Marius Dragomir

Marius Dragomir is an award-winning media scholar and journalist, now serving as the director of the Media and Journalism Research Center (MJRC), a global think tank dedicated to the study of media, journalism, politics, and technology. He is also a researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain and has served as a visiting professor at Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, where he taught courses on journalism, research design, advocacy, and policy engagement. Dragomir has received the 2025 Media and Democracy Karol Jakubowicz Award for his original and rigorous research on media ownership and regulatory frameworks. He has designed and led numerous regional and global comparative research projects, including: Media Influence Matrix, which investigates power relations and undue influence in news media across nearly 60 countries; Global Ownership Project, which maintains a comprehensive database of prominent media companies worldwide, focusing on ownership and funding sources; State Media Monitor, which tracks key developments in state media across 170 countries; and Media Capture Monitoring Report: A collaborative project with the International Press Institute, which contributed to his recognition with the Karol Jakubowicz Award.

Prior to founding MJRC, Dragomir directed the Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) at CEU and managed the global research and policy portfolio for the Program on Independent Journalism (PIJ) at the Open Society Foundations in London. He was a lead editor for the Mapping Digital Media project (covering 56 countries) and the main writer/editor for Television Across Europe, a comparative study of broadcast policies in 20 European countries.

Dragomir has also published extensively for organizations such as UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the Open Society Foundations, and the World Bank.