Recent developments in communication and information technology have disrupted the long-established dominance of mass media over the production and distribution of news. As an effort to reclaim their role of society’s information gatekeeper, media companies absorb digital technology as instruments of institutional power to reproduce its own logic in the digital space. This paper discusses two interrelated modalities of algorithmic news: economically efficient production, where news outlets utilize quantitative metrics to improve content effectiveness and desirability; and shared-gatekeeping, where visibility and distribution of information are contextual and based on users’ behaviour. The paper proposes that algorithmic media hides under its supposed objectivity and neutrality to become a new gatekeeper “organism,” which not only regulates flows of information but also interprets and negotiates both public interests and the value of the news.
Link: http://journals.sfu.ca/stream/index.php/stream/article/view/251
Reference
Frizzera, L. (2018). I/O: Reinforcing Newsmaking Practices Through Algorithmic Media. Stream: Inspiring Critical Thought, 10(1), 39–51.