Argentina

Guillermo Néstor Mastrini

Guillermo Néstor Mastrini holds a PhD in Information Sciences from the Complutense University of Madrid. He works as a Professor of International Communication Policies and Introduction to Cultural Industries at the National University of Quilmes where he co-founded the Master’s Degree Program in Cultural Industries. He is also Professor at the University of Buenos Aires. Mastrini is a CONICET Research Associate. He is the author of several books including Las políticas de comunicación del Siglo XXI (2013), Los dueños de palabra (with Martín Becerra) (2009), Periodistas y magnates. Estructura y concentración de las industrias culturales en América Latina (2006) jointly with Martín Becerra) and Mucho ruido, pocas leyes. Economía y política en la comunicación en la Argentina (1920-2004) (2005), among others. He was the President of the Argentine Federation of Social Communication Careers and Director of the Communication Sciences Career of the University of Buenos Aires.

Carla Belén Repetto

Carla Belén Repetto holds a degree in Social Communication from the National University of Quilmes (UNQ). She works as a researcher in the Research Training Scholarship Program for Students in their final stage of the Degree Career (known as BEFI) and studies business models in broadcasting media in Buenos Aires. She is also a member of the Research Center Cultural Industries, Communication Policies and Public Space (ICEP) of the Department of Social Sciences of UNQ.

Martín Razzeto

Martín Razzeto has a degree in Social Communication from the National University of Quilmes (UNQ). He is a teaching and research fellow at the same university and studies pay television companies and content producers.

Bulgaria

Mariia Altergot

Mariia Altergot was a researcher with the Center for Media, Data and Society. She graduated from the MA program of the School of Public Policy at Central European University (CEU) where she focused her studies on media and Internet policies. Mariia is from Russia, and holds a BA in Political Science and Policy and Communications from American University in Bulgaria.

Colombia

Gabriel Ernesto Levy Bravo

A professional in the field of communications, with a postgraduate degree in digital communication, Levy is an advisor and consultant in ICT, communications, and digital transformation. He is a professor and researcher at the universities of Antioquia and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, and works as an academic coordinator of Andinalink, one of the most prominent telecommunications fairs in Latin America.

María Cecilia Hernández Ocampo

A social communicator and journalist, Hernández has a Master’s degree in Communications in Digital Communication from the University of Antioquia (Medellin, Colombia). She has extensive experience in formulating, designing, and implementing 360° communication strategies, as well as editing. Hernández has experience in academic research in social sciences. She is a producer of digital and analog content and has carried out audience analysis and virtual community management. She has studied film and gender and feminism issues.

María Paula Ángel Benavides

Ángel has a degree in social communications from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia). She is attending a Master’s degree in Communication and Media at the Budapest-based university ELTE with the Stipendium Hungaricum scholarship. Ángel has experience working in media, higher education institutions, and non-governmental organizations.

Czech Republic

Marius Dragomir

Marius Dragomir is the Founding Director of the Media and Journalism Research Center, which continues the work of the Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS), which he led between 2016 and 2022. Dragomir previously worked for the Open Society Foundations (OSF) for over a decade where he managed the research and policy portfolio of the Program on Independent Journalism (PIJ), formerly the Network Media Program (NMP), in London. He has also been one of the main editors for PIJ’s flagship research and advocacy project, Mapping Digital Media, which covered 56 countries worldwide, and he was the main writer and editor of OSF’s Television Across Europe, a comparative study of broadcast policies in 20 European countries.

Georgia

Giorgi Jangiani

Giorgi Jangiani is a results-driven media policy professional with research expertise in disinformation, media business, and digital policy. He holds an MA in European Public Policy from the University of York and Central European University and previously led the USAID-funded Strengthening Democratic Resilience in Georgia Program at People in Need, which brought together regional fact-checking organizations, media outlets, and universities in Georgia to counter disinformation through a multi-level approach. He currently works as a consultant for the Brussels-based Global Forum for Media Development (GFMD). His research is focused on election-related disinformation and online content regulations in the Eastern Partnership countries.

Ekaterine Basilaia

Ekaterine Basilaia is a lecturer and a researcher at Tbilisi State University. She is co-author of the book “The Role and Limitations of non- Governmental Policy Advocacy in Georgia: Groups and Media in Agenda-Setting” (2016). She was a senior researcher in Georgia for the Horizon 2020 WOSCAP project (2016-2017), studying the EU’s engagement and communication strategies in Georgia. Besides her academic background in the past years, she has co- authored the country reports on the state of the media for Media Sustainability Index by International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX).

Research contributor

Levani Tevdoradze

India

Vibodh Parthasarathi

Vibodh Parthasarathi maintains a multidisciplinary interest in media policy and creative industries. On extraordinary leave during 2017-19 from his tenure at Jamia Millia Islamia, he has been awarded visiting positions at the University of Queensland and at KU Leuven, besides at CPS, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. His latest work is the co-edited double volume The Indian Media
Economy (OUP 2018).

Simran Agarwal

Simran Agarwal is a media research scholar and a project associate at the Centre for Policy Studies, IITB. She holds a Master’s degree in Media Governance from Jamia Millia Islamia where she developed a keen interest in the political economy of the media and in narrowing the wide disconnect between media policy priorities and society. She was previously in the team producing the annual Free Speech Report by The Hoot.

Manisha Venkat

Manisha Venkat is an undergraduate in media studies from the College of Media at the University of Illinois where she primarily focused on advertising and creative industries. She is simultaneously interested in the media economy of developing countries and the factors that influence it.

Research assistants

Kripa Fernandes

Prem Sylvester

Shivani Chunekar

Shubhangi Heda

Tushita Shekhar

Indonesia

Nurma Fitrianingrum

Nurma Fitrianingrum has graduated from the School of Public Policy at Central European University where she obtained a Master’s degree in Public Policy focusing on Media and Communication. She now works as Junior Policy Analyst at the Department of Public Policy and Management, Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia. Prior to her studies at CEU, she had also worked as a researcher at the think tank Institute for Research and Empowerment in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Her areas of interest are public policy formulation and social media, particularly related to social media governance amidst disinformation campaigns.

Lisette Reuvers

Lisette Reuvers is a student of Global Public Policy (MUNDUS MAPP) at Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) and previously at Central European University. Her academic background is in social sciences, with a focus on inequality issues in the Netherlands and beyond. In her professional life she has worked on projects surrounding issues of youth, education and inequality in the Netherlands. She is also interested in journalism and aims to become an investigative journalist at some point in her life.

Israel

Roni Dorot

Roni Dorot received her PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the European University Institute, Florence, and holds a MA in Public Policy from Tel-Aviv University. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center of Conflict, Negotiation and Recovery, at the School of Public Policy, CEU. Her dissertation, “Dead End: Israeli Militarism and the Dynamics of State Retribution”, examines the history of political revenge and the genealogy of retaliation discourses in the Jewish press within the context of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Her previous research analyzed the governmental outcomes of Israeli municipalities from a comparative perspective. She is a recipient of the Sapir Price for municipal studies (in Israel), the Istituto Italiano di Cultura scholarship and the EUI excellence fellowship. She currently writes for Haaretz newspaper her blog ‘Documania’ where she critically analyses documentaries from a cultural and sociological perspective.

Italy

Matteo Trevisan

Matteo Trevisan is an Italian researcher dedicated to Freedom of Expression and Information. He holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Research and Studies on Eastern Europe from the University of Bologna, Kaunas and Saint Petersburg, and a BA in Political Sciences, Social and International. After graduating, he worked as one of the editors, researchers and curators of the Resource Centre on Media Freedom lead by Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa (OBCT) within the project European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF). Previously he moved to Belgrade to experience a traineeship at the Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia (IJAS), where he participated in the analysis of Serbia’s progress in the EU negotiation process, especially in relation to Action Plan for Chapter 23 with regard to Freedom of Expression. Besides the FoE/I-related work, he is particularly attentive to the challenging dynamics affecting the post- socialist enlargement of the EU, such as the controversial transitional processes, the persisting ethnic conflicts, migration and the rights of minorities.

Jordan

Ian Graham

Ian Graham is a researcher for the Center for Media, Data and Society in Budapest, where his research focuses on media regulatory policy and philanthropic support for independent journalism. He has supported initiatives promoting democracy, free expression, and academic freedom worldwide through work at Scholars at Risk in New York and the National Endowment for Democracy in Washington DC. Ian holds M.A. degrees in Public Policy and Nationalism Studies from Central European University and a B.A. in History from Utah State University.

Kazakhstan

Adil Nussipov

Adil Nussipov is a researcher working on the Media Influence Matrix project at the Center for Media, Data and Society. He recently graduated with distinction from Central European University with an MA in International Relations. Before CEU, he obtained his BA degree in Political Science and International Relations at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. He has extensive experience in qualitative and quantitative research, gained through studies, research assistantships and internships. His research interests are digital policy, government-media relations and global governance. Currently, he also acts as Head of Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at Accountability Initiative for Reform.

Kyrgyzstan

Gulnura Toralieva

Gulnura Toralieva is a blogger, media activist, the CEO of “Data Lab”, Head of the Bishkek School of Public Relations and a Partner at Promotank Consulting Company, with over 10 years of practical experience in media, governance and civil society development. She worked as an Adviser to the Prime Minister of the Kyrgyz Republic in 2017-2018 and coordinated the Open Government Partnership (OGP) program as well as the Open Data Initiative. In 2015, she was the Director of the OSCE Academy in Bishkek. Previously she led the media and communications team at the Prime Minister’s office in the Kyrgyz Republic. Gulnura also worked as an adviser for USAID’s strategic communications. From 2010 to 2012, she headed the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at the American University of Central Asia. Gulnura has a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavonic University, a Master’s degree in Science Journalism from the City University London, and a Ph.D. in Journalism from the Academy of Sciences of the Russian Federation.

Mexico

Argelia Muñoz Larroa

Argelia Muñoz Larroa es investigadora del programa de postdoctorados del Conacyt en el Departamento de Ciencias de la Comunicación en la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana campus Cuajimalpa (UAM-Cuajimalpa). Se ha enfocado en estudiar la sustentabilidad de las industrias culturales como un marco analítico integral que guíe políticas públicas para fomentar el desarrollo económico regional y la diversidad cultural. Es doctora en administración por la Victoria University of Wellington, en Nueva Zelanda, maestra en relaciones internacionales y licenciada en historia por la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Ha publicado en el International Journal of Communication, Political Economy of Communication, Norteamérica, Journal of Digital Media and Policy, Media Industries, Studies in Australasian Cinema, entre otros.

Rodrigo Gómez

Rodrigo Gómez es profesor de industrias y políticas de la comunicación en la Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana campus Cuajimalpa. Su trabajo se ha enfocado en las industrias culturales, los sistemas de medios, las políticas de medios y las empresas de medios desde una perspectiva de la economía política de la comunicación. Es co- editor de la serie de libros Global Media Giants de Routledge.

Juan S. Larrosa-Fuentes

Obtuvo los grados de licenciado, maestro y doctor por el ITESO, la Universidad de Guadalajara y la universidad de Temple respectivamente. Ha sido profesor universitario en estas tres casas de estudio. Actualmente es profesor de tiempo completo en el Departamento de Estudios Socioculturales del ITESO y miembro del Sistema Nacional de Investigadores. Desde 2020 es coordinador general de ETIUS: observatorio de comunicación y cultura. Ha publicado en las revistas Latin American Research Review, Internacional Journal of Communication, Media, War & Conflict, Tripodos, Comunicación y Sociedad y Global Media Journal México. Además, es coautor, junto con Sofía Paláu, del libro Manual para la observación de medios (ITESO, 2014), así como autor y coordinador de varios libros sobre comunicación política. Su proyecto de investigación está enfocado a estudiar teórica y empíricamente la comunicación pública y la comunicación política.

Pakistan

Ifra Asad

Ifra Asad has recently completed her MPA degree at the School of Public Policy at CEU. Prior to this, she has worked in civil society organizations concerning women’s rights, education, and minorities, and now works at Minority Rights Group Europe. Originally from Karachi, Pakistan, she now resides in Budapest, Hungary.

Mackenzie Nelson

Mackenzie Nelson holds a BA in International Politics and History from Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany and an MPA from CEU’s School of Public Policy. Prior to starting her master’s program at CEU, she worked at the Heinrich Böll Foundation’s offices in Washington DC and Brussels. Her current research focuses on public discourse, online intermediaries and multi-stakeholder approaches to platform governance in the European Union.

Romania

Dumitrita Holdis

Dumitrita Holdis works as a researcher for the Center for Media, Data and Society at CEU. Previously she has been co-managing the “Sound Relations” project, while teaching courses and conducting research on academic podcasting. She has done research also on media representation, migration, and labour integration. She holds a BA in Sociology from the Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca and a MA degree in Sociology and Social Anthropology from the Central European University. She also has professional background in project management and administration. She has worked and lived in Romania, Hungary, France and Turkey.

Russia

Olesya Shmagun

Olesya Shmagun is a journalist from Russia. Shmagun works as an investigative journalist with Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). She has a PhD in journalism.

Slovakia

Marius Dragomir

Marius Dragomir is the Founding Director of the Media and Journalism Research Center, which continues the work of the Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS), which he led between 2016 and 2022. Dragomir previously worked for the Open Society Foundations (OSF) for over a decade where he managed the research and policy portfolio of the Program on Independent Journalism (PIJ), formerly the Network Media Program (NMP), in London. He has also been one of the main editors for PIJ’s flagship research and advocacy project, Mapping Digital Media, which covered 56 countries worldwide, and he was the main writer and editor of OSF’s Television Across Europe, a comparative study of broadcast policies in 20 European countries.

Spain

Francisco Campos-Freire

Francisco Campos-Freire is a full professor of Journalism at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the University of Santiago de Compostela. He has decades of managerial experience in both print media and broadcast companies. His research focuses on media enterprises and Public Service Media.

Marta Rodríguez-Castro

Marta Rodríguez-Castro is a PhD with a degree from the University of Santiago de Compostela. In her research, she focuses on the regulation of digital services offered by Public Service Media and the impact of global digital platforms on news media and communications.

Ana Isabel Rodríguez-Vázquez

Ana Isabel Rodríguez-Vázquez is a professor at the Faculty of Communication Sciences of the University of Santiago de Compostela. She has worked for over a decade in print media, television and digital media. Her research focuses on media audiences and innovation.

Alejandro Gesto-Louro

Alejandro Gesto-Louro is a researcher at the Department of Communication Sciences of the University of Santiago de Compostela. In his research, he has focused on the funding of Public Service Media and the use of technological advances, such as blockhain, in media industries.

Óscar Juanatey-Boga

Óscar Juanatey-Boga is a professor at the Department of Business studies of the University of A Coruña. He has published extensive research on the communication strategies, marketing and funding of media outlets, with a particular focus on the print press.

Valentín Alejandro Martínez-Fernández

Valentín Alejandro Martínez-Fernández is a journalist and professor at the Department of Business studies of the University of A Coruña. He has experience managing print media outlets such as El Ideal Gallego. His research focuses on the transformation of the print press industry.

Marius Dragomir

Marius Dragomir is the Director of the Center for Media, Data and Society. He previously worked for the Open Society Foundations (OSF) for over a decade. Since 2007, he has managed the research and policy portfolio of the Program on Independent Journalism (PIJ), formerly the Network Media Program (NMP), in London. He has also been one of the main editors for PIJ’s flagship research and advocacy project, Mapping Digital Media, which covered 56 countries worldwide, and he was the main writer and editor of OSF’s Television Across Europe, a comparative study of broadcast policies in 20 European countries.

Editing, translation and research assistance

Norina Solomon

Ukraine

Olesya Grabova

Olesya Grabova is a Central European University graduate, where she obtained an MA in Political Science specializing in Political Economy. Her research interests cover political violence, social psychology, and the impact of media on public opinion in Eastern Europe. She got some experience in journalism and research during internships in Hromadske TV and VoxUkraine in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Anastasiia Tarasova

Anastasiia Tarasova graduated from the Central European University (CEU), Department of Public Policy, Master of Arts in International Public Affairs program (MAIPA). Her interests include international and humanitarian law, democracy promotion, rule of law, conflict transformation, peace-building, migration and human rights, interpretation of multilingual treaties, and intercultural communication.

United Kingdom

Leo Watkins

Leo Watkins was a Media and Communications PhD student at Goldsmiths, University of London, researching Rupert Murdoch and the rise of neoliberalism in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s. He previously worked as an analyst at a commercial research firm specializing in technology, media and telecoms, and contributed research to the Parliamentary campaign to persuade UK regulators to stop Rupert Murdoch’s company 21st Century Fox buying Sky plc. He is on the co-ordinating committee of the Media Reform Coalition.