JOURNAL

News Personalisation and Public Service Media: The Audience Perspective in Three European Countries

Annika Sehl, Maximilian Eder | Journal Media 4(1)
2023

News organisations are increasingly providing personalised offerings curated by algorithms. This offers a tailored experience of a broadcaster’s content, but concerns have been raised about how it conflicts with public media values of universality of access, reach and content, particularly when an algorithm replaces an editor as curator.

This paper explores the opportunities and challenges, taking a look at users’ attitudes, concerns and expectations. Comparing three counties — the UK, Germany and France — it finds that some users are concerned about missing certain stories or viewpoints, though the extent of concern differs depending on each country’s media system.