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EPP Extensive summary 22/23
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EUROPEAN PLATFORM POLICIES2022/2023
Dr. Tim Raats
1
, Session 1, 26.09.2022
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA POLICY MAKING
What is policy making? It’s a process that concerns the interactions between different
actors (on national level, international, private media companies, NGOs), the institutional
structures within which they work and the objectives that they pursue (they could be public
interest driven or economically driven)
There are different ways of achieving different objectives: ex. protecting plurality of ideas, in
Germany the law about maintaining it is really strict because of historical background, in
Scandinavian countries there is state support for journalism, while others try to avoid this
connection between government and press as much as possible.
Policy making is ideology-driven: what the government finds important is driven by the
political choices they make, media policy serves the views of the government in specific
context.
It’s also conflict-driven, it’s a result of an ideological compromise and power positions,
unequal negotiation positions, it’s lobbyist, but with a view on consensus. Ideology,
emotion and politics always play along. That means there is no such thing as an ideal
policy outcome or perfect policymaking process (ex. the more you regulate hate speech,
the more you take away from freedom of speech).
Case: Last week was presented the Media Freedom Act from the EU Commission, a novel
set of rules to protect media pluralism and independence in the EU, but this creates
difficulties between some of the member states.
Policy making is always political: the definition of a problem itself depends on the political
context: “How a policy issue area is identified is political... because it determines who
participates in decision making, the rhetorical frames and operational definitions used,
and the resources, and goals, considered pertinent” (Braman, S. 2004:154). Either we define
cultural diversity, plurality, freedom, as a challenge or policy objective, or we don’t.
Media policy is dynamic, it keeps changing overtime, for example the Advertisement
regulations Act; they keep restricting different products and it's constantly evolving from
1932.
There are not only formal discussions on media policy, but also informal: there is a
constant interplay on an informal level, while the formal process is going on.
2
,Policy, regulation and governance
1. Media policy: is about the actors trying to achieve media policy principles and the
behavior they want to achieve, for example cultural diversity, identity and cohesion
2. Media regulation is about the specific laws and rule making, e.g European regulation
on competition, national law, directives
3. Media governance relates to MLG and (2) multi-stakeholder approach and
considering (3) new regulatory mechanisms such as soft law, co- and self-regulation,
as well as (4) formal & informal policy mechanisms/negotiations.
How do we approach platform policies?
● Focus 1: I-I-I, mix institutions, interest and ideas (and individuals);
● Focus 2: historical trajectory, path-dependency, for example everyone of the 27
states have a different history, hence is more difficult to find policies everyone
agrees on;
● Focus 3: a comparative perspective, different classifications of media systems in
Europe, specificity of Markets.
There are different kinds of policies, that can be sector specific (ex. on media), so vertical,
and non sector specific, on an horizontal perspective: industrial/Innovation, competition,
standardization, trade, consumer, educational, social, cultural, fiscal.
There are different principles at the core of media policy: media freedom (independence
and accountability), universal service and access, quality, objectivity (neutrality, pluralism),
privacy, diversity (pluralism, plurality).
Biggest broadcasters in EU: ARD-ZDF, BBC, they follow those principles.
Media policy is in constant flux, with a different pace in different countries with different
media system:
● The era of scarcity: Audiovisual media = monopoly of public service broadcasters.
Press and journalism policies (significant differences between countries in Europe).
No independent production industry; no private broadcasters; no television pay-tv
distributors.
● The era of choice: Privatization of television and radio. Public broadcasters facing
competition. Cable, pay-tv (satellite) and telco distributors become important
stakeholders. Independent production industry arises. Europe becomes important:
competition policy, “television without frontiers”.
● The era of abundance: Digitization and convergence. Pressure on business models
of legacy media. Hybrid roles. New market entrants: platforms – social media –
platforms and their logic. Arises the need to create a ‘level-playing field’ between
players.
3
, Session 2, 03.10.2022
PLATFORMIZATION OF MEDIA INDUSTRIES
Platform: offers a service online, and the content today is always, to some extent, regulated.
The customers can create or consume. They can be a link between different kinds of
customers and have the power to create a network effect. They operate on a big scale (few
platforms succeed being active in a restricted market).
Although there is no clear definition on what a platform is, it’s better to highlight its most
important characteristics.
The traditional media markets are considered two sided markets, on the one hand you
have your readers, while on the other hand, you have other clients, your advertisers.
➢ Advertiser - Media player - Costumer
They are also infrastructure based (for example newspapers or television distribution need
an infrastructure to function. To build media-power, it’s needed to create advantages of
scale (expand the territory) and scope (variety in the company, doing different things):
horizontal and vertical integration.
A platform is different: it’s a business that creates value by facilitating direct interactions
between two or more distinct types of customers. It’s a multi-sided market, unlike the
traditional media.
Some of their main characteristics:
● They are often launched as a market challenger.
eg. Deliveroo challenged pizza delivery services, Spotify challenged illegal and transactional
downloading, Facebook challenged the communication online: they are usually welcomed
as positive innovations, which brings them to become bigger and bigger. This means also
more concerns and complications arise: what are the working conditions? What is the
algorithm like?
● They are built around a key service, so they expand to adjacent markets, but still
remain dependent on the key service. This is one of the reasons these platforms can
get so big in such little time. They can take over innovative companies or simply
work with them and then integrate their service.
eg. Amazon started as a bookstore, now it’s a delivery platform and a video platform,
there’s also Alexa, grocery services and so on;
4
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