Audience Engagement Digital Publishing
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Google and Oxford extend Digital News Project to 2020

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Google and the University of Oxford have decided to extend the current grant for the Reuters Institute Digital News Report and the related Digital News Project. This will help sustain it for two more years to 2020.

The Digital News Project is the biggest international research project examining cross-national developments in journalism and news media. It combines the annual Reuters Institute Digital News Report with a range of additional publications looking at journalistic innovation and news media strategy across the world.

This extension builds on Oxford University’s existing agreement with Google, announced in 2015, to support the project from 2016 to 2018. The financial value of Google’s Agreement with Oxford University for the full 5 year period, from August 2015 to August 2020, is £8.47m.

“This extension in funding will allow the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism to sustain the Reuters Institute Digital News Report at the same level as in 2018 where, thanks to Google’s support together with that of 13 other sponsors, we covered 37 markets (25 in Europe, 6 in Asia, 4 in Latin America, plus Canada and the USA.) compared to the 12 markets covered in our main report in 2015,” Reuters announced.

“The extension will also support continued work on organizational transformations in the news industry, qualitative research on how people use news and media, and analysis of the role of social media in public affairs.”

This year, the Digital News Project published the Journalism, Media, and Technology Trends and Predictions 2018. The report revealed new insights about digital news consumption based on a survey of over 74,000 online news consumers in 37 countries, including the US and UK.

It brought to light various issues of trust and misinformation, new online business models, the impact of changing Facebook algorithms and the rise of new platforms and messaging apps. (Download the full report here.)

Earlier, talking about this partnership, Madhav Chinnappa, Head Strategic Relations, News & Publishers at Google, had said:

“We are very happy to support the further growth of the Reuters Institute Digital News Report, via our Digital News Initiative (DNI). The Reuters Institute Digital News Report gives invaluable insights into user behavior in digital news consumption–insights which help news organizations innovate in response to user behavior and expectations.”   

The Reuters Institute Digital News Report is a unique independent academic study which has been supported by a wide range of partners—including the BBC, Ofcom, and Edelman—since its creation in 2012.

It is now the world’s largest international comparative survey of the major trends in digital news consumption and is drawn on by industry, analysts, and researchers across the world.