Stop the presses: The politics of digital infrastructure in European news media

Partners: University of Amsterdam & Utrecht University
Type: PhD
Duration: 2023—2027

This project examines the infrastructural paradigms underpinning digital news production, and the power relations that they foster. Control over media infrastructure was historically perceived as a key element to preserve journalistic independence and autonomy. However, the platformisation and datafication of the sector has fostered a new paradigm, where news organisations graft themselves into infrastructural stacks provided by third parties. This shift raises urgent questions concerning power dynamics and the productive logics in European journalism, but also the nature of critical infrastructure in the 21^st century. This project aims to address these questions by asking what are the politics of digital infrastructure in news media. It does so in an European context marked by divergent national understandings of what is journalism, while also sharing a common desire to regulate digital services at an EU level.