Behind the Veil of Decentralization: Analyzing Blockchain Frames and Sponsors in US News

Abstract

In recent years, “blockchain” has emerged as an industry buzzword, a technology that can solve pressing problems in economic inclusion, democracy, humanitarian aid, sustainability, and supply chain management among other things. Whether effective or not, this little-understood technology is championed as a way to change socio-economic power structures and democratize and decentralize established institutions like the financial system and government. However, these claims are often unsupported. The hype generated in the news and popular discourse about this technology often obscures questions of whether power relations are actually changing and how. Understanding the visible media frames as a proxy for the power contests that went into shaping discourse, this paper critically examines US news media coverage of blockchain between 2013 - 2018. It examines the news frames used to talk about blockchain, the sponsors of these frames, and how these factors have changed over the five-year period. The paper finds that blockchain-related news coverage is framed in six general ways: Disruptive, Harnessing, Skepticism, Community, Understanding, Menace. These frames, especially the disruptive and harnessing frames are mainly sponsored by big banks (like J.P. Morgan), big technology (like IBM and Microsoft), and Silicon Valley investors. Using this data, the paper argues that the narrative of blockchain as a democratizing/decentralizing technology is mainly pushed by these established institutions and that it is a smokescreen to prevent a critical examination of the use of the technology.