Theresa Seipp’s dissertation examines the shift of opinion power from legacy media to digital platforms and the resulting trends that lead to increased concentration in digital media. This shift is driven by digitalisation and platformisation, with significant implications for news consumption, opinion formation, and the journalistic sector. Platforms acquire new sources of power in data, technology, and infrastructure, leading to structural dependencies within the digital media ecosystem. As political actors, platforms exert substantial control over opinion formation and public debates, putting democratic values such as media pluralism and diversity at risk. The first Chapter introduces the societal and democratic risks of concentrated opinion power and outlines the research motivation and questions of the dissertation. Building on that, the second Chapter conceptualises power, opinion power, and media concentration, drawing on theorists such as Steve Lukes and Byung-Chul Han. It emphasises that opinion power involves steering news consumption, agenda-setting, and public debates, which are central to media concentration law and the preservation of media pluralism. Following that, Chapter three analyses the shift of opinion power to platforms across three levels: individual citizens, institutional newsrooms, and the media ecosystem. It explores how digitalisation, platformisation, and automation transform newsrooms and make them dependent on platforms. Chapter four evaluates the limitations of existing European media concentration laws, which often exclude platforms, and calls for a new approach that integrates data protection, platform regulation, and AI legislation.
To deal with these risks and in overcoming the limitations of regulation, Chapter five discusses ‘counterpower’ as a concept to correct asymmetries in power between platforms and news organisations. To conceptualise ‘counterpower’ not only from a theoretical but also practical point of view, she conducted interviews with news organizations. These interviews revealed that while some news organisations have better capabilities of countering platform power and dependences, especially local and regional news media lack these opportunities. This could further create risks in terms of traditional and digital media concentration. Finally, Chapter six examines novel EU regulations such as the Digital Services Act (DSA), Digital Markets Act (DMA), and European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) in how they contribute to regulating the issues at stake. The legal analysis highlights that, while in parts very relevant and promising, overall regulations must better address the technological and infrastructural power of platforms more effectively and legal and non-legal approaches to ensure the protection of small news organisations must be improved. The dissertation concludes by highlighting that the shift of opinion power to platforms results in new forms of media concentration, driven by algorithmic control, access to user data, control over infrastructures, and technological innovation. The dissertation ends with a call for interdisciplinary research and stronger political engagement to protect media pluralism and local journalism from the growing concentration of platform and AI power. This research highlights the critical need to reform traditional media concentration laws to capture the new power dimensions and new powerful actors, while emphasising the importance of enforcing EU regulations to enhance platform transparency and accountability and ensure fair competition in digital markets. Additionally, safeguarding media pluralism online and strengthening journalism as a public good necessitate both regulatory and non-regulatory measures, potentially requiring a more expansive approach to the concept of counterpower.
Seipp defended her thesis on December 20, 2024, at the University of Amsterdam. Supervisors: prof. Natali Helberger and prof. Claes de Vreese and dr. Jef Ausloos.
Theresa Seipp
Media concentration 2.0. Regulating Platform Opinion Power in a Concentrated Digital Media Ecosystem
The dissertation is available in the repository of the University of Amsterdam.