Public Service Media (PSM) — the ‘basic information service provider’ with a special mandate from the state — increasingly relies on platforms under the universality principle to reach out and interact with the broadest range of their audiences. However, control over PSM content dissemination and audience engagement is primarily determined by the private interest-ruled platforms via algorithmic recommendation systems (content curation) and according to their terms and conditions (community standards).
Krisztina Rozgonyi just published the paper ‘Accountability and platforms' governance: the case of online prominence of public service media content’, summarising her research results and addressing the necessity and possibilities of safeguards for PSM content delivery on digital online platforms as an issue of media pluralism. Actual or potential policy interventions for the preferential treatment of public value content, aka due prominence online, were studied through the analytical lens of accountability in its interaction with platforms and PSM performance. Finally, the analyses on the appropriateness of the current accountability regimes for achieving pluralism objectives laid out recommendations for future policy for public-interest-driven platform governance.
Moreover, for the next stage of this research stream, she has partnered up with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to study ‘Media pluralism online: exploring new safeguards for PSM content delivery’, and presented a joint paper with Jenny Weinand and Sophia Wistehube at the 2023 ECREA COMMUNICATION LAW AND POLICY WORKSHOP, 2-3 Nov 2023, in Salzburg. In essence, up until today, only a few countries have set about the difficult task to adopt rules that would ensure the appropriate prominence of general interest content on certain devices and user interfaces. Article 7a of the EU’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) recognises Member States’ freedom to take such measures, has given some impetus but ultimately remains too vague and leaves too many complex questions open. Nonetheless, there seems to be some coherence in the few national prominence rules that exist that could pave the way for a shared European approach to prominence in the future. Building on relevant rules contained in the EU’s E-Commerce Directive (ECD), the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the draft European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), the paper reflects on future policy interventions that would ensure the prominence of general interest content and, ultimately, media pluralism.