IndiaMediaLens: A Smart Platform for News Monitoring & Analysis
Dr. Anirban Sen (Department of Political Science) and Dr. Debayan Gupta (Department of Computer Science) are developing a comprehensive media monitoring system to address the critical need for enhanced media literacy in India’s diverse democratic landscape and rapidly expanding digital ecosystem.
At the core of this initiative lies the acknowledgement that India’s political and media diversity has resulted in limited organized media monitoring efforts, with Press Council of India archives remaining largely inaccessible due to unstructured PDF formats. The research addresses the fundamental challenge of providing news consumers with unified platforms that enable balanced viewpoint formation across multiple print media sources without manual aggregation burdens. This is done through a three-component system designed to enhance transparency, accountability, and empirical evaluation of news sources.
The methodology integrates state-of-the-art natural language processing techniques including open-source Large Language Models (LLMs) for entity extraction and relationship identification, graph neural networks for media network analysis, and advanced similarity metrics combining article embeddings, entity coverage, and sentiment analysis. The system will employ News graph databases for knowledge representation and real-time browser extension deployment for user accessibility.
This pioneering platform will serve multiple stakeholders including news readers, journalists, media organizations, regulatory bodies, and policy researchers, ultimately bridging the gap between media consumers and regulatory institutions while promoting democratic participation through informed media consumption.
