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ing scandal in July 2011, the Leveson Inquiry was set up both to make recommendations about press regulation and to recommend a“more effective policy
and regulatory regime which supports…. the plurality of the media”. As a result, a succession of senior politicians and former prime ministers were required
to give evidence under oath about the systematic lobbying frommedia companies to adapt communications policy in their favour, or to avoid public interest
initiatives that might harm their commercial interests. Meanwhile, in the UK and internationally, the growth of so-called “digital intermediaries” such as
Google, Facebook, and Amazon are raising new issues about informational gate-keeping, the power of media behemoths to dictate policy-making, and
the implications for democracy. This paper will have two objectives. First, it will document and analyse the testimony by political leaders in the aftermath
of the phone hacking scandal in Britain, their acknowledgement that media ownership had become concentrated in too few hands, and the clear recogni‑
tion that a stronger policy framework was required. It will then examine political debates and approaches to policy making since the Leveson report was
published, and demonstrate how those arguments have been diluted and the case for stronger policies finessed. Second, it will examine the potential
for new online and convergent media platforms to deliver a more plural and democratic media environment, and what creative policy initiatives may be
required, for example, to facilitate new ownership models and place news-based obligations on existing ones. It will then ask whether those, too, might be
frustrated by the dominant power and commercial self-interest of the traditional media companies, and the continuing inability of political parties to resist.
PP 363
Does Media Ownership Really Matter? A Content Analysis Case Study from Ireland
R. Flynn
1
1
Dublin City University, School of Communications, Dublin, Ireland
National media policies within the EU and - increasingly - at the level of the European Commission are informed by the assumption that media ownership
influences media content. Given this, it is further assumed that protecting media pluralism demands that we limit the extent to which single individuals or
corporations can dominate individual media and cross-media markets through media ownership. For their part, media owners routinely reject the assertion
that they intervene directly in the editorial process whilst journalists, citing the professional values and a general Fourth Estate/watchdog orientation often
(thought not always) assert that they do not allow ownership considerations to influence either what they write or - at an editorial level - what is included
in media content. There is also a substantial body of empirically informed academic work examining the extent to which individual news outlets or news
groups have established dominant positions within national and international media markets (Chomsky and McChesney (1988), Doyle (2002), Noam (2009
and 2016) etc.) For the most part this work assumes that media concentration will automatically narrow the diversity of voices which can access the public
sphere, undermining the operation of democracy. (In passing, it should be acknowledged that there is an undeniable logic to this assumption. Increasing
concentration may lead to rationalisation/amalgamation of previously separate media outlets, leaving fewer journalists to produce more content. The high
profile Cardiff University University/Nick Davies study of the changing conditions for UK journalists certainly seemed to support this conclusion.)_ However,
beyond economic rationality, there is a concern that media owners use their position to influence editorial content to ensure it reflects their worldview but
also, when embroiled in public controversy, for purposes of self-defence. Strikingly, very little of this policy formation and ownership research is informed
by empirical analysis of media content. For example, the ongoing EU-funded Media Pluralism Monitor project, which seeks to assess risks to media plural‑
ism across the EU28, concentrates on identifying potential risks to pluralism stemming from, amongst other factors, concentration of media ownership.
However, it cannot establish whether these risks are realised in practice. This paper presents the results of an attempt to empirically assess whether there
is a connection between media ownership and editorial content using Ireland as a case study. The research uses three stories where media owners were
themselves the subject of public controversy and thus to media scrutiny. It examines the nature and extent of media coverage across media outlets owned
by the relevant media owners and, using a blind sample, compares it with coverage from "independent" media outlets. In other words, the research treats
media ownership an an independent variable and measures the extent to which ownership influences the dependent variable (namely media content). In
sum, it presents empirical findings as to whether media ownership can influence the dependent variable, thus offering a more reliable base on which to
develop future media ownership policy and regulation. It also offers a methodology which can be scaled up to apply in other national contexts.
PP 364
Ancillary Copyright for Newspaper Publishers: Six Recommendations for Better Media Policy in Europe
C. Schäfer-Hock
1
, T. Eberwein
2
, M. Karmasin
2
1
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies, Wien Austria, Germany
2
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies, Wien, Austria
So far, no country in Europe has come up with a long-term solution to the ancillary copyright (AC) dispute, and there is undoubtedly discontinuity in
the debate. The key issue at stake is whether newspaper publishers receive a share of the advertising revenue that is earned by large search engines such
as Google when they display excerpts (snippets) of news from the publisher’s website in the list of search results. Our aim was to use systematic analysis
and critical examination of the most common arguments on both sides, in order to develop recommendations for media policy. We have therefore retraced
and systematised the lines of argumentation of the proponents and opponents from Germany, Austria, Spain and France, as well as at the EU-level, through
14 interviews with experts (publishers, Google, judges, media policy-makers, journalists, media scholars, Internet users) and extensive document analysis
(legislative processes, public statements in the dispute, specialist publications, court cases). Our standards of examination were based on fundamental
guiding principles of media law and economy as well as logic consistency, consideration of basic data of media systems, and recognised theories of good
legislative practice (Fliedner 2001; Karpen 2008). Of the seven arguments in favour, our examination found only two to be cogent (publisher content should
be paid for; AC improves the publishers’negotiating position against the search engines). The same could be said of three of the fifteen arguments against
(publishers do not have futureproof business models; further expansion of copyright is not in the public interest; current laws/draft laws contain large
numbers of errors and inaccuracies). From our analysis of all 22 arguments, we have derived six fundamental, strategic recommendations: (1) Political,
content-related questions should be kept separate from questions about how an AC law would be implemented. (2) The introduction of new copyright
laws is almost always irreversible. One way to avoid this would be to plan for later revisions from the offset. This would demand accompanying academic