This document discusses how platforms like Google and Facebook are reshaping the news industry and other institutions. It outlines how platforms have become central to the distribution and monetization of news through digital advertising. Publishers have responded in three ways - coexistence, confrontation, or collaboration. The document also examines the different types of power wielded by platforms, including their ability to set standards, control connections between users and content, take automated actions at large scale, operate with secrecy, and influence multiple domains. It concludes by considering some of the implications platforms have for individual empowerment and institutional dependencies.

1. THE POWER OF
PLATFORMS
What can the case of publishers tell us about how
platforms are reshaping the institutions that enable
our democracies?
PROFESSOR RASMUS KLEIS NIELSEN
INAUGURAL LECTURE, GREEN TEMPLETON COLLEGE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

3. Platforms: Large technology companies that—
 have developed and maintain digital platforms
that enable interaction between at least two
different kinds of actors
 who in the process come to host public
information, organize access to it, create new
formats for it, and control data about it
 and who thereby influence incentive
structures around investment in public
communication (including news production).

4. THE RISE OF PLATFORMS

5. (1) Platforms increasingly central to distribution of news

6. Through rise of distributed discovery

7. … and distributed content

8. 8
Sources: Ian Maude, Be Heard Group, data from Google, Facebook, and estimates from Enders
Analysis and eMarketer. Note: both Google and Facebook share some of their advertising with
partners through various revenue sharing arrangements.
(2) Platforms increasingly central to business of news
0
50
100
150
200
250
2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017
$billion
Estimated global digital advertising revenues, 2005-2017
Google Facebook Others

9. Sources: Company reports.
(3) Platforms have grown very big very quickly
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
Google (1998) Facebook (2004) Axel Springer (1946) BBC (1922) New York Times (1851)
$billion
2017 Market capitalization ($ billion)
2017 Revenues ($ billion)

10. PUBLISHERS’ REACTION

11. Onsite Off-site
On-site versus off-site strategies

12. Three
responses
Coexistence
Confrontation
Collaboration

13. Three
responses
Coexistence
“We need Facebook. Facebook
does not need us.”
Confrontation
Collaboration

14. Three
responses
Coexistence
Confrontation
They are “content
kleptomaniacs”, “thieves”
Collaboration

15. Three
responses
Coexistence
Confrontation
Collaboration
“This can be win-win.”

16. PLATFORMS’ POWER

17. Platforms’
Power
Hard power
Soft power
Platform power

18. Platform power (1) to set standards
RISJ Digital News Report 2017

19. Platform power (2) to make and break connections
RISJ Digital News Report 2017

20. Platform power (3) of automated action at scale
RISJ Digital News Report 2017

21. Platform power (3) of automated action at scale
RISJ Digital News Report 2017

22. Platform power (4) of secrecy
RISJ Digital News Report 2017

23. Platform power (5) that operates across domains
RISJ Digital News Report 2017

24. Platform
Power
1) Power to set standards
2) Power to make and break
connections
3) Power of automated action
at scale
4) Power of secrecy
5) Power that operates across
domains

25. IMPLICATIONS?

26. Individual empowerment and
dependency
Institutional empowerment and
dependency
Increasingly urgent need for
discussion of platform governance
Implications?

27. THE POWER OF
PLATFORMS
What can the case of publishers tell us about how
platforms are reshaping the institutions that enable
our democracies?
PROFESSOR RASMUS KLEIS NIELSEN
INAUGURAL LECTURE, GREEN TEMPLETON COLLEGE
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD

28. RISJ Digital News Report 2017 28
References and acknowledgements
This lecture is based in part on research done with Sarah Ganter and has benefited indirectly from discussions with the whole research team at the Reuters Institute for the Study
of Journalism (Alessio Cornia, Annika Sehl, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, Joy Jenkins, Richard Fletcher, Silvia Mayo-Vazquez, Tim Nicholls, and Tom Nicholls, as well as Nic
Newman). In addition, I want to thank David Levy and Lucas Graves for inspirational comments, discussions, and suggestions.
It builds on the work of many others, including—
Bell E with Wardle C, Brown P, Rashidian N, Bengani P, and Gonclaves A. (2016) Who owns the news consumer: Social media platforms or publishers? Columbia Journalism
Review.
Caplan, Robyn and danah boyd (2018). Isomorphism through algorithms: Institutional dependencies in the case of Facebook. Big Data & Society.
https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951718757253
Chadwick, A. (2013) The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power. New York: Oxford University Press.
Dijck J van (2013) The culture of connectivity. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
Evans, P.C., and A. Gawer. (2016) ‘The Rise of the Platform Enterprise: A Global Survey’. New Yok: The Center for Global Enterprise.
Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity. Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press.
Gillespie T (2010) The politics of “platforms.” New Media Society 12(3): 347–364.
Gillespie T (Forthcoming) Governance of and by platforms. Forthcoming in SAGE Handbook of Social Media, edited by Jean Burgess, Thomas Poell, and Alice Marwick.
Grewal, D. S. (2008) Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization. New Haven; London: Yale University Press.
Kreiss, Daniel and Shannon MacGregor (2017) Technology Firms Shape Political Communication: The Work of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Google With Campaigns During
the 2016 U.S. Presidential Cycle, Political Communication, 35:2, 155-177, DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2017.1364814
Latour, B. (1984) ‘The Powers of Association’. The Sociological Review 32 (S1): 264–280.
Newman, Nic, Richard Fletcher, Antonis Kalogeropoulos, David A. L Levy, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. 2017. “Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2017.” Oxford: Reuters Institute
for the Study of Journalism. http://www.digitalnewsreport.org/.
Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis, and Sarah Anne Ganter. 2017. “Dealing with Digital Intermediaries: A Case Study of the Relations between Publishers and Platforms.” New Media &
Society, April, 1461444817701318. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817701318.
Pasquale F (2015) The Black Box Society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Plantin J-C, Lagoze C, Edwards P N and Sandvig C (2016) Infrastructure studies meet platform studies in the age of Google and Facebook. New Media & Society 00: 1-00.