This work presents the user interface and core functionalities of the SCImago Media Rankings (SMR) database, a comprehensive global resource for digital media analysis.
The SMR database currently encompasses media data from 190 countries, featuring over 6.000 media outlets, with a primary focus on newspapers—both legacy and digital-native publications—alongside magazines, television channels and news agencies. The database covers content published in more than 70 languages and undergoes quarterly updates to maintain current relevance.
This user guide addresses one of the world’s most significant resources for researchers, professionals, and scholars in media studies, as SMR delivers comprehensive rankings of media outlets’ digital reputation through its innovative Digital Reputation Indicator (DRI). The DRI methodology integrates webometric data from established sources including Semrush and Majestic to provide objective, measurable assessments of digital media performance.
The ranking system’s versatility allows users to query and filter data through multiple criteria combinations, making it an invaluable research instrument for diverse academic studies and professional analyses in media and communication research. The platform supports comparative analysis across countries, regions, and linguistic groups, facilitating comprehensive media landscape studies.
Finally, this guide includes resources and references to foundational research articles detailing the DRI methodology and its applications in global media analysis
Below, we will present the visual user guide as we have indicated: through annotated screenshots.
PART ONE:
SCIMAGO MEDIA RANKINS’ MAIN OPTIONS
Home Page · Main Options
On the main page of the rankings we have two large blocks:
- Searching for media names
- Rankings with distribution options by country, region, language, media type , etc.
Search for a media
Media name search provides an assisted search that suggests possible headings when the user enters a word from the title.
Media profile
The individual record of each media provides a set of 5 indicators:
- Overall . The overall web reputation index. In this case, we see that it’s 85.75, which tells us that this is a media with one of the highest overall reputation indexes in the world. It’s formed by a combination of the following four indicators obtained from the reputable web analytics tools SemRush and Majestic .
- Authority Score ( SemRush ): Measures the overall quality of a website and its influence on SEO. Calculated based on backlinks , referring domains , organic search traffic , and other data
- Ref. Domains ( SemRush ): A metric based on the total number of referring domains . Values are normalized using a logarithmic transformation and scaling from 0 to 100
- Citation Flow (Majestic): Reflects the number of links pointing to a website , regardless of their quality . A higher citation flow indicates a large number of backlinks
- Trust Flow (Majestic): Measures the quality of links pointing to a website . Websites with a higher trust flow than citation flow typically have higher quality backlinks
Additionally, the graph below the page indicates the evolution over time (since the rankings are published) of the media considered. This graph (and its associated data) now allows for longitudinal studies , as these rankings are published starting in 2022.
Navigating the rankings · Overview
By default, the rankings page displays the overall index, which lists media outlets from around the world, sorted by highest to lowest reputation according to their overall index. The breakdown of the four indicators that make up the overall index can be seen in each outlet’s profile.
Segmentation and analysis options
Naturally, in addition to the overall ranking, users will typically want to know the media distributions based on various criteria. SMRs provide four main criteria or media segmentations:
- Media Type: newspapers, television, digital natives, magazines, news agencies
- Regions: e.g. Latin America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, OECD countries, etc. and so on up to 16 regions
- Countries: media by country around the world
- Languages: media by language
The most important thing about these segmentations is that they can be combined without any limitations. We’ll see examples later.
Segmentations in details
Media
The five types of media that SMR analyze:
- Digital natives
- Magazines
- News agencies
- Newspapers
- Televisions
Regions
The distribution by region includes blocks like the ones we can see in the screenshot of the drop-down menu that allows their selection.
Note that there are two types of regions: socioeconomic and geographic. This distinction is expressed by the use of uppercase (socioeconomic) and lowercase (geographic).
Countries
Languages
Editions
Currently, the SMRs are updated three times a year. All editions back to the first, from 2022 to the current year, can be viewed.
PART TWO
GALLERY OF CONSULTATION EXAMPLES
Rankings by region
Western Europe
For example, the screenshot shows the list of the top 19 media outlets in Western Europe. In this case, the number in the first column, «Rank ,» refers to each outlet’s position in the global ranking. Therefore, it is possible to determine simultaneously each outlet’s position in the ranking for its region and the global ranking.
Download the rankings
Note that for any chosen distribution of the rankings, we have a button, Download :
This creates the possibility of downloading the data into a spreadsheet file, as shown in the screenshot, in this case, from the Western Europe media:
Country Rankings · France
Cross-criteria media rankings
Example combining three criteria
Visualization Tools · VizTools
VizTool Example: region and language
Visualizations of data distributions
Conclusions
We have presented the main options and functionalities of the SCImago Media Rankings’ query and navigation interface.
However, what has been shown is merely the visible part of the true iceberg of structured data that the SMR places at the disposal of researchers, professionals, and media scholars. The possibilities for data exploitation and cross-referencing are, quite literally, unlimited and offer both global and local reach.
Useful links
Academic references on SMRs
- Trillo-Domínguez, M ., Salaverrí a , R., Codina, L., & De-Moya-Anegón , F. (2023). SCImago Media Rankings (SMR): situation and evolution of the digital reputation of the media worldwide . Information Professional , 32 (5). https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2023.sep.21
- Trillo-Domínguez, M., Salaverría , R., Codina, L., & De Moya-Anegón , F. (2024). Digital reputation indicator : A webometric approach for a global ranking of digital media. Journalism , 26 (2), 406-424. https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849241237647