Rethinking public values across European dataspheres
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MSCA-19-Picone03
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Beschrijving van het project
The project investigates the potential of European dataspheres for integrating and fostering public values in a media context characterized by platform economies, datafication and a crisis of trust in the public sphere. European media industries find themselves increasingly dependent on US-based platforms such as Facebook and Twitter for the distribution of their content. This includes news media, thereby impacting institutions such as journalism and public service media that are said to be the “lifeline of democracy” (Fenton, 2010). The commercial logics of platforms increasingly conflict with the strong European tradition for public service media and its orientation towards public value. This clash becomes especially apparent when looking at processes of datafication within media production, where data and metrics increasingly influence editorial decision-making, prediction and valorisation of audience attention.
Datafication in its current form challenges the European public sphere, as its commercialism and “surveillancism” influence the way people connect to common interests in Europe (Hepp et al., 2016). This crisis of the public sphere includes issues of disinformation or fake news (Vargo et. al 2018), polarization (Tucker et al., 2018), filter bubbles (Pariser, 2011) and echo chambers (Flaxman & Rao, 2016). However, much of these claims are focused on the US context and while there has been ample research on public spheres in Europe, little attention has been paid to the underlying dataspheres and the ways in which data and metrics influence the everyday mediated lives of audiences.
Given these considerations, this project will contribute to the development of a European model of dataspheres based on public value creation by answering three research questions: 1) What are the challenges to public values in the context of a public sphere crisis affected by platform economy and datafication? 2) How are public values understood and associated to the datafication of media and audiences? 3) How can public values be operationalized in data processes, algorithms and platform practices of media organizations?
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SMIT Research Group
SMIT stands for Studies in Media, Innovation and Technology. Our research group is part of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and imec.
Promotor Ike Picone teaches and researches disruptions on the crossroad of journalism, technological innovations and democracy. The thread within his research is the study of news use practices within the broad field of journalism studies. More precisely, his work focuses on ‘productive’ use of new(s) media, conceptualized within his research as self-publication. The scope is to understand how people participate to media as a social practice, and what motivations and thresholds play a role in shaping this practice. His research topics include user participation to online news, the changing relationship between news audiences and journalists and the role of new media;in the emergence of deliberative public spheres.
Dr. Ike Picone is Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and Senior Researcher within the research group IMEC-SMIT. The threadwithin his research is the study of news use practices within the broad field of journalism studies. More precisely, his work focuses on ‘productive’ use of new(s) media, conceptualized within his research as self-publication. The scope is to understand how people participate to media as a socialpractice, and what motivations and thresholds play a role in shaping this practice.
His research topics include user participation to online news, the changing relationship between news audiences and journalists and the role of new media in the emergence of deliberative public spheres. Within Studies in Media, Innovation and Technology research group (SMIT), he is part of senior staffand responsible for developing the ‘Tackling Disinformation’ research strand, one of the priorities of SMIT’s strategic research agenda for 2019-2020. He is part of the international team working on the renowned yearly Digital News Report of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. His expertise has been acknowledged amongst others through his membership of the Flemish Council for Journalism and the temporary expert group on Fake News of former Belgian Minister of Digital Agenda Alexander De Croo. He has been vocal about the issue of disinformation in the Belgian media. He is also a member of the Council for Journalism of Flanders (Belgium).