Media Capture Research Articles

Pernicious Polarization, Journalistic Professionalization, and Interpretive Community Structures Beyond Liberal Democracies: A Case of Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT Using the case of Zimbabwe, this study explores how patrimonial and clientelist press relations born out of various forms of media capture and other forms of press repression intersect to undermine professionalization of the journalism field and alter structures of journalistic interpretive communities beyond liberal democracies. Taking a mixed-method approach, the study combines data from textual analysis of journalistic and non-journalistic actors to two incidents of media repression in Zimbabwe and data from semi-structured interviews. Combining the theory of metajournalistic discourse with post-colonial perspectives, the study concludes that media capture is a threat to journalistic professionalization and when combined with other forces, we cannot conceptualize journalists under contested contexts as interpretive communities as they are fractured.

Has the web promoted diversity? Ownership concentration and online news traffic in Greece

News media concentration raises concerns associated with the power to influence policy, political developments and public debates. Low entry-barriers and reduced production and distribution costs in the web era promised a more pluralistic media landscape, which has thus far failed to materialise as reputational, technical and financial resources tend to confer cumulative advantages for larger and more established media organisations. In this study, we examine economic and ownership concentration for the 80 most popular news websites in Greece. Contrary to the traditional news media industry of the country and its European counterparts we find the Greek online news market to exhibit relatively low levels of concentration. Deep distrust towards the media along with an emerging and populous web-native news market can explain the findings. However, we find that in terms of ownership type, a considerable amount of traffic is directed toward websites owned by conglomerate companies whose economic interests lie outside the media industry. Specifically, websites belonging to traditional media houses share about one third of traffic and an emergent new type of conglomerate ownership coming from web-native media captures about another third. The findings raise concerns regarding the large ‘market share’ controlled by media owned by conglomerate companies suggesting that the digital landscape can also facilitate media capture despite hopes of the opposite effect.

From Media Capture to Platform Capture: Reflections on Three Decades of a Free Czech Media

This paper examines the evolution of the media in the Czech Republic during the first three decades as an independent state (1993-2023). The paper reflects on the media’s role in the changing political landscape, where economic and political interests intertwine, exploring the transition from a state-controlled system to a media landscape characterized by extensive foreign ownership and, ultimately, a concentrated domestic ownership market. It traces the initial privatization of media outlets, followed by the flood of foreign ownership it attracted to an unexpected shift in ownership, marked by the exit of international media companies and the rise of domestic oligarchs, resulting in a media environment distinguished by influence over ideology. The paper balances the nation’s thirtieth anniversary by suggesting that the challenges of media capture that characterized the preceding decade have begun to recede, only to be replaced by a new type of capture, this time in the context of platforms. De la capture des médias à la capture des réseaux sociaux : Trois décennies de médias libres en République tchèque Dans cet article, l’auteur examine l'évolution complexe des médias tchèques au cours des trois premières décennies d’indépendance de la république (1993-2023). Il propose une réflexion sur le rôle des médias dans un contexte politique en pleine transformation, où les intérêts économiques et politiques s'entremêlent, et explore la transition de la machine de propagande contrôlée par l'État vers un écosystème dominé par la propriété étrangère et, finalement, vers ce même écosystème capturé par des oligarques locaux. Il retrace la privatisation initiale du marché, l'afflux de capitaux étrangers qu'elle a attiré, puis le retrait inattendu des sociétés internationales et la montée en puissance des oligarques, qui peuvent influencer l'idéologie nationale grâce à leur contrôle des médias. L’auteur dresse le bilan médiatique de la République tchèque, à son trentième anniversaire, suggérant que les défis engendrés par la capture des médias par les oligarques qui ont caractérisé la décennie précédente ont commencé à s'estomper, pour être remplacés par les défis d'un nouveau type de capture, cette fois dans le contexte des réseaux sociaux.

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 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.

Exploring Ownership Patterns: The Ghanaian Experience of Media Control and Editorial Autonomy

Over the years, media autonomy issues in Ghana have emphasized media-state power relations. However, the switch from military to democratic order in 1992 strengthen the autonomy of the media because it received constitutional backing that led to the proliferation of media firms. While these developments are physically evident, the role of owners in the management of their outlets and hence publication seem to occur in a ‘black hole’ which tends to frustrate the autonomy that the Ghanaian media welcomed. To unearth this phenomenon, the study purposively sampled fifteen experienced editors, senior reporters of the print and representatives of media regulatory and professional bodies to source data and applied the concept of media capture to explore how the actions and reactions of media owners; institutional structures and constitutional provisions determine editorial autonomy. Generally, ownership influences are evident in Ghana’s print media but the extent of influence is intense in the private than state media because the two have different ownership structures which informs the diversity of content and hence, their levels of media capture.

Problematizando la «mermelada»: la publicidad estatal y su influencia en la agenda de los medios en el Perú

This article examines the influence of state advertising on the media in Peru, focusing on the concept of «mermelada», a term used to describe the exchange of economic or advertising favors between the state and the media in return for favorable coverage. Through a review of the literature on media capture and a quantitative analysis of historical data on state advertising investment, the study concludes that, while the narrative of «mermelada» has gained strength in political discourse, the state's actual ability to capture major media outlets is in decline.

The Austrian Political Advertisement Scandal: Patterns of “Journalism for Sale”

Mounting concern surrounds the influence of political actors on journalism, especially as media outlets face increasing financial pressures. These circumstances can give rise to instances of media capture, a mutually corrupting relationship between political actors and media organizations. However, empirical evidence substantiating such mechanisms and their consequences remains limited, particularly in the context of Western democracies. This chapter investigates a recent case in which a former Austrian chancellor allegedly colluded with a tabloid newspaper to receive better news coverage in exchange for increased ad placements by government institutions. We employ automated content analysis to investigate political news articles from seventeen prominent Austrian news outlets spanning 2012–2021 ( n = 222,659). Adopting a difference-in-differences approach, we find a substantial increase in media visibility of the former Austrian chancellor within the news outlet that is alleged to have received bribes, as well as a decrease in favorability for challenger candidates. Although this study does not aim to prove or disprove the involvement of specific political actors or media organizations in unethical or illegal activities, it introduces an innovative method for detecting unusual patterns in media reporting. Findings are discussed in the context of current threats to media independence and underscore the crucial need to protect journalistic integrity and ensure unbiased information for the public.

How Do AI Companies “Fine-Tune” Policy? Examining Regulatory Capture in AI Governance

Industry actors in the United States have gained extensive influence in conversations about the regulation of general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) systems. Although industry participation is an important part of the policy process, it can also cause regulatory capture, whereby industry co-opts regulatory regimes to prioritize private over public welfare. Capture of AI policy by AI developers and deployers could hinder such regulatory goals as ensuring the safety, fairness, beneficence, transparency, or innovation of general-purpose AI systems. In this paper, we first introduce different models of regulatory capture from the social science literature. We then present results from interviews with 17 AI policy experts on what policy outcomes could compose regulatory capture in US AI policy, which AI industry actors are influencing the policy process, and whether and how AI industry actors attempt to achieve outcomes of regulatory capture. Experts were primarily concerned with capture leading to a lack of AI regulation, weak regulation, or regulation that over-emphasizes certain policy goals over others. Experts most commonly identified agenda-setting (15 of 17 interviews), advocacy (13), academic capture (10), information management (9), cultural capture through status (7), and media capture (7) as channels for industry influence. To mitigate these particular forms of industry influence, we recommend systemic changes in developing technical expertise in government and civil society, independent funding streams for the AI ecosystem, increased transparency and ethics requirements, greater civil society access to policy, and various procedural safeguards.

The Capture Effect: How Media Capture Affects Journalists, Markets and Audiences

As the literature aimed at defining and explaining media capture has grown in recent years so has the interest in documenting the impact of capture in greater depth. There is still a relatively wide gap between the literature focused on defining and describing the concept, which is rich and increasingly sophisticated, and the body of research aimed at measuring the impact of capture, which now consists of a collection of disparate analytical papers primarily focused on case studies. This paper aims to contribute to this second body of knowledge: building on existing research, it looks to identify the changes that media capture leads to in three key areas: journalism (with a focus on the impact of capture on professional standards and the performance of journalists), market (with a focus on the effects of capture on free competition, market health and viability of investments), and audience (analysing the content limitations that audiences are faced with in environments where propaganda media is dominant).

Bulgarian Media Since 1989: From Instrumentalization to Capture

In the second decade of the 21st century, Bulgaria earned the unsavory reputation of having the least media freedom in the EU’s (Reporters Without Borders). This paper examines the current state of Bulgarian media based on two research concepts: for instrumentalization, respectively the capture of media. The latter, especially when talking about the specifics and consequences of political-oligarchic pressure on media, is more appropriate for countries with serious deficits in their democratic development. The main purpose of the paper is to study media capture in Bulgaria at a structural level: regulatory capture, control of public service media, use of state financing as a control tool, ownership takeover (based on concepts by Dragomir, 2019, IPI, n. D.), including appropriate cases. The analysis makes use of material from to scientific articles, media publications, other publicly available sources, expert interviews.

Patronage Media in Post-Communist Mongolia

We provide a historically informed analysis of the media in post-communist Mongolia thirty years after the transition. In 1990, Mongolia chose a peaceful transition towards liberal democracy following the seventy years of the communist regime. Our analysis first establishes that amid the challenges and changes since the new constitution was adopted, a plural and commercial media system has undeniably been established. However, only a few established themselves as independent media with editorial, business, and ethical norms. While the plurality of media outlets created a media landscape aberrant from the socialist-time propagandistic media, the media market failures, along with rudimentary legal and professional institutions, contributed to the media instrumentalization and media capture in Mongolia.

Media Capture in the Post-Truth Era: media freedom is a function of the quality of democracy

Media Capture in the Post-Truth Era: media freedom is a function of the quality of democracy

Media Capture and Transitional Settings: Towards Theoretical and Empirical Developments

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Media Capture Theory: A Paradigm Shift?

Abstract: This paper consists of three parts. First, it suggests that a paradigm shift has taken place in political communication, as the advent of social media allows political elites to assert and frame their agendas in more efficient and economical ways than the capture of legacy media. In consequence, a paradigm shift is taking place in media studies as well: because traditional media capture theory does no longer fully account for contemporary media/politics interactions, media systems scholars now study the effects of disintermediation on media and political landscapes. Then this paper returns to traditional media capture theory and discusses some definitional issues. Finally, it recalls how party colonization of the media, a version of media capture theory, accounted for the deficit of media freedom in the former communist countries a decade ago.

Media Capture and Perspectives for Media Development in a Fragile Media System

Guinea­‑Bissau’s media have negotiated their roles and freedoms within the postcolonial national construct since its official independence from Portugal in 1974. While the current media landscape is relatively pluralistic, journalists experience constraints from various sides: political pressures, unaccommodating regulations, lack of resources. The concept of media capture (Mungiu­‑Pippidi & Ghinea, 2012; Mabweazara et al., 2020; Schiffrin, 2021) allows the analysis of complex, subtle and structural constraints limiting media’s ability to fulfil their roles. This paper traces the phenomenon on the macro level (context), meso level (organizations) and micro level (journalists) in Guinea­‑Bissau to interrogate how the concept plays out in a context shaped by fragility. The article draws on a literature review, official documents and semi-structured interviews. Following Dugmore’s (2022) idea of precarity as an endogenous condition in many Sub­‑Saharan contexts, this paper argues that capture is engrained in a fragile system rather than being an exception or disruption.

Book review: Journalism in the grey zone: Pluralism and media capture in Lebanon and Tunisia

Book review: Journalism in the grey zone: Pluralism and media capture in Lebanon and Tunisia

Media capture, captured: a new computational methodology to measure deteriorating media freedom

ABSTRACT The media are under increasing pressure by states to adopt a regime-friendly editorial line in many countries globally, raising the importance of understanding the conditions of successful and failed media capture. Unfortunately, the standard measurement of media capture – annual expert surveys – neither distinguishes between outlets nor offers the needed resolution to assess, e.g., the immediate impact of a new gag law. To remedy these shortcomings, we develop a computational measurement of media capture based on a comparison of nominally independent outlets and regime-owned outlets regarding media agenda and tone when referring to the regime. By relying on two unsupervised measurement methods – topic modelling and sentiment classification – the new method can assess the loss of editorial independence at the level of individual outlets on a monthly or even weekly basis. The methodology is validated by applying it to recent data from Nicaragua. There the two-pronged approach shows how outlets respond differently to regime pressure. While there still are limitations to consider, if further editorial aspects of media capture such as issue framing are added to the methodology, it has the potential of transforming the future study of media capture.

Media Systems and Media Capture in Turkey: A Case Study

This article attempts to explain the current situation of the Turkish media system through the media systems approach as a case study with special attention to the concept of media capture. We propose that the Turkish media system’s shift is heavily influenced by media capture. We associate four of Hallin and Mancini’s media systems concepts related to the effects of media capture in the Turkish media system shift: rise of political parallelism, erosion of journalistic professionalism (ethics), controlling role of the state, and government-friendly ownership concentration. In explaining the shift from a pluralist polarised to captured<em> </em>media in Turkey, we acknowledge the potential for new, independent, and alternative media to emerge. The article also comments that the potential reason for this shift from a captured liberal to a captured media in Turkey is the climate of fear that has allowed successive governments in Turkey to attempt media capture. In general, this article attempts to provide insight into the current relationship between media and politics in Turkey.

The Precarity Trap: Modelling Non-Democratic Journalistic Practices Beyond Media Capture

ABSTRACT How and why does legacy news media move from protecting to undermining democracy? Several studies argue that journalism can facilitate and shape democratic backsliding. However, evidence is scarce and, to some extent, limited to the content analysis of news outputs and editorials. The causal mechanisms of an anti-democratic role for the press and how it is operationalised into specific processes of news production remain largely misunderstood. Using 36 semi-structured qualitative interviews and three case studies, this paper analyses journalistic practices and role perceptions in Brazil within a period of constant decline in the quality of democracy (2016-2021). The results show that labour precarity is a crucial driver in journalistic practices capable of damaging democracy, which challenges previous assumptions that media capture is mostly influenced by the political economy of news organisations. This research also indicates that journalists are not homogeneously dominated by the interests of elites and can engage with them on their own terms to advance personal agendas.

The Antecedents of Media Capture in Experiential Texts in Nepal: A Critical Review

Based on literature review and analysis of a corpus of documents with references to the evolution of journalism in Nepal, the paper has eclectically and purposively selected publications that referred to the study period, roughly 1950-2000, and had insights on periodicals/ newspapers and the operational environment of the period that was marked by little or no readership and advertising. The paper argues that the unprofessionalism and partisanship evident in media in Nepal reflect its failure to fully transition to independent, impartial content production, the normative expectation of citizens from journalism in democracies. Nepal’s newspapers began exercising formal freedoms in the 1950s but have never been fully independent in practice. The country had low literacy, low readership, and a largely traditional economy when newspaper journalism began, and the early publications sought support from partisan interests and/or government to remain viable.