The Center for Media Research-Nepal (CMR Nepal) has joined the Media and Power Consortium. The consortium runs the Media Influence Matrix, a project launched in 2017 by the Center for Media, Data and Society at the Central European University (CEU).

The CMDS 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 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, its goal is to 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.

The CMR-Nepal will conduct the Media Influence Matrix research in Nepal in 2018 with an aim of launching the report in 2019.

Nicholas Benequista of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), a consortium partner, wrote that Media Influence Matrix “addresses some glaring gaps in our knowledge”: it focuses on countries that are under-researched, gives us a view into the complex political economy of media that other research projects don’t and collects data in a comparative and publicly available format, which is an invaluable resource for researchers, but also for the purposes of peer-to-peer learning.

Bhuwan KC, the chairperson of the CMR-Nepal, said: “We are delighted to join hands with the CMDS and other members of the Media and Power Consortium as Nepal partner and look forward of exchange of knowledge on research and media. We are also excited about launching the Media Influence Matrix research in Nepal as it will be a unique report to understand Nepal’s media landscape in a different perspective.”