Journalism Policy across the Commonwealth: Partial Answers to Public Problems

Abstract

Governments and policymakers are considering intervening in the relationship between major tech companies and the news media industry and holding various inquiries and reviews to canvass reform options. This article provides a comparative study of Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom, some of the earliest countries in the world to engage in these policy processes. The study reveals that these media systems have devised similar regulatory tools and their approach aligns with a more disaggregated set of reforms occurring across Europe. While these reform agendas often draw on valuable concepts from media policy, they also awkwardly translate frameworks and introduce already questionable regulatory approaches to the platform environment. The most notable is the ongoing focus on stakeholders instead of the wider public interest. I end the paper by arguing the long-term sustainability of journalism need to be decoupled from attempts to limit platform power. I outline a more targeted regulatory response focussed on antitrust and privacy and note that journalism will receive downstream benefits from these efforts. The approach challenges the core issues associated with platform dominance and stands in contrast to current reform proposals, which threaten to hamper much needed institutional transformation across the journalism sector KEYWORDS Media policy; platforms; Australia; Canada; United Kingdom regulation Governments are beginning to critically examine the relationship between platforms and the news media and have held reviews and inquiries to canvass reform options (Puppis and Winseck 2019). The central motivation for this policy activity is the concern that news media are becoming dependent on platforms for audiences, in turn contributing to the news media's ongoing economic woes. Governments are also worried about the opacity of platform algorithms and the rise in misinformation and disinformation (Bechmann 2020). Countries across the world have conducted reviews and inquiries in response (Puppis and Winseck 2019) and Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom (U.K.) have been some of the first movers in this space. The U.K. review focussed specifically on the relationship between platforms and news media (Cairncross 2019) and Canada and Australia addressed this relationship as part of CONTACT James Meese

Australia’s Big Gamble: The News Media Bargaining Code and the Responses From Google and Facebook

“…In contrast, we suggest that regulatory attention is more appropriate around concentration in the online advertising sector and wider antitrust concerns. Reform in these areas will provide downstream benefits for journalism (Meese, 2020). Alongside these efforts, a more concerted and rigorous commitment to publicly funding journalism is required across all jurisdictions.…”

“…Industry reports suggest that the news media are now favoring reader-focused business strategies over social media distribution (Logsdon, 2021). Alongside these changes, governments are introducing regulatory interventions that aim to introduce algorithmic transparency and, in some cases, force platforms to pay for news content (Meese, 2020;Myllylahti, 2018). These broadly contemporaneous developments underline the fact that the last few years have been a period of significant change in the publisher/platform relationship.…”

Introduction: Governing the Algorithmic Distribution of the News

“…However, platforms would then change their mind and leave media outlets in the lurch. The relationship became increasingly tense and news outlets in various countries (most notably Australia), started demanding regulatory intervention (Meese 2020). The media sector suggested that the public interest outcomes associated with the distribution of news were being harmed by this increasingly unworkable relationship.…”

“…The media sector suggested that the public interest outcomes associated with the distribution of news were being harmed by this increasingly unworkable relationship. They also argued that platforms were essentially stealing their content and called for news organizations to be paid for the snippets of content that appeared on search results or on Facebook News Feeds (Flew and Wilding, 2020;Meese, 2020).…”

“…This geographic distinction is important for two reasons. Firstly, much of the regulatory concern and activity is occurring in countries who have to respond to the rapid growth of US-based platforms (Meese 2020). The United States, on the other hand, has generally taken a relaxed approach to platform regulation until the late-2010s, whereas other jurisdictions have been actively considering reform for a longer period of time.…”