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This book provides a critical study of the power, trust, and legitimacy of algorithmic gatekeepers.

The news and public information which citizens see and hear is no longer solely determined by journalists, but increasingly by algorithms. Van Dalen demonstrates the gatekeeping power of social media algorithms by showing how they affect exposure to diverse information and misinformation and shape the behaviour of professional communicators. Trust and legitimacy are foregrounded as two crucial antecedents for the acceptance of this algorithmic power. This study reveals low trust among the general population in algorithms performing journalistic tasks and a perceived lack of legitimacy of algorithmic power among professional communicators. Drawing on case studies from YouTube and Instagram, this book challenges technological deterministic discourse around ""filter bubbles"" and ""echo chambers"" and shows how algorithmic power is situated in the interplay between platforms, audiences, and professional communicators. Ultimately, trustworthy algorithms used by news organizations and social media platforms as well as algorithm literacy training are proposed as ways forward towards democratic algorithmic gatekeeping.

Presenting a nuanced perspective which challenges the deep divide between techno-optimistic and techno-pessimistic discourse around algorithms, Algorithmic Gatekeeping is recommended reading for journalism and communication researchers in related fields.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.

Hvad folk ser og læser i medierne, bestemmes ikke længere kun af journalister, men i stigende grad af algoritmer. Disse algoritmer vælger, sorterer og prioriterer vores information. Automatiserede processer, som fx YouTubes anbefalingsalgoritme, påvirker den måde, vi ser verden på. Et vigtigt demokratisk spørgsmål er derfor, om YouTubes anbefalingsalgoritme eksponerer publikum incidentalt for politisk information, efter at man har set underholdningsindhold, og om algoritmen skaber en filterboble ved primært at anbefale indhold med et lignende politisk perspektiv. Under det danske folketingsvalg i 2019 var anbefalingsalgoritmen mere tilbøjelig til at føre seere væk fra end hen imod nyheder med politisk indhold. Når folk havde set en video, der var uploadet af de politiske partier Venstre eller Stram Kurs, blev de af algoritmen primært anbefalet videoer fra de samme partier, hvilket kan medføre, at de bliver bekræftede i forudindtagne holdninger (bekræftelsesbias). For andre partier var dette mindre tilfældet. Kun i begrænset omfang fører anbefalingsalgoritmen seere fra mainstream til ekstremt højreorienteret indhold.

What people see and read in the media is no longer only determined by journalists, but increasingly by algorithms. These algorithms select, sort, and prioritize our information. Automatic processes like YouTube's recommendation algorithm influence our views of the world. An important democratic question is whether YouTube's recommendation algorithm incidentally exposes the audience to political information after watching entertainment content and whether the algorithm creates a filter bubble by primarily recommending content with a similar political perspective. During the Danish parliamentary elections 2019, the recommendation algorithm was more likely to lead viewers away from news and public affairs than towards political content. After watching a video posted by political parties Venstre or Stram Kurs, the algorithm primarily recommends videos from these same parties, which could strengthen confirmation bias and reinforce political beliefs. For other parties, this was less the case. Little evidence was found that the recommendation algorithm leads viewers from mainstream content to extreme right content.

What people see and read in the media is no longer only determined by journalists, but increasingly by algorithms. These algorithms select, sort, and prioritize our information. Automatic processes like YouTube's recommendation algorithm influence our views of the world. An important democratic question is whether YouTube's recommendation algorithm incidentally exposes the audience to political information after watching entertainment content and whether the algorithm creates a filter bubble by primarily recommending content with a similar political perspective. During the Danish parliamentary elections 2019, the recommendation algorithm was more likely to lead viewers away from news and public affairs than towards political content. After watching a video posted by political parties Venstre or Stram Kurs, the algorithm primarily recommends videos from these same parties, which could strengthen confirmation bias and reinforce political beliefs. For other parties, this was less the case. Little evidence was found that the recommendation algorithm leads viewers from mainstream content to extreme right content.

The relation between journalists and politicians in liberal democracies is traditionally conceptualized as highly institutionalized, based on mutual dependence, and grounded in a shared culture of jointly respected role relations. While this conceptualization provides a fruitful framework to understand the relation between mainstream journalists and politicians, it falls short in explaining the way outsider politicians such as Beppe Grillo, Donald Trump, Thierry Baudet, or Nigel Farage address the mainstream media. Thus, this article rethinks the relation between journalists and politicians in the light of the Western political-media environment in the 2010s, where the rise of authoritarian populism, the fragmentation of media audiences, and the fading boundaries around the journalistic profession have substantially changed media–politics relations. This article aims to make a theoretical contribution by conceptualizing the relation between outsider politicians and mainstream journalists as an ongoing negotiation over legitimacy. Central in this conceptualization is a classification of five strategies which outsider politicians use to delegitimize mainstream journalists: attacking their character, connecting them with other institutions which are seen as illegitimate, attacking their ethical standards, challenging the claim that journalists work in the public interest, and questioning the beneficial consequences of their work. The consequences of these delegitimation strategies are discussed.

Partisan identities do not only shape people's political attitudes, but also their perceptions of real-world developments. This is evident from the partisan economic perception gap: Government supporters have more positive economic perceptions than opposition supporters, especially when the economic situation is ambiguous. Recent research has shown that the size of this partisan gap varies across different contexts and that the state of the economy and working of political institutions are important moderators. Still, little is known about the influence of another important contextual variable: the degree of partisanship in the media system. Based on a theoretical discussion of partisan-motivated rationalization and the information environment, the paper tests the hypothesis that, due to selective exposure and exposure to more partisan content, people in partisan media systems have more polarized economic perceptions. A multilevel analysis of representative surveys in twenty-six European countries in 2014 shows that the partisan perception gap is, indeed, larger in countries with more polarized media systems, after controlling for other relevant country characteristics. People with the highest level of media consumption are most affected by media-party parallelism. The findings are relevant for worldwide discussions about posttruth politics, as they show that the media environment influences gaps in people's perceptions of real-world developments.

The battle for media attention is an integral part of political conflicts. Because of structural bias in the news, government generally dominates this battle for media attention. This article argues, first, that the attention for government and parliament in the news reflects the power balance in the political system and, second, that this relation is moderated by cross-national differences in journalistic cultures, in particular the importance of conflict framing. Content analysis of newspaper and television coverage in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain (N = 1,306 stories) shows that because of the universal news value of political power, attention for government and parliament reinforces differences of political power of these institutions, both within countries and cross-nationally. However, in pragmatic journalistic cultures, the dominance of government is weakened by journalists' search for conflict. In countries where the news value of conflict is more important (Denmark and the United Kingdom), stories about government more often include oppositional voices than in countries where conflict is a less important news value (Spain). [Reprinted by permission; copyright Sage Publications Inc.]

The battle for media attention is an integral part of political conflicts. Because of structural bias in the news, government generally dominates this battle for media attention. This article argues, first, that the attention for government and parliament in the news reflects the power balance in the political system and, second, that this relation is moderated by cross-national differences in journalistic cultures, in particular the importance of conflict framing. Content analysis of newspaper and television coverage in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Spain ( N = 1,306 stories) shows that because of the universal news value of political power, attention for government and parliament reinforces differences of political power of these institutions, both within countries and cross-nationally. However, in pragmatic journalistic cultures, the dominance of government is weakened by journalists' search for conflict. In countries where the news value of conflict is more important (Denmark and the United Kingdom), stories about government more often include oppositional voices than in countries where conflict is a less important news value (Spain).

Although the democratic role of journalism in new democracies is heavily debated, systematic empirical analysis is scarce. This paper studies how the performance of the watchdog and civic journalism role in Chilean newspapers develops during 22 years of democratic transition. We challenge the homogenization-thesis, which has often characterized thinking about the role of the media in democratic transition, assuming an automatic unidirectional trend toward more critical professionalism, where reporters increasingly act as watchdogs by taking the side of ordinary citizens against the political and economic elite. We argue that a rise in critical professionalism is often limited to a brief honeymoon period after the return to democracy. We furthermore argue that to understand changing role performance during democratic transition, one needs to look at specific developments of the media (press freedom, journalism education, advertisement income, and circulation) and developments in the political context, in particular the degree of political conflict. These hypotheses are tested with a unique data set consisting of a content analysis of 20,201 news articles, which make up representative yearly samples of newspaper coverage in Chile between 1990 and 2011. We find no trend toward more watchdog and civic journalism, and limited influences of developments of the media. At least for the performance of these two journalistic roles in Chile, changes in journalism during democratic transition can best be explained by the honeymoon hypothesis and the degree of political conflict. The generalizability of these findings to other transitional democracies is discussed.

Although the democratic role of journalism in new democracies is heavily debated, systematic empirical analysis is scarce. This paper studies how the performance of the watchdog and civic journalism role in Chilean newspapers develops during 22 years of democratic transition. We challenge the homogenization-thesis, which has often characterized thinking about the role of the media in democratic transition, assuming an automatic unidirectional trend toward more critical professionalism, where reporters increasingly act as watchdogs by taking the side of ordinary citizens against the political and economic elite. We argue that a rise in critical professionalism is often limited to a brief honeymoon period after the return to democracy. We furthermore argue that to understand changing role performance during democratic transition, one needs to look at specific developments of the media (press freedom, journalism education, advertisement income, and circulation) and developments in the political context, in particular the degree of political conflict. These hypotheses are tested with a unique data set consisting of a content analysis of 20,201 news articles, which make up representative yearly samples of newspaper coverage in Chile between 1990 and 2011. We find no trend toward more watchdog and civic journalism, and limited influences of developments of the media. At least for the performance of these two journalistic roles in Chile, changes in journalism during democratic transition can best be explained by the honeymoon hypothesis and the degree of political conflict. The generalizability of these findings to other transitional democracies is discussed.

Transformations in media and society have forced journalists to reconsider their relation to the audience. In this article, we argue that due to these changes, a new conceptualization is needed of the way journalism addresses the audience, which goes beyond the traditional consumer–citizen dichotomy. Results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses with three samples of Chilean news ( N = 1,988; N = 795; N = 812) support the hypothesis that audience approaches in journalism are best represented by a three-factor solution: the infotainment, the service, and the civic models. The data also show that approaching the audience as consumer or as citizen are not two poles of one continuum, and that approaching the audience under a consumer-orientation consists of two approaches: providing service and providing entertainment.

At the beginning of the 21st century, politicians, scholars and journalists want news media to be more accountable and transparent. The newspaper ombudsman is often considered an example of an accountability mechanism. Similarly to Japan, the US and elsewhere, newspapers in the Netherlands have introduced this function in the newsroom. A questionnaire and open-ended interviews with Dutch ombudsmen showed two different views of the function: on the one hand, they see themselves as the 'readers' advocate', whose loyalty lies with the reader; on the other hand, they are the 'paper's ambassador', who defends the paper's interests. The ombudsman can be seen as an accountability mechanism, or as a way to strengthen the newspaper's relationship with its readers.