Changing Forms of Ownership in a Democratic Corporatist Media System — How Digitalization Leads to Less Transparency and the Risk of Media Capture
Digitalization has led to a crisis in news media and an upheaval in media ownership. A research concern has been that the motives driving media owners will shift from financial and public service to overtly political and ideological. The term “media capture” has been suggested to describe how variou...
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| Publicado no: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/cs, |
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| Auteurs principaux: | , , , |
| Formato: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Idioma: | Anglais |
| Publicado em: |
Comunicação e sociedade
2025
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| Assuntos: | |
| Acesso em linha: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| id |
openedition-oai:revues.org:cs_12883 |
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| record_format |
openedition |
| collection |
OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| topic |
digitalização transparência propriedade dos média captura dos média sistema democrático corporativo dos média transparency media ownership media capture democratic corporatist media system digitalization |
| spellingShingle |
digitalização transparência propriedade dos média captura dos média sistema democrático corporativo dos média transparency media ownership media capture democratic corporatist media system digitalization Blach-Ørsten, Mark Willig, Ida Eberholst, Mads Kæmsgaard Burkal, Rasmus Changing Forms of Ownership in a Democratic Corporatist Media System — How Digitalization Leads to Less Transparency and the Risk of Media Capture |
| description |
Digitalization has led to a crisis in news media and an upheaval in media ownership. A research concern has been that the motives driving media owners will shift from financial and public service to overtly political and ideological. The term “media capture” has been suggested to describe how various interests may take control over news media outlets. This paper adds to the study of digitalization and media ownership in three ways. First, our analysis is based on new analytical parameters developed as part of the Euromedia Ownership Monitor. Second, we compare types of ownership across legacy news media and digital news media, as each media type runs a different risk regarding capture. Third, we focus on ownership transparency, especially that of beneficial owners. Our case study is Denmark, which is part of the democratic corporatist media system and, based on international ratings, is one of the most democratic and transparent media systems in Europe. We find that private legacy news media is mostly owned by nonprofit foundations, while legacy public service news media is owned by the State or is listed as self-owned. Regarding new digital news media, we find different ownership forms. However, only new digital news media have ownership by a sole proprietor. Regarding transparency, we find the transparency of direct and beneficial owners is more accessible in legacy news media than in new, digital news media. We find no tradition for publishing “natural persons” possible affiliations to either political or other commercial interests. This seems especially relevant, as new digital news media outlets, unlike legacy media, sometimes are owned and funded by private investors, whose main business interests lie outside the news media and whose motives for owning a news media may differ from traditional ownership thus leading to a risk of media capture by ownership. |
| author |
Blach-Ørsten, Mark Willig, Ida Eberholst, Mads Kæmsgaard Burkal, Rasmus |
| author_facet |
Blach-Ørsten, Mark Willig, Ida Eberholst, Mads Kæmsgaard Burkal, Rasmus |
| author_sort |
Blach-Ørsten, Mark |
| title |
Changing Forms of Ownership in a Democratic Corporatist Media System — How Digitalization Leads to Less Transparency and the Risk of Media Capture |
| title_short |
Changing Forms of Ownership in a Democratic Corporatist Media System — How Digitalization Leads to Less Transparency and the Risk of Media Capture |
| title_full |
Changing Forms of Ownership in a Democratic Corporatist Media System — How Digitalization Leads to Less Transparency and the Risk of Media Capture |
| title_fullStr |
Changing Forms of Ownership in a Democratic Corporatist Media System — How Digitalization Leads to Less Transparency and the Risk of Media Capture |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Changing Forms of Ownership in a Democratic Corporatist Media System — How Digitalization Leads to Less Transparency and the Risk of Media Capture |
| title_sort |
changing forms of ownership in a democratic corporatist media system — how digitalization leads to less transparency and the risk of media capture |
| publisher |
Comunicação e sociedade |
| publishDate |
2025 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/cs |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/cs/12883 |
| _version_ |
1877292166981615616 |
| spelling |
openedition-oai:revues.org:cs_12883 en https://journals.openedition.org/cs/12883 2025-01-09T01:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/131v6 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Changing Forms of Ownership in a Democratic Corporatist Media System — How Digitalization Leads to Less Transparency and the Risk of Media Capture Comunicação e sociedade Centro de estudos de comunicação e sociedade info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2183-3575 info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/1645-2089 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/cs Blach-Ørsten, Mark Willig, Ida Eberholst, Mads Kæmsgaard Burkal, Rasmus digitalização transparência propriedade dos média captura dos média sistema democrático corporativo dos média transparency media ownership media capture democratic corporatist media system digitalization Digitalization has led to a crisis in news media and an upheaval in media ownership. A research concern has been that the motives driving media owners will shift from financial and public service to overtly political and ideological. The term “media capture” has been suggested to describe how various interests may take control over news media outlets. This paper adds to the study of digitalization and media ownership in three ways. First, our analysis is based on new analytical parameters developed as part of the Euromedia Ownership Monitor. Second, we compare types of ownership across legacy news media and digital news media, as each media type runs a different risk regarding capture. Third, we focus on ownership transparency, especially that of beneficial owners. Our case study is Denmark, which is part of the democratic corporatist media system and, based on international ratings, is one of the most democratic and transparent media systems in Europe. We find that private legacy news media is mostly owned by nonprofit foundations, while legacy public service news media is owned by the State or is listed as self-owned. Regarding new digital news media, we find different ownership forms. However, only new digital news media have ownership by a sole proprietor. Regarding transparency, we find the transparency of direct and beneficial owners is more accessible in legacy news media than in new, digital news media. We find no tradition for publishing “natural persons” possible affiliations to either political or other commercial interests. This seems especially relevant, as new digital news media outlets, unlike legacy media, sometimes are owned and funded by private investors, whose main business interests lie outside the news media and whose motives for owning a news media may differ from traditional ownership thus leading to a risk of media capture by ownership. A digitalização provocou uma crise nos média tradicionais e uma reviravolta na sua propriedade. As motivações dos proprietários dos meios de comunicação para transitar de uma lógica financeira e de serviço público para uma agenda claramente política e ideológica têm sido uma das principais questões da investigação. O termo “captura dos média” foi proposto para descrever como vários interesses podem assumir o controlo dos média. Este artigo contribui para o estudo do impacto da digitalização na propriedade dos média de três formas. Em primeiro lugar, a nossa análise fundamenta-se em novos parâmetros analíticos desenvolvidos no âmbito do Euromedia Ownership Monitor. Em segundo lugar, comparamos os tipos de propriedade entre os média tradicionais e os digitais, uma vez que cada um enfrenta riscos distintos relativamente à captura. Por último, centramo-nos na transparência da propriedade, particularmente no que diz respeito aos proprietários efetivos. O nosso estudo de caso é a Dinamarca, que integra o sistema democrático corporativo dos média e, com base em classificações internacionais, é considerado um dos sistemas de média mais democráticos e transparentes da Europa. Concluímos que a maioria da imprensa tradicional privada é propriedade de fundações sem fins lucrativos, enquanto os média tradicionais de serviço público são propriedade do Estado ou estão registados como propriedade própria. Relativamente aos novos média digitais, encontramos várias formas de propriedade. Contudo, apenas os novos média digitais pertencem a um único proprietário. No que diz respeito à transparência, constatamos que a informação sobre os proprietários diretos e beneficiários é mais acessível nos média tradicionais do que nos novos média digitais. Constatamos não haver tradição de divulgar possíveis filiações de “pessoas singulares” a interesses políticos ou comerciais. O que se revela especialmente pertinente, uma vez que os novos média digitais, ao contrário dos tradicionais, são por vezes detidos e financiados por investidores privados, cujos principais interesses comerciais se encontram fora do setor e cujas motivações para deter um meio de comunicação social podem diferir das da propriedade tradicional, aumentando assim o risco de captura dos média pela propriedade. |