Information Communication & Society

Popiel, Pawel

doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2023.2174791pmid: N/A

Following the Snowden revelations, Cambridge Analytica, and a policy vacuum created by technological convergence and neoliberal reforms, policy efforts to articulate oversight of digital platform markets gathered policymaker support and public attention internationally. In the U.S., examined here as a case study of these international policy efforts, competition policy emerged as a prominent governance mechanism over digital platforms, resulting in the current antitrust scrutiny of tech giants like Google and Meta. Drawing on policy documents, fieldwork, and expert interviews, I trace how antitrust reform proposals, pitched as reclaiming democratic governance over private markets, came to dominate platform policy discussions. I examine how policy efforts to address platform power via competition grappled with non-competitive harms arising in digital markets, such as threats to user privacy and disinformation flows. Finally, I show how these debates began to converge on the contours of an emergent governance paradigm for digital platform oversight. I argue that this governance framework, which seeks to optimize market mechanisms to discipline platform markets, has significant limitations, notably in addressing issues associated with big data commodification and quantification.

Stamps, David L.

doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2023.2174789pmid: N/A

Black individuals view mass media and participate in digital media at rates greater than their racial counterparts and this relationship often promotes favorable group-based outcomes. However, quantitative examinations of the relationship between Black audiences’ media use, media literacy skills, and favorable results related to well-being are lacking. Using a cross-sectional US Black adult sample (N = 1,027) and applying tenets of media uses and gratifications theory, the present work examined the relationship between Black individuals’ racial centrality, digital and critical media literacy skills, and perceptions of personal growth, social mobility, and self-efficacy. Results suggest that racial centrality is positively related to perceptions of personal growth, social mobility, and self-efficacy, and digital and critical media literacies positively mediate these relationships. Results are discussed regarding the implications for Black audiences’ media literacy skills and psychological well-being.