Information and news inequalities

Tristan Mattelart (1) , Stylianos Papathanassopoulos (2) , Josef Trappel (3)

1 CARISM - Centre d'Analyse et de Recherche Interdisciplinaires sur les Médias
2 NKUA - National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
3 University of Salzburg

Early optimistic internet evangelists addressed news and information as an area in which digital technologies would eradicate social inequality; social networks, social media and other forms of grassroot or Indymedia would establish a powerful counter-public. From today’s perspective, such digital over-optimism is no longer justified. Economic resources for news production are still unevenly distributed, and inherited patterns of unequal news coverage between central and peripheral nations still prevail. Digital technologies have rather added new layers to the existing news inequalities, in particular in the political economy of news. Digital and social forms of inequality appear to be deeply intertwined in the news realm.

Mots clés: Internet; Social networks; Social media; News; Inequalities; Information Economy; News aggregators; Gatekeeper; Digital platforms

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Sciences de l'information et de la communication; Sociologie

Tristan Mattelart, Stylianos Papathanassopoulos, Josef Trappel. Information and news inequalities. Josef Trappel. Digital Media Inequalities. Policies Against Divides, Distrust and Discrimination, Nordicom, pp.215-228, 2019, 9789188855107. ⟨hal-03974975⟩