Abstract

This article presents an analysis of how different major news media with different funding models (public service versus private sector media) and different organizational legacies (broadcast versus print) in six different European countries approach the social media platforms that they increasingly rely on for some of their online reach. Based on interviews with senior editors and executives in a strategic sample of 20 news organizations and analysis of their social media activities on Facebook, we find the following: all these organizations have invested significantly in social media, even as they explicitly recognize platforms as ‘frenemies,’ combining characteristics of a friend and an enemy, and they do so in ways that differ in part according to their funding models (public service versus private sector) and legacy roots (broadcast versus print). We argue that publishers’ agency and strategic priorities play a substantial role in determining how individual news organizations adapt to the increasing power of platforms, although structural factors, including power asymmetries and algorithmic incentives, also lead to similarities across otherwise different organizations with different strategies in different countries.

摘要

本文分析了六个不同欧洲国家中具有不同资助模式（公共服务与私营部门媒体）和不同组织遗产（广播与印刷）的不同主要新闻媒体如何接近他们在某些方面越来越依赖的社交媒体平台。他们的在线影响力。根据对 20 家新闻机构的战略样本中的高级编辑和高管的采访以及对他们在 Facebook 上的社交媒体活动的分析，我们发现：所有这些组织都在社交媒体上进行了大量投资，即使他们明确承认平台是“敌人” ，'结合朋友和敌人的特征，他们这样做的方式有所不同，部分取决于他们的筹资模式（公共服务与私营部门）和传统根源（广播与印刷）。我们认为，出版商的代理机构和战略优先事项在决定各个新闻机构如何适应日益增长的平台权力方面发挥着重要作用，尽管包括权力不对称和算法激励在内的结构性因素也导致在其他方面具有不同战略的不同组织之间的相似性不同国家。