This talk discusses algorithmic public service media (PSM) as an automation mechanism and policy lever to ensure diversity and pluralism in media. While commercial algorithmic platforms focus on popularity, PSM is tasked with social good. Algorithmic PSM could connect specific media with niche audiences in contrast to biases of commercial algorithms. It examines how PSM can utilize digital media and algorithms to meet its obligations within an increasingly automated environment, including through personalization, diversity of exposure, and critical analytics to measure impact beyond vanity metrics. Algorithmic PSM represents an opportunity for governments to support public media organizations and engage with large technology platforms on a more level playing field.

1. Dr Jonathon Hutchinson, Department of Media and Communication, University of Sydney.
@dhutchman
Algorithms and Public
Interest?
Protecting pluralism and diversity in media
and communication
Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap, February 5 2021

2. This talk describes algorithmic public service media as an automation mechanism and media policy lever
in contrast to its popular commercial counterparts, for example recommender systems on Netflix, Spotify
and so on, that utilise digital intermediation for increased diversity exposure. While commercial algorithmic
content service providers have been exceptionally successful in global media market dominance, they are
driven by user popularity and tend to ignore the social good and cohesion that public service media
institutions are legislated to perform. This is certainly a space and raison de’être for algorithmic PSM in the
contemporary media ecology.

5. While on
social media…

6. Emerging Media Automation
❖ “The imperative to capture all data, from all sources, by any means possible influences
many key decisions about business models, political governance, and technological
development… By understanding data as a form capital, we can better analyse the
meaning, practices, and implications of datafication as a political economic regime”
(Sadowski, 2019)
❖ “…platformization: the penetration of economic and infrastructural extensions of
online platforms into the web, affecting the production, distribution, and circulation of
cultural content” (Nieborg & Poell, 2018)
❖ The question then, is, how can PSM utilise digital media to ensure its legislated
requirements are met within an increasing automated and algorithmic
environment?

7. Digital Intermediation

8. –Ted Striphas, 2015
“What is at stake in algorithmic culture is the gradual abandonment of
culture’s publicness and the emergence of a strange new breed of
elite culture purporting to be its opposite.”

9. Algorithmic Media
❖ Positive algorithmed media: connecting
specific media with niche audiences of
interest
❖ Negative algorithmed media: bias (Noble,
2018), politics (Bucher, 2018),
discrimination through design (Whittaker et
al., 2019)
❖ The need to move beyond using algorithms
and towards a nuanced algorithmic PSM

10. What Does Algorithmic PSM Look Like?
Commercial Platforms
PSM
Algorithmic Media
‘Reithian’ values
Social responsibility
to cohesion
Popular vs ‘important’
Arguably high
public value
Personalisation Critical Analytics
Digital Intermediation
Large audiences/users

11. –Van de Bulck and Moe (2017, p.5)
“Explicit personalisation involves a user making deliberate choices
before receiving content, for example, asking news aggregator
Google News to focus only on sports. Implicit personalisation is done
by algorithms that process traces of previous choices to build a base
for future personalisation, for example, through contextual
recommendations, geo-tagging or filtering”

12. Shyam Sundar & Nass Thurman et al.
Credibility Biased, Fair, Objective
Liking Boring, Enjoyable, Interesting, Lively, Pleasing
Quality Clear, Coherent, Comprehensive, Concise, Well-written
Representativeness Important, Relevant, Timely
Accurate, Believable, Disturbing, Informative, Sensationalistic
Critical Analytics

13. Critical Analytics

14. Diversity. Exposure. Influence.
❖ Increasing benefit/challenge scenario of PSM operating on platforms
❖ The idea of the publics needs to shift to communities of interest
❖ Measurement needs to extend beyond vanity metrics or PSB values

15. Algorithmic PSM as Policy Lever
❖ “The ACCC found that digital
platforms have become
unavoidable trading partners of
news media businesses,
providing them with substantial
bargaining power.” Minister
Frydenberg, 2020.
❖ However, the Bill excludes
PSM!

16. “The proposed Code excludes both public
broadcasters from the bargaining
framework…”
ABC Submission to the ACCC, 2020

17. Where to now?
❖ Include digital intermediation as a cultural production process within public
media
❖ Continue the development of a measurement metric that integrates existing
PSM values, social media vanity metrics, and social development - critical
analytics
❖ Support from governments for their public media organisations to engage in a
level playing field with tech giants - algorithmic PSM as a policy lever

18. Dr Jonathon Hutchinson, Department of Media and Communication, University of Sydney.
@dhutchman
Algorithms and Public
Interest?
Protecting pluralism and diversity in media
and communication
Etmaal van de Communicatiewetenschap, February 5 2021