Project 4β Welcomes Le French News Lab to Advance Media Research

About Le French News Lab

Le French News Lab is an independent research center dedicated to creating transparent and reproducible methods for studying media ecosystems. The Lab is already recognized for its forward-looking projects, including being a recipient of an ElevenLabs Grant for applying AI voice technology in media research and accessibility. 
Its mission is to build frameworks that strengthen democratic discourse by ensuring that media research is both reliable and accessible to the broader academic community.

Innovating Media Research Frameworks

Through the new partnership with Project 4β, Le French News Lab is developing the first transparent and reproducible framework for identifying and classifying national news outlets in France. This work addresses a long-standing gap in comparative media studies, where inconsistent classification of outlets has hindered robust research and policymaking.

The Lab's methodology will focus on creating a rigorous sampling frame for French news research, establishing empirically grounded classification criteria based on six behavioral indicators, and ultimately providing a replicable template that can be adapted across other Western democracies.

The partnership with Oxylabs provides access to the Web Scraper API, enabling the gathering of longitudinal data from diverse sources and facilitating robust, data-driven analysis. This technological support allows the Lab to dedicate more time to core research while advancing a framework that benefits the wider academic community.

Join 4β 

Project 4β brings together academics, NGOs, journalists, and civil society groups who use large-scale public web data to drive positive impact. With partners ranging from researchers at Stanford University, Northwestern University, Northwestern University, and the University of Edinburgh to investigative organizations like Bellingcat, Global Witness, The Pulitzer Center, Global Witness, The Pulitzer Center, andDebunk.org, the initiative supports those advancing knowledge, accountability, and democratic resilience.

If your team is exploring how web intelligence could strengthen your research or mission, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out at 4beta@oxylabs.io or share your project needs through our form.