Media research is useful for students, but it also underpins a lot of media coverage and the news organisation's wider editorial strategies.

JournalismUK has rounded up 16 of the best places for media research on the internet to help you get the relevant numbers on everything from digital news to diversity.

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ)

RISJ at the University of Oxford publishes academic reports and papers. It publishes the annual Digital News Report (DNR), the most comprehensive paper on the trends driving the digital media market. Its latest 2026 report features insights from nearly 100,000 online news consumers in 48 countries covering half of the world's population.

There, you will find country-by-country statistics on news consumption habits on social media, willingness to pay for online content, polarisation of news audiences, and much more.

Besides the DNR, RISJ publishes individual papers on a range of topics and has wider research projects around trust in news and AI and the future of news.

Reporters Without Borders

The organisation is well-known for its Press Freedom Index, which ranks the countries from the best to the worst for a free press.

The interactive, colour-coded map displays a breakdown of the score, detailing the political, economic, legislative, social and security conditions. Plus, it compares the country's rank to previous years.

Pew Research Center (Pew)

Pew is an American think tank which studies public opinion on a range of trends that shape the world.

Its research........

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