Will the internet promote democracy? search engines, concentration of online news readership, and e-democracy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Challenging the assumption that the Internet is far more diverse than traditional forms of media, this study provides evidence that newspaper readership is more concentrated online than offline. Further, results suggest that the observed high concentration of readership on the Internet is associated with the presence of search engines that benefit a small number of top news outlets. Search engines allow people to access to new information at a lower cost, but this benefit may come at a price; the traffic referred by search engines goes mostly to a small number of top national news providers.