134 / 658
132
Thursday, November 10
0 9 : 0 0 – 1 0 : 3 0
CLP01
New Intermediares and Platforms: Challenges for Communication Policy and Research 1
PP 006
Intermediaries as Shapers of Our Information Environment
B. Stark
1
, P. Jürgens
1
, M. Magin
1
1
University of Mainz, Department of Communication, Mainz, Germany
Associated with the vast expansion of the media environment by the Internet, parsimonious selectivity has become a necessary defense against information
overload. However, even the most prudent, well-trained selection strategies fail in the face of today's cacophony of fast-paced news, user generated content
and social media messages. In order to cope with this challenge, users increasingly rely on the filtering and sorting functions of Information Intermediaries:
Their web navigation is assisted by search engines, their social attention prioritized by Facebook's feed algorithm, their news aggregated by news aggrega‑
tors. An increasing body of literature (e.g., Messing &Westwood 2014) documents that such services’ recommendations are far from neutral. Rather, they
have their own inherent biases that can potentially distort the content that reaches users. As this insight (e.g. in the form of the buzzword "filter bubble")
reaches civic and political discourse, regulators are becoming increasingly anxious to make sense of the complex phenomena involved.The discussion, how‑
ever, still lacks a clear theoretical concept of Information Intermediaries. We offer a precise definition of Information Intermediaries, identify and categorize
the platforms with their technical selection mechanisms and conceptualize their role in the chain of media effects research. Based on these findings we
discuss options and limitations for the regulation. A key feature is the Intermediaries’ position in the flow of information. In contrast to traditional media,
they recommend external—rather than providing their own—content by applying two distinct logics that have been insufficiently distinguished in the lit‑
erature yet: First, they may act as Gatekeepers by applying filter logics, thus excluding information entirely from the output. Such behavior may occur for
example when search engines delete content at the request of government actors or citizens. Second, they apply sorting and personalization logics that
change the visibility of content according to idiosyncratic criteria. Altering the visibility can severely impact recipients' information consumption. Since, for
example, search engine users concentrate their attention on the few top results, they will hardly ever reach a result on the subsequent result pages (Pan et
al. 2007). The criteria are formalized in algorithmic models drawing on a set of features and maximizing a mathematical metric of relevance. In conjunction
with users' trusting reliance, Intermediaries can bias the information consumption of individuals and publics. From this position, there are many potential
effects, of which three are particularly important: (A) On an individual level, Intermediaries may increase or decrease the diversity of viewed content and
(B) change recipients' selectivity towards lower quality content (e.g., more soft news). (C) On a population level, Intermediaries may increase or decrease
the fragmentation of publics. So far, regulators across different nations struggle trying to come up with a coherent approach towards Intermediaries. Among
the largest challenges are (1) the algorithmic black boxes which hinder empirical tests of Intermediaries' effects, (2) the legal schism between monopoly
law (relating to misuse of market power) and media regulation law (involving requirements for transparency, must-carry rules and other normative obli‑
gations).
PP 007
Practices of Contestation and the Erosion of Regulatory Power in Multiplatform Environments
S.A. Ganter
1
1
University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
The production and distribution of news is increasingly based on the distribution of journalistic content via google, facebook, twitter and also via mobile
news apps like apple news. As technological enterprises, mainly based in the US, distribute content across frontiers and become increasingly important
gatekeepers for news distribution (Helberger et al. 2015: Nielsen, 2016) they also challenge existing regulatory frameworks, as different regulatory cultures
collide. Elsewhere the new players in the news market were described as “rule-breakers” (Altmeppen, 2016) not bound to formerly accepted journalistic
standards, such as the reuse of contents, and a risk for the continuity of journalistic institutions (Altmeppen, 2016; Pasquale, 2015). In this paper, it is argued
that what we observe is an increased activity of contesting regulatory frameworks in which news production and redistribution takes place. The practice
of contesting the existing regulatory frameworks, including recently established rules is the result of increasingly intersecting ecologies (van Dijck, 2013)
which challenge regulators, legacy organisations, platforms and citizens. The theory of contestation (Wiener, 2014) conceptualises contestation as a critical
discursive practice to express disapproval of norms, constitutive for normative change. Governance theory assumes that contestation is needed for a healthy
regulatory environment, reaching the understanding of contestedness as meta-organising principle. Differing from this conceptualisation, in this paper,
contestation is understood as a process which is far from innocent but also inevitable as the ecology of news making is changing. The analysis is based on
triangulating material from press releases, strategy papers, court decisions, European directives and news reporting in Germany, France, the UK and Spain
looking at cases related to the use of journalistic contents, freedom of expression/censorship and privacy. The Results show that 1) contestation is applied
as a practice by either the regulators, the platforms or the legacy news media organisations 2) Wieners (2014) four modes of contestation (arbitration,
deliberation, contention and justification) are used by diverse actors, along different regulatory levels in the European Union using formal, semi-formal or
informal codes 3) these modes are used differently across the countries along with practices of acceptance which also vary in scale and form 4) practices
of contestation are not equally accessible for all the players involved as they are bound to resources 5) imbalances in access lead to a situation in which
regulatory environments are entering a constant, multi-layered and asymmetrical cycle of contestation, therefore, private actors increasingly create both
spaces for contestation and interpretation. Examples include the announcing of the “will” to adapt voluntarily content to national rules (twitter), creating
own mechanisms like an advisory council to interpret the“right to be forgotten rule”(google), the campaigns for civic engagement like the counter-speech
campaign to safeguard freedom of expression (facebook and google) and the pushing for new ancillary copyright laws (alliance of publishers) 6) this
situation unveils a“legitimacy gap”(Wiener, 2014) that results from the imbalanced means to contest and favours a gradual erosion of regulatory power.
Communication Law and Policy
(CLP01–CLP10)