Labs & Think Tanks

 This is a collection of scholars and practitioners producing research, scholarship, and resources related to information and media literacy or rebuilding trust in media. 

The Center for News Literacy at Stony Brook University is committed to teaching students how to use critical thinking skills to judge the reliability and credibility of news reports and news sources. It is the only center of its kind in the United States.

Launched in 2005, the Center developed the nation’s first undergraduate course in News Literacy. More than 10,000 Stony Brook students across all academic disciplines have completed the course since and more than 7,000 students at 18 universities in the United States and in 11 countries have taken localized versions of the course.  They also host the online Digital Resource Center, a clearinghouse for innovative news literacy curriculum materials for students, teachers, and the general public.

They created a massive open online course through Coursera, Making Sense of the News: News Literacy Lessons for Digital Citizens, in collaboration with our partners in Hong Kong, has extended the Center’s reach on the online platform Coursera, with more than 5,000 global learners. 



Launched in 2014, Data and Society is an independent nonprofit research organization that produces original research on topics related to the development and governance of new technology. They research current topics such AI and automation and online disinformation. 


https://news.gallup.com/topic/media.aspx  


Launched in 1934, Gallup, Inc. is an analytics company that conducts public opinion polls worldwide. We recommend the "Media" category as a good starting place for information about media literacy. 


     https://sites.brown.edu/informationfutures/ 


Launched in 2022, by the Brown School of Public Health at Brown University, the lab seeks to investigate the harms of misinformation, data deficits, outdated communications practices and other barriers to meeting the information needs of communities. They are also seeking to identify urgent research gaps, and make findings accessible and actionable for other researchers, practitioners and policy makers.

Launch in 2017, the Polarization Lab convenes scholars from the social sciences, statistics, and computer science to study how to bridge America’s partisan divide. The produce research about how social media shapes political polarization and leverage those insights into tools for people to use to combat polarization.



The Media Education Lab was founded by Renee Hobbs, an internationally-recognized authority on digital and media literacy education. The Lab seeks to improve the quality of media literacy education through research and community service.  They research primarily how educators learn to implement digital and media literacy programs. They also host discussion and writing groups and share their research and scholarship through books, journal articles, book chapters and other publications. They also offer free curriculum materials and professional learning opportunities including the  Summer Institute in Digital Literacy,  and a Graduate Certificate in Digital Literacy, 



Launched in MASCLab is a hub for creating, curating, and supporting multimodal and digital scholarship at Teachers College, Columbia University that explores the relationship between media and social change. They facilitate a Media Literacy Group that has sub-team that focuses their research on news, social media and the intersection of both.



Statewide collaborative project to support and strengthen local journalism ecosystem and spur innovation through statewide collaboration. They are seeking to discover where citizens get their local news, why they believe or trust information and what would make them financially support local journalism. They provide The statewide collaborative provides funding, best-practices training to elevate the industry and collaborative support to help bolster local newsrooms. They are conducting a multiphase ecosystem study including scientific polling, academic field research, Trusting News newsroom training and an engagement fund.




Pew Research Center refers to itself as a "fact tank" that conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research. While their research findings on media falls in multiple categories, we recommend starting with the  "News Habits & Media" category to find research related to media literacy.   


https://cronkite.asu.edu/about/centers-and-institutes/


Launched in 2017, The News Co/Lab advances digital media literacy through journalism, education and technology. They have designed open-access digital media literacy educational resources to reach a broad audience for postsecondary students and adults.