Exposure diversity as a design principle for recommender systemsHelberger, N.; Karpinnen, K.; D'Acunto, L. General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. ABSTRACTPersonalized recommendations in search engines, social media and also in more traditional media increasingly raise concerns over potentially negative consequences for diversity and the quality of public discourse. The algorithmic filtering and adaption of online content to personal preferences and interests is often associated with a decrease in the diversity of information to which users are exposed. Notwithstanding the question of whether these claims are correct or not, this article discusses whether and how recommendations can also be designed to stimulate more diverse exposure to information and to break potential 'filter bubbles' rather than create them. Combining insights from democratic theory, computer science and law, the article makes suggestions for design principles and explores the potential and possible limits of 'diversity sensitive design'. IntroductionRecommendation systems increasingly influence our information choices: the information that is ultimately being presented to us has been filtered through the lens of our personal preferences, our previous choices and the preferences of our friends. There are also commercial and strategic decisions behind the algorithms that determine which information we will see, which information is prioritized and which information is excluded (Bozdag, 2013;Foster, 2012;Schulz, Dreyer, & Hagemeier, 2012;Webster, 2010). Search engines and social networks, in particular, increasingly rely on recommender systems, which are a class of information filtering systems that study patterns of user behaviour to determine what someone will prefer from among a collection of 'information'. By doing so, recommender systems essentially personalize the list of content that is offered to a user. With the emerging trends of higher interactivity and user orientation, the use of recommender systems is not limited to search engines and social networks, as media organizations are also increasingly incorporating recommenders into their own services.The impact of personalized recommendations on the realization of media and information diversity is currently a central questi...

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Much of the research on communication and democracy continues to lean on Jürgen Habermas's work. However, many aspects of his approach have been intensely criticised in recent debates, both in communication studies and political theory. Habermas's emphasis on rational consensus as the aim of public communication has particularly been problematised. One of the most prominent critics, Chantal Mouff e and her agonistic model of democracy, have increasingly drawn the interest of media scholars. Mouff e explicitly contrasts the dominant Habermasian concept of the public sphere, and it appears that her model is impossible to combine with the Habermasian approach. But how substantial are the diff erences? What are the disagreements centred on? And what are their consequences for empirical media and communication research? In this article we argue that rather than accepting the standard readings or polar positions accredited to the two, we need to retain a certain "theoretical eclecticism" in combining normative theories with empirical research. Despite their controversies, we argue that both Habermas's and Mouff e's theories have value as critical perspectives that help us refl ect on the ideals of democratic public communication.

Media independence is a contested concept that carries different meanings in different contexts. As a normative ideal, independence can be discussed on many levels, and media organisations, journalists, researchers and regulators often invoke the term in contradictory ways. In contemporary European media policy, the conceptual contestation over the meaning of independence has been further reheated by commercial media's attempts to reframe the distinction between commercial and public service media as a choice between "independent" and "state" media. The digital transformations and the emergence of new media actors and platforms also challenge the meaning and relevance of different conceptions of media independence and dependence. In this article, we discuss the changing uses of the notion of independence in current media policy discourse, including controversies between public service and commercial media, but also other settings where the notion is invoked. We then develop a more fine-tuned understanding of the different dimensions that media independence contains in a contemporary media environment. Finally, we discuss how the relational nature of independence makes it problematic to employ as a normative principle in media policy.

On 1 January 2013, Germany and Finland made the switch from the traditional broadcasting licence fee tied to television-set ownership to a compulsory excise duty collected from all citizens, households and places of business. This article compares the changes in these countries' public service media funding arrangements on the basis of John Kingdon's 'multiple streams' framework of public policy-making which, to date, has been rather neglected in studies of media policy-making processes. Drawing on the analysis of policy documents and interviews with policymakers and other stakeholders involved in the respective processes, we investigate how the actual reforms materialized, which other possibilities were neglected and why this has been the case.