Global Media Finances Map
The Global Media Finances Map (GMFM) is the financial and structural backbone of the Media Influence Matrix. It collects and analyzes long-term data on media and information companies, tracking revenues, profits, ownership structures, employment, and market concentration across multiple countries. As of 2025, GMFM has been fully integrated into the Media Influence Matrix framework as part of the Media and Journalism Research Center’s (MJRC) new strategy and methodological revamp.
What GMFM Does
GMFM compiles structured data on media and information companies across a growing number of countries. The project focuses on:
- Company-level revenues, profits and losses, and employment
- Ownership and control structures
- Market concentration and dominant groups
- Cross-border and cross-sector holdings
- Long-term trends in media and information markets
This data supports comparative analysis and provides the economic context for Media Influence Matrix (MIM) country profiles.
GMFM within the Media Influence Matrix
GMFM is now fully embedded in the Media Influence Matrix. Financial and ownership datasets produced by GMFM:
- Feed directly into MIM country pages and profiles
- Support the Provenance and Funding Mapping pillar of the MIM methodology
- Provide time-series data that can be compared across countries and regions
- Help identify patterns of media capture, market dominance, and structural dependency
GMFM continues as a distinct research line, but it shares methods, data structures, and strategic priorities with MIM.
Read more about Media Influence Matrix project
Read more about Provenance and Funding Mapping in the Media Influence Matrix methodology
Data Coverage
GMFM data collection originally focused on media companies, but as of 2024 it has expanded to include a wider range of actors that shape the information ecosystem. The project now covers companies whose economic weight, technological infrastructure, or platform dominance influence how public communication is produced, distributed, and monetized. This includes:
- Traditional media companies: broadcasters, newspapers, magazines, digital-born news outlets
- Public service media organizations
- Large digital platforms that provide access points to information (e.g., search engines, social media, content platforms)
- Artificial intelligence firms whose technologies affect content production, moderation, and distribution
- Technology companies involved in cloud services, hosting, data processing, software infrastructure, and content delivery
- Telecommunications operators that control networks, bandwidth, and national/global distribution infrastructures
- Data brokers and ad-tech companies that influence information flows through targeting and monetization systems
- Hybrid actors (e.g., e-commerce platforms, messaging services) with significant public communication functions
This expanded scope reflects the reality that the information sphere is no longer shaped solely by media institutions. In the AI era, information power is distributed across political, financial, and technological layers, and GMFM provides the economic and structural data needed to understand how these layers interact.
How Data Are Collected
GMFM data are collected from a combination of:
- Company annual reports and financial statements
- Regulatory filings and official registers
- Commercial databases and industry reports
- National statistics and public data sources
- Direct contributions from research partners
All datasets are cleaned, harmonized, and structured so they can be aligned with the MIM methodology and reused in country-level analyses.
Companies & Datasets
Company-level information and datasets used by GMFM are presented through dedicated pages and tools. These include:
- Country-level lists of media and information companies
- Comparative research of journalism support organizations
- Company profiles with financial and ownership data
- Comparative analyses and thematic reports
You can explore these resources here:
Philanthropies Supporting Journalism
AI Companies Involved in Journalism
GMFM Reports
GMFM findings are published in country-focused and thematic reports that examine market structure, financial trends, and ownership patterns in media and information sectors. These reports complement MIM country work by providing deeper financial analysis.
A selection of GMFM reports is available in the Library of Reports, where they are listed alongside other Media Influence Matrix outputs and linked to their original publications on journalismresearch.org.