The Center for Journalism & Liberty Is Now The "Center for Media & Digital Governance at the Open Markets Institute"
New name reflects Center's focus on platform power, AI governance, and the preservation of systems that produce reliable information critical to healthy democracies
Washington, DC — Today, the Open Markets Institute announced that its Center for Journalism and Liberty will now be known as the Center for Media and Digital Governance (CMDG) at the Open Markets Institute. The new name reflects the Center’s expansive body of work examining how concentrated technology power, digital infrastructure, and artificial intelligence are reshaping journalism, information markets, democratic governance, and public debate.
"When the Center was founded, the threat to democratic information systems was platform monopolies capturing journalism's revenue and audiences and required a deep understanding of media markets and digital advertising. Today that threat runs through every layer of the stack – from cloud computing and AI development to satellite communications and data flows – even as media concentration remains an urgent concern,” said Dr. Courtney Radsch, director of the Center for Media and Digital Governance. “Addressing these challenges now requires engagement across the full range of technologies, infrastructures, markets and governance frameworks that increasingly determine whether information systems serve democratic life or private power. The Center for Media and Digital Governance reflects that expanded scope and positions us for the challenges ahead.”
Since its founding in 2019, the Center has led research, investigations, and policy analysis on how dominant technology platforms have reshaped and undermined the news and information environment. Its work has helped shape debates on platform monopolies, digital advertising markets, content licensing, cloud infrastructure, AI governance, media concentration and the future of independent journalism, as well as the broader power of digital intermediaries over how information is distributed and monetized.
In recent years, the Center has expanded its focus to the rise of AI systems, from generative and agentic AI to data monopolies and cloud concentration, the extraction of value from journalism and the creative industries without consent or compensation, and their impacts on free speech and cognitive liberty. In response, it has advanced policy solutions spanning antitrust enforcement, AI licensing, interoperability, platform conduct rules, cloud regulation, transparency, and public-interest digital infrastructure, engaging policymakers and civil society across the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and beyond.
“The future of journalism cannot be separated from the future of digital governance,” said Barry Lynn, executive director of the Open Markets Institute. “The same corporations that control digital infrastructure, advertising markets, cloud computing, and increasingly AI systems exert enormous influence over the flow of information itself. Understanding and confronting that concentration of power is essential to preserving human liberty and protecting democracy and an open society.”
Selected Research and Commentary
The newly renamed Center for Media and Digital Governance has produced influential research, testimony, and commentary examining the intersection of technology, media markets, democracy, and platform power, including:
Investigations into the collapse of referral traffic and digital advertising revenues caused by dominant technology platforms and AI systems, including analysis of how AI summaries and agentic systems threaten the economic foundations of publishing and the creative industries and a set of clear policy solutions. (See our landmark report “Same Gatekeepers, New Tollbooths;” and joint white paper with the Washington Monthly Institute “AI and the Future of Independent Journalism”)
Research and advocacy on the growing concentration of throughout the AI tech stack, and its implications for democratic governance, including proposals to treat critical cloud infrastructure as a public utility subject to nondiscrimination and public-interest obligations. (Expert Brief – AI and Market Concentration; “The case for consent in the AI data gold rush;. ;” “Market Concentration in Cloud Services and its Impact on Investigative Journalism”; The Battle for Cognitive Liberty in the Age of Corporate AI)
Policy proposals addressing AI licensing markets, platform conduct, interoperability, transparency obligations, and competition policy aimed at giving publishers, writers, and creators greater power over technology firms.
Testimony, public comments, and international engagement with policymakers in the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Brazil, and other jurisdictions on AI governance, platform regulation, media pluralism, digital advertising, and digital market concentration.
Commentary and analysis by Dr. Courtney Radsch and other Open Markets experts on how concentrated digital power threatens democratic governance, independent journalism, and the public’s access to reliable information.
The Center for Media and Digital Governance will continue publishing original research, convening policymakers and experts, and advancing policies that promote free expression, independent media, fair digital markets, and democratic control over the technologies shaping public life.
For more research and analysis, and to sign up for updates, visit our new website www.cmdg.tech and follow our Information & Power Substack here.