Descrizione del progetto
La tecnologia ha cambiato il modo in cui riceviamo le notizie
Internet ha cambiato in modo sostanziale l’ambiente in cui operano i media tradizionali. La concorrenza tra le piattaforme online ha contribuito a un rapido calo delle entrate pubblicitarie, il che ha obbligato molti organi di stampa a ripensare in modo radicale il proprio modello aziendale e la loro organizzazione. Questi cambiamenti possono esercitare conseguenze dannose per la qualità della divulgazione delle notizie e la fornitura di informazioni politiche. Il progetto MIRAGE, finanziato dall’UE, approfondirà l’impatto di Internet sulla qualità dei contenuti e sull’indipendenza dei media da interessi di tipo privato, come i pubblicitari e i finanziatori. I risultati del progetto forniranno ai responsabili delle politiche e agli esperti dei media nuovi indizi su come il settore si stia trasformando e cosa significhi tutto questo per la qualità della democrazia.
Obiettivo
The Internet was expected to make citizens considerably more informed and better able to hold politicians and powerful interests accountable. Many predicted it would also effectively complement traditional media and improve news reporting. These expectations have not been met. There is no evidence that citizens have become more informed; they have, however, become more ideologically polarized, possibly due to online media overexposing users to like-minded content. At the same time, traditional media are struggling: competition from online platforms has slashed advertising revenues forcing newspapers to close or downsize. These changes risk undermining the quality of reporting and making media more vulnerable to capture by special interests.
My project examines how the Internet has transformed the way news is produced and disseminated, both directly and through its influence on traditional media, and its ultimate effect on media independence and content quality. To this end, I tackle three distinct but intertwined questions. First, I study how lower advertising revenues affect newspapers’ organization and content quality by exploiting the staggered introduction of advertising platform Craigslist across the US. Second, I examine how media dependence on advertisers influences news bias by testing the relationship between advertising spending by car manufacturers and coverage of car safety recalls in US newspapers. Finally, I study how the dependence of media on banks affects coverage of financial issues; focusing on Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, I test whether newspapers linked to banks with higher exposure to risky debt endorsed different crisis-management measures.
My results will shed light on the deep transformations the media industry is undergoing and their implications for the quality of democracy.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
ERC-STG - Starting GrantIstituzione ospitante
08005 Barcelona
Spagna
L’organizzazione si è definita una PMI (piccola e media impresa) al momento della firma dell’accordo di sovvenzione.