Autonomies and Dependencies: Shifting Configurations of Power in the Platformization of News

In this introduction, we draw together the articles in the special issue on the platformization of news, highlighting that the articles contribute by answering two central questions. First, what is the extent of contemporary journalists and news organizations’ platform dependence, and how does this vary according to geographic context, organizational resources, and other factors? Second, what is the nature of journalism’s platform dependency? Platforms’ most overt editorial influence on news publishers (e.g., dictating areas of coverage, reshaping headlines, and so on) has arguably waned in recent years – and was never straightforward to begin with. The articles in this special issue encourage us to consider how the platform/publisher relationship is now defined by more subtle, or even hidden, dependencies that are nevertheless impactful. We further argue that various forms of power are at play in the shifting, contextual and embedded configurations of dependency and autonomy in the platform/publisher relationship. The forms of power, which we can observe across the articles, and which matter for dependence/autonomy configurations, are infrastructural, cultural, and geopolitical.