ivan Kmotrik and Andrej Babis (who is also Czech Republic� ... ��s prime minister) exert decisive influence in the ownership of most major media companies. They are also close to politicians (if they are not themselves one), which means big leverage in regulatory affairs. The entry on the Slovak market of PPF, a Czech financial group led by another wealthy oligarch, Petr Kellner, which bought Markiza TV in 2019, is further cementing the oligarchic control in the country’s media. The Antimonopoly Office of the Slovak Republic known as PMU is much responsible for the shape of the Slovak media market. It has been the PMU that approved a spate of merger cases allowing the expansion of some media owners. Decisions by the PMU in 2015-2016 allowed Penta Investments to take over several major publishers. It was one of these deals that prompted journalists from the daily Sme (acquired by Penta) to leave and set up DennikN. Civil society exerts little influence. International groups are not effective either. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), a Vienna-based intergovernmental group, has some political leverage, but that does not materialize in any earth-shattering policy changes or palpable improvements for journalists. For example, in early March 2018, Harlem Desir, the head of media at OSCE, called on Slovak authorities in a meeting in Bratislava to investigate the killing by unknown assaulters in February 2018 of the Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciak. Instead, two months later, Slovak police began to harass Pavla Holcova, a Slovak journalist who was trying to help with the police investigation. It was only after massive pressures from citizens and journalism groups from abroad that four people were finally charged in October 2019 over Kuciak’s killing. Besides regulation, tightly controlled by authorities and highly politicized, the government plays also a direct role in the Slovak media market. Funding from license fees collected from all Slovak households and state budget makes the public broadcaster RTVS the largest player in the country’s media with a budget in excess of €115m. That is not necessarily bad. For some years, the Slovak public got its money’s worth. The station earned a feather in its cap for improved programming." (Key findings, pages 6-7) more

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Reporting Facts: Free from Fear or Favour

Marius Dragomir

Paris: UNESCO (2020), 52 pp.

"In a growing number of countries around the world, the greatest menace to editorial independence and professional standards is media capture, a form of media control achieved through a series of premeditated steps taken by governments and powerful interest groups, which undermines journalism as a p ... more

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Media Capture in Europe

Marius Dragomir

Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) (2019), 25 pp.

"The collusion between the political class and media owners [in Central and Eastern Europe] has reached unprecedented levels, leading to a phenomenon known as media capture, a situation where most or all of the news media institutions are operating as part of a government-business cartel that contro ... more

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Media Influence Matrix: Romania. Technology, Public Sphere and Journalism

Dumitrita Holdis, Marius Dragomir

Budapest: Data and Society (CMDS) Center for Media CEU School of Public Policy (2019), 23 pp.

"Convergence of services usually affects the quality and price of services offered by providers. However, this has not been the case in Romania yet. People benefit from a very competitive market and enjoy fairly cheap services, but the implications of convergence on the content made available to con ... more

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International Media Development: Historical Perspectives and New Frontiers
Top Insights

Nicholas Benequista, Susan Abbott, Paul Rothman, Winston Mano (eds.)

New York et al.: Peter Lang (2019), xv, 277 pp.

"This collection is the first of its kind on the topic of media development. It brings together luminary thinkers in the field—both researchers and practitioners—to reflect on how advocacy groups, researchers, the international community and others can work to ensure that media can continue to s ... more

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Control the Money, Control the Media: How Government Uses Funding to Keep Media in Line

Marius Dragomir

Journalism, volume 19, issue 8 (2018), pp. 1-18

"The media industry has been ravaged by the economic crises. Some media, mainly those covering tabloid fare and digitally savvier than others or those backed by deep-pocketed investors, are surviving or even thriving. But independent journalism outfits, particularly outside the Western world, have b ... more

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Case Studies on Paywall Implementation: Gazeta Wyborzca and Malaysiakini

Marius Dragomir, Dumitrita Holdis, Ian M. Cook

New York; Prague: Media Development Investment Fund (MDIF) (2018), 27 pp.

"When Wyborcza.pl was launched back in 2008, besides its quality, one of the best things about it was that its content was freely accessible. Once the paywall was up in 2012, the publisher had to find a way to present this content differently. According to Bregula, this was the most important task w ... more

Investing in Facts: How the Business Community Can Support a Healthy Infosphere Inspiring Practice

The Debunking Effect: Recent and Upcoming Challenges for Fact-Checking Organizations Inspiring Practice

International Media Development: Historical Perspectives and New Frontiers Top Insights

Investing in Facts: How the Business Community Can Support a Healthy Infosphere
Inspiring Practice

The Debunking Effect: Recent and Upcoming Challenges for Fact-Checking Organizations
Inspiring Practice

International Media Development: Historical Perspectives and New Frontiers
Top Insights