Presentation at the Capitalism, Culture and Media Conference - University of Leeds School of Media and Communication - September 2015

1. Journalism facing the Internet oligopoly: Google,
Facebook and
news infomediation
Nikos Smyrnaios, University of Toulouse
Capitalism, Culture and Media Conference - University of Leeds School of Media and
Communication - September 2015

2. Research question & method
What do Google and Facebook do to journalism ?
More than 30 interviews with French online journalists and editors as
well as within Google France between 2006 and 2013
Study of Google News & Facebook’s Newsfeed algorithms
Longtime observation of of the relationship between French publishers
and Google (2003-2015)

3. The commonplace
Since the advent of Web 2.0 in the mid-2000
the Internet is seen as:
1. A “naturally” democratic, inclusive means of communication
2. Driven by the ideal of “user participation”
3. Offering “desintermediated, direct and equal” access to the public to
all publishers

4. The reality
Restructuring of cultural industries in favour of tech giants
Concentrated control of online distribution channels
Complexification of the diffusion of digital content
not disintermediation, but algorithmic re-intermediation
I call this process “news infomediation” (Hagel & Rayport, 1997)
It’s not just distribution
Infomediaries operate a mix of aggregation, hierarchization & publishing
of 3rd party content + monetization
Thus they have great influence on content visibility
=> Strong impact on the public sphere

5. The oligopoly of referral traffic
(but also mobile apps distribution & online newsstands)

6. Content
Databases
+
Algorithms
Publishing on platforms
Popular services such as Google of
Facebook index news sites’ content
either automatically or via sharing
Then they process it through
algorithms combining different criteria
This results in 3rd party content
organizing and publishing on
proprietary platforms that aggregate
large audiences
Publishers compete to make their
content more visible on these
platforms and gain traffic
Crawling or Sharing
Content organizining +
personalization
How does this work ?
Public

7. Coopetition = simultaneous cooperation & competition
Mutual dependency: Google & FB need publishers for the content,
publishers need Google & FB for the traffic
At the same time they compete for online advertising revenue and
control over content
But the balance of power is largely in favour of infomediaries
Numerous conflicts between Google & media in France, Spain,
Belgium, Germany. Lex Google in Spain & Germany failed
In 2013 Google agreed to pay €60M over 3 years to French publishers
to avoid copyright law
In the meantime publishers “enslave themselves to Google” & FB
Infomediaries vs. Publishers

8. Newsworthiness for Google
2 traffic sources:
Google for archives Google News for hot news
Ranking in Google news
For news sites: productivity,
reactivity, popularity, completeness
For news topics: cluster size,
novelty, sources
For news items: novelty, originality,
click-through rate, mentions in
social media, sources etc.

9. Proliferation of “Keyword:…” style headlines (Google loves
them) e.g.
“Shovelware”: re-writing of press agency and PR material in
order to maximize production volume
Intensive use of Google Insights for most searched subjects
and of Analytics for audience performance
SEO: use of Sitemaps, meta-tags, microdata, internal links,
publishing timing, keyword centered landing pages, re-
publishing with changing headlines
Mandatory practices, but on the rise: very important for free,
advertising based news sites
Consequences

10. Facebook’s Newsfeed algorithm
Dozens of criteria are used in order to define the degree of visibility of
each piece of content shared by Facebook users
The “recipe” changes regularly “to help users see more stories that
interest them from friends they interact with the most”
For instance in June FB announced taking into account time spent on
stories

11. Consequences
Incentive to publish on FB posts that maximize interactions =>
emotionally charged or controversial content
Obligation to use images and video
Intensive use of Facebook Insights
Targeting socio-demographics upon publishing
Investing in community management
Promote FB pages and sharing, liking
By trying to increase referral traffic publishers promote Facebook and
obey to its rules to the point of giving away content through Instant
Articles

12. What impact on journalism ?
Journalism is increasingly hetero-determinated by the technological,
economic and ideological framework imposed upon it by the Internet
oligopoly on several levels:
- On journalistic practices (writing style, topic agenda etc.)
- On the choice of business models (free access Vs. paywalls)
- On the acquisition of technical skills (SEO, CM)
- On internal hierarchies (young technophiles Vs. old luddites)
- On agenda setting (who decides what’s important ?)

13. Political Issues
The Internet oligopoly incarnates post-fordist informational capitalism.
Therefore it fosters ideology
« Californian Ideolology », technological solutionism, radical
transparency, US foreign policy/ mass surveillance,
Neoliberalism/Libertarianism
The Internet oligopoly has great impact on media, cultural industries
and, par extension, on how we perceive the world
Thus it’s critique & regulation are major political stakes