Regulating dependency: the political stakes of online platforms' deals with French publishers - Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès Accéder directement au contenu
Pré-Publication, Document De Travail Année : 2022

Regulating dependency: the political stakes of online platforms' deals with French publishers

Résumé

At a time when the news industry struggles to cope with the dominance of the advertising market by large platforms, along with recent crises like the Covid-19 pandemic, commercial deals and regulatory initiatives are becoming increasingly common. While there is ample space for regulatory interventions seeking to level the playing field between news industry's stakeholders and platforms, we are concerned these might further cement dependency of the former on the latter through co-regulatory frameworks that epitomize the capture of vital infrastructures by platforms. This article examines the three-year negotiation of French news publishers with Google and Meta, which concluded with four framework agreements being signed. For our analysis, we first look at the historical trajectory of how these deals were made possible using secondary sources, like leaks, press releases and the French Competition Authority's rulings, and we then discuss their details and implications. We trace Google's attempt to capture news media in France and discuss the asymmetrical power it has muscled over the news industry, and how the subsequent deals with Meta were affected. Finally, our case study shows that these frameworks are not sufficient to tackle systemic imbalanceseven if they mean well-because they fail to challenge the concentration of power by a handful of oligopolistic private companies and, thus, effectively leave it up to them and the free market's idiosyncrasies to decide how they are implemented. intento de Google de capturar los medios de comunicación en Francia y discutimos el poder asimétrico que ha ejercido sobre la industria de las noticias, y cómo se vieron afectados los acuerdos posteriores con Meta. Finalmente, nuestro estudio de caso muestra que estos marcos no son suficientes para abordar los desequilibrios sistémicos, incluso si tienen buenas intenciones, porque no desafían la concentración de poder de un puñado de empresas privadas oligopólicas y, como tales, efectivamente dejan que sean ellas y las idiosincrasias del libre mercado las que decidan cómo se implementan.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
special_issue_blind_review.pdf (408.05 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)

Dates et versions

halshs-03747847 , version 1 (08-08-2022)
halshs-03747847 , version 2 (09-08-2022)
halshs-03747847 , version 3 (12-07-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : halshs-03747847 , version 1

Citer

Charis Papaevangelou, Nikos Smyrnaios. Regulating dependency: the political stakes of online platforms' deals with French publishers. 2022. ⟨halshs-03747847v1⟩
372 Consultations
308 Téléchargements

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More