IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/meanco/v8y2020i3p27-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Negotiated Autonomy: The Role of Social Media Algorithms in Editorial Decision Making

Author

Listed:
  • Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin

    (Department of Communications Studies, Northwestern University, USA)

  • Nicholas Diakopoulos

    (Department of Communications Studies, Northwestern University, USA)

Abstract

Social media platforms have increasingly become an important way for news organizations to distribute content to their audiences. As news organizations relinquish control over distribution, they may feel the need to optimize their content to align with platform logics to ensure economic sustainability. However, the opaque and often proprietary nature of platform algorithms makes it hard for news organizations to truly know what kinds of content are preferred and will perform well. Invoking the concept of algorithmic ‘folk theories,’ this article presents a study of in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 18 U.S.-based news journalists and editors to understand how they make sense of social media algorithms, and to what extent this influences editorial decision making. Our findings suggest that while journalists’ understandings of platform algorithms create new considerations for gatekeeping practices, the extent to which it influences those practices is often negotiated against traditional journalistic conceptions of newsworthiness and journalistic autonomy.

Suggested Citation

  • Chelsea Peterson-Salahuddin & Nicholas Diakopoulos, 2020. "Negotiated Autonomy: The Role of Social Media Algorithms in Editorial Decision Making," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(3), pages 27-38.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v:8:y:2020:i:3:p:27-38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/3001
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jie Xin & Wan Ni & Zhiyuan Yu, 2021. "Research on Ternary Interactive Gatekeeping Model for Multi-Channel Networks (MCNs) in Social Media Era," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-17, December.
    2. Rodrigo Zamith & Mario Haim, 2020. "Algorithmic Actants in Practice, Theory, and Method," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(3), pages 1-4.
    3. Garz, Marcel & Szucs, Ferenc, 2023. "Algorithmic selection and supply of political news on Facebook," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v:8:y:2020:i:3:p:27-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.