Media / Publication
January 29, 2026

Clouded judgments: Problematizing cloud infrastructures for news media companies

This article by Agustin Ferrari Braun (University of Amsterdam) and Dr. Corinne Cath (University of Oxford/ARTICLE 19) examines how cloud infrastructures are reshaping the business operations of European news media organisations.

Abstract

Over the past decade, most European news media companies have adopted hyperscaler cloud infrastructures-digital infrastructure services offered by Amazon, Microsoft, and Google who, together, account for two thirds of the global cloud market. In moving to these clouds, media companies externalize the provision and maintenance of their digital infrastructure. While existing scholarship has examined how platforms shape news distribution and content moderation, the present chapter shifts focus to a less visible but equally consequential layer: the cloud infrastructure that has become the operational environment for news production itself. These infrastructural changes systematically restructure the technologies, workforces, and business operations of news media companies, creating unequal power relationships with cloud providers that threaten editorial and operational independence. The chapter maps cloud adoption's impact on European news media through three interconnected analyses. First, it situates cloud adoption within the wider digitization of news media, showing how infrastructural change responds to the sector's multiple crises. Second, drawing on interviews with news media workers and managers in France and the Netherlands, it examines how a large media group and an independent outlet adopt cloud infrastructure. Third, it outlines cloud infrastructure's structural impact across three dimensions: security and access to information, dependency on Big Tech, including through organizational restructuring, and power over news production. Together, these perspectives reveal that cloud adoption systematically diminishes media autonomy, creates structural dependencies on hyperscalers, and introduces vulnerabilities that compromise both operational and democratic resilience.

To continue reading please visit: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6096289

This open access article was published by the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) on January 27, 2026.

Ferrari Braun, Agustin and Cath, Corinne, Clouded Judgments: Problematizing Cloud Infrastructures for News Media Companies (January 19, 2026). Bedu-Addo, K.,A., Chin, Y. C., Kaye, D., & Tambini, D. (eds.), Media Regulation Handbook. Elgar, Available at SSRN:
https://ssrn.com/abstract=6096289 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6096289

Keywords
News Organizations; Journalism; Cloud Computing; Digital Infrastructure; Business Operations; Digitization

^{© Image: Unsplash/Scott Rodgerson}