Connecting Journalism and Public Policy: New Concerns and Continuing Challenges

Abstract

This Introduction to this special issue on Policy Issues in Digital Journalism explores the reasons why this is a particularly important time for scholars to be exploring policy issues in digital journalism, as well as the reasons why, in some national contexts, there has been resistance to approaching the crisis in journalism as a public policy issue. This Introduction also suggestions direction for future research on policy issues in digital journalism. KEYWORDS Journalism; media regulation; media policy; digital platforms I was very excited about the opportunity to guest edit this special issue on this topic for a number of reasons. First, I find myself now in a unique institutional context-I am based in a public policy school 1 that is also home to a journalism program. 2 This is an institutional arrangement that is certainly unique in the U.S., and, I suspect, is also quite rare internationally. And yet, there is something about this arrangement that makes sense, both in terms of the role that journalism plays in the formulation of public policy (see, e.g. Cook 2005), and in terms the way that journalism (and media more broadly) can be the object of public policy (see, e.g. Napoli 2001, 2019). I've always found it fascinatingand difficult to understandwhy amongst the various areas of public policy, media and communications policy tends to reside almost exclusively in media and communications programs and virtually never in public policy programs. Yet other areas of public policy, such as education policy, environmental policy, economic policy, etc., are always prominently represented in public policy programs as well as in their "home" units (i.e. programs in education, environmental science, economics, etc.). The logic I have heard in the past is that media/communications policy is too narrow (and thus not sufficiently consequential?) a niche to justify investment from public policy programs. This logic seems a lot less compelling today than it ever has (not that I've ever found that logic to be particularly compelling). Often, I am reminded of a slogan that my colleagues who work in media policy advocacy have been using for years to try to broaden their constituency and form strategic partnerships with

Advancing Research into Dark Participation

“…Some publishers have maintained participatory features such as comment fields but have had to develop their content moderation strategies to cope with hate speech, disinformation and other forms of dark participation (Wintterlin, Schatto-Eckrodt, Frischlich, Boberg, & Quandt, 2020). Similarly, platform companies are wrestling with both human-and technology-led approaches towards content moderation, for which disinformation has become a central concern (Napoli, 2020), not least during political elections such as the United States' 2020 presidential election where platform companies such as Twitter have flagged misinformation coming from various actors, including but not limited to the president himself.…”

Data journalism and misinformation

“…COVID-19 has resulted in packed hospitals and depleted stocks of medical equipment, panic buying by citizens, armed demonstrations against lockdown measures and everyday acts of kindness such as coordinated live music performances across balconies. Napoli (2020) points out that amid COVID-19, a convergence is taking place between health misinformation and political misinformation.…”

“…Misinformation is produced and shared by a great number of actors (Napoli 2020;Quandt 2018;Tandoc, Lim, & Ling 2018), and is published and shared across digital platforms. This connects with alternative news media that situated themselves as a counter to established news publishers gaining ground (Boberg, Quandt, Schatto-Eckrodt, & Frischlich 2020;Figenschou & Ihlebaek 2019;Holt, Ustad Figenschou & Frischlich 2019).…”

The Value of Local News in the Digital Realm – Introducing the Integrated Value Creation Model

“…This is a growing concern in much of the democratic world given market forces are currently eradiating local newspapers, leaving entire regions and issues uncovered (Pickard 2019). In the US, where local newspaper death is particularly salient, disinformation-masquerading-as-journalism and hyper-partisan journalism have emerged on the local level, hijacking the information role that local newspapers previously held (Napoli 2020) and making it more difficult for audiences to distinguish between fake news and quality news reporting. This is creating concern over growing polarization in the population and distortion of democratic processes (Ibid).…”

“…As local news publishers increasingly struggle to maintain a profitable advertising business in their transition from print to digital and the commercial model of news is falling apart, there are urgent calls for a more active public policy to save local journalism (e.g. Napoli 2020;Pickard 2020). A revenue model for news that combines subsidies and user payment with some advertising revenue can potentially provide a viable path forward for local news publishers (Olsen, Pickard, and Westlund 2020).…”