New Article: „How Negative Media Coverage Impacts Platform Governance“ by Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach

An important publication from the Lab’s own Dr. Prof. Christian Katzenbach in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Zurich as well as the Humboldt University of Berlin; Emma Hoes, K. Jonathan Klüser, Felix Hamborg, Meysam Alizadeh, Mael Kubli and Led by Nahema Marchal. “How Negative Media Coverage Impacts Platform Governance”. The empirical research was presented back at #ICA22 in Paris, in a panel chaired by Daniel Kreiss.

This work follows the question; How does platform governance emerge in the context increasing controversies and politicisation? By drawing on data collected from mainstream English-language news sources between 2005-2021 and on a novel dataset of policy documents from the Platform Governance Archive (PGA), this research investigates the extent to which policy change at Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube is responsive to negative news coverage.

The article finds that sustained negative coverage significantly predicts changes to platforms’ user policies, highlighting the role of public pressure in shaping the governance of online platforms. While Tarleton Gillespie, Mike Ananny, and also our own research at the Lab Platform Governance, Media, and Technology (PGMT) had shown anecdotical and qualitative evidence of this, this study is a first, in trying to measure this on scale and in quantitative terms.

Moreover, the 17Y timeline of media reporting on platforms also shows systematically that there is indeed a „tech lash“ in media reporting. Observing a significant surge in negative sentiment and critical new reporting toward major Big Tech companies. Platforms’ outsized power and influence over public life have brought widespread criticisms since 2016, and these are clearly reflected in the increasingly critical tone of tech coverage over that period.

You can find the full publication here.