engleski

The digital advertising gap and the impact of digital intermediaries on media pluralism

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in studying the biases of algorithms and other automated solutions in communication production and consumption (e.g. Diakopoulous, 2014 ; Napoli, 2014 ; Helberger, 2016 ; Tambini, 2016 ; Pasquale, 2017). In addition, the advent of fake news provokes regulatory scrutiny and shifts the focus of the European Commission towards regulating tech giants such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, and others. In academic research, much of the focus is on the political bias and filter bubbles (Pariser, 2011) created by digital intermediaries. Much less attention has been given to the systemic capture of digital advertising investments by major digital intermediaries and the effects this systemic gap has on news industries, media pluralism and democracy. This paper looks at the digital advertising gap, or the difference between the total amount of publicly declared internet advertising spending in Croatia, and the data on total income of registered digital news companies in Croatia. The assessment is primarily based on the 2017 case study of the digital news media market that combines multiple data sources: financial indicators provided by the main regulatory body, focus groups and semi-structured interviews with representatives of digital news media and major advertising companies in Croatia (N = 15), and a representative online survey (stratified based on gender, age and region) focusing on internet users’ habits and preferences (N = 2000). The data shows a discrepancy between the total internet advertising investment, and the total digital media income. It shows that digital intermediaries such as Google and Facebook, which are simultaneously among the most visited websites in Croatia and essential access points for digital news, are the final destinations for the majority of digital advertising investments. A calculation based on the size of the internet population, internet advertising per capita and digital advertising market value shows that Google and Facebook capture in excess of 50% of the total market value. At the same time, our data shows low trust in digital news media and the quality of produced content, despite frequent and high usage of digital news sources. From a critical political economy of communication and media perspective (Mosco, 2009 ; Hardy, 2014), we argue that the digital advertising gap provides a clear example of a ‘market failure’ (Bator, 1958 ; Pickard, 2013 ; 2016) in which the market does not efficiently produce and allocate public goods. In other words, a de-regulated digital news media market is unable to ensure media pluralism in the face of competition with globally dominant digital intermediaries. We propose to measure their impact by looking at four key variables: (1) internet advertising capture by digital intermediaries ; (2) the state of journalistic profession and the commercial influence over editorial content ; (3) users’ perception of the quality of digital news content ; and (4) citizens' trust in digital news media.

Digital advertising, digital intermediaries, political economy, market failure, policy failure

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