Open AccessRECOMMENDED FOR YOU: INVESTIGATING THE USE OF ALGORITHMIC NEWS RECOMMENDATION IN THE SCANDINAVIAN DAILY PRESS
Author(s) -
Lynge Asbjørn Møller
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
selected papers of internet research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2162-3317
DOI - 10.5210/spir.v2021i0.11986
Subject(s) - newspaper , personalization , journalism , relevance (law) , recommender system , front page , news media , news values , computer science , advertising , political science , public relations , world wide web , sociology , business , media studies , law
This paper investigates the Scandinavian daily press’ efforts in andperspectives on algorithmic news recommendation. News recommender systems provide newsorganisations with new opportunities to offer more relevant and personalised newsexperiences, but their increasing use has also raised several concerns about whether and howalgorithms should undertake important editorial decisions. Current literature offers onlylimited empirical insight into the actual use of these technologies in journalism, and thispaper is the first to map the use of news recommender systems in the Scandinavian mediasystem. Drawing on interviews with all 19 national newspapers within the Scandinavian dailypress, the findings reveal that 17 newspapers use news recommender systems and 14 of theseuse personalisation. Most newspapers expressed positive attitudes toward the technologies,highlighting increased relevance and better opportunities to drive subscriptions. The extentof the use of news recommendation at the specific news media organisations is still limiteddue to concerns about algorithms interfering with journalistic priorities and a reluctanceto jeopardise the brand value of the front page. Some newspapers address these concerns byallowing for editorial control through subjectively estimated journalistic input, revealingthat journalistic norms and ideals affect the design and implementation of algorithms injournalism.