CAPTURED: Journalism Captured by Platforms? Investigating Platform Power, Media Capture, and Journalistic Independence

Objective

Over the past two decades, global technology companies such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI have gained unprecedented influence over journalism. Their power is exercised directly—through funding schemes or the exclusion of publishers from platforms—and indirectly, by shaping the algorithmic and infrastructural environment in which journalism operates. Platforms thus play a dual role: they are both central to journalism’s business model and objects of journalistic scrutiny. This duality creates a core challenge: Can journalism objectively report on platforms that exert economic, cognitive and infrastructural control over the news industry? This question is urgent as platforms form ties with anti-democratic leaders, while controlling the infrastructure for democratic discourse. CAPTURED investigates platform influence on journalism in terms of media capture, conceptualized as material, cognitive, and infrastructural capture. It pursues three objectives: (1) to refine the theory of media capture by platforms; (2) to examine how journalists perceive and negotiate media capture; and (3) to assess the implications for journalism’s watchdog role in democratic societies. To achieve this, CAPTURED applies a multi-method design across four studies, combining reconstruction interviews, a factorial survey experiment, a difference-in-differences design, and a qualitative case study. The project will produce four open-access peer-reviewed publications and a white paper. It will provide evidence for policies such as the European Media Freedom Act, the Digital Services Act, and the AI Act, safeguarding press freedom. Through the fellowship, I will acquire advanced methods skills, project management skills and knowledge transfer skills, supported by the University of Oxford's expertise and networks. CAPTURED will strengthen democratic resilience in Europe and position me as a leading scholar at the intersection of journalism, political communication, and platform governance.