CMDS Wins Google Funding to Develop Data Visualization Tool on Media Ownership

With Google’s support, CMDS will be able to develop a visualization tool for tracking and analyzing media ownership in Hungary according to political ties, ideology and interest groups. The free-to-use, publicly available tool is designed for research and policy making purposes, but also for journalists and others interested in learning more about media ownership with the help of a user-friendly program. The tool is hoped to serve as a model for other countries.

CMDS will have one year to develop this innovative software, which is envisaged to be searchable, browsable and filterable, listing the media companies' revenues, profits and income from state advertising. The key innovative element of this tool is that it will be automatically updated with any new entries in the official company registry by scraping the new data.

The project team includes Attila Batorfy, resident CMDS fellow, Marius Dragomir, CMDS’s director, Eva Bognar senior program officer and Dumi Holdis, coordinator of the Center. Google supports the project with €50,000 through the Google DNI Fund.