The Power of the Pen, the Press, and the Algorithm: Evaluating the Framing of Google News Regulatory Efforts in the European Union and Australia

Abstract

This thesis aims to compare and contrast stakeholder positions to proposed news aggregator regulations in the European Union (EU) and Australia (AU). The EU and AU have both sought to apply regulatory pressure to force Google News to remunerate press publishers for aggregating their news content. The research setting of the EU and AU was selected because the two governments have differing conceptions of copyright stemming from their respective civil law and common law legal traditions. Thus, this thesis hypothesizes that the EU approach of protecting the creator itself versus the AU approach of defending the entire public domain of news content will be reflected in consultation submissions. In other words, this thesis will identify the frames or “specific aspect[s] of a policy proposal that [are] emphasized in a policy debate by a specific actor” in the EU versus AU consultation submissions (Entman, 1991). While there is existing literature that empirically demonstrates the benefits and threats of news aggregators as well as a body of literature advocating for a re-framing of the news aggregator debate, no studies have systematically extracted the frames put forth by stakeholders. Thus, by performing a quantitative text analysis of EU and AU stakeholder consultation submissions (n = 243), this thesis will offer a systematic mapping of current frames and draw connections to both jurisdictions’ legal conceptions of copyright. The results generated by this analysis will aim to inform future stakeholder framing already being considered in other news markets around the globe, including the United States.