PIVOT TO WHAT? THE METAJOURNALISTIC DISCOURSE SURROUNDING ‟S “PUSH TO VIDEO” TREVOR HOOK

DECEMBER 2020

DR. RYAN THOMAS

PIVOT TO WHAT? THE METAJOURNALISTIC DISCOURSE SURROUNDING FACEBOOK‟S “PUSH TO VIDEO”

Dr. Ryan Thomas

Prof. Ryan Famuliner

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my chair Dr. Ryan Thomas and committee member Ryan

Famuliner for their invaluable assistance in the completion of this master‟s project. Their help was vital in completing a project which has been undertaken in, as said many times elsewhere, an unprecendented time.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ...... 1

Literature Review ...... 4

Facebook, Algorithms, and Journalism ...... 4

Facebook as an Irregular Gatekeeper ...... 6

The Philosophical Fault Lines between Facebook and Journalism ...... 7

Facebook‟s Impact in the Practice of Journalism ...... 11

Metajournalistic Discourse ...... 13

Research Question...... 14

Method ...... 15

Research Design...... 15

Textual Analysis ...... 16

Sampling and Data Collection ...... 16

Coding Procedures ...... 17

Semi-structured Interviews ...... 18

Sampling and Data Collection ...... 18

Coding Procedures ...... 19

Trustworthiness ...... 20

Researcher‟s Role ...... 20

Findings ...... 21 iii

Publishers Made Important Decisions Directly Because of Facebook ...... 21

The Pivot to Video Did Not Work...... 24

Facebook Acted in Misleading, Opaque, or Dishonest Ways ...... 26

Online Video is Not Inherently Bad ...... 28

Discussion ...... 31

Limitations ...... 32

Directions for Future Research ...... 33

Conclusion ...... 33

References ...... 34

Appendix ...... 38

iv

PIVOT TO WHAT? THE METAJOURNALISTIC DISCOURSE SURROUNDING FACEBOOK‟S “PUSH TO VIDEO”

Trevor Hook

Dr. Ryan Thomas, University of Missouri-Columbia

ABSTRACT

This study combined textual analyses and qualitative interviews to explore the discourse among journalists regarding the industry‟s “pivot to video,” a trend which saw mass layoffs of non-video journalists in favor of hiring video producers to increase video production. Analysis of the texts and qualitative interviews uncovered four themes: the failure of the pivot, the influence of Facebook over publishers to follow the trend, journalists‟ perception of deceptive behavior by Facebook, and the acknowledgement that online video does have a place in modern media despite the failure of the trend. These findings provide insight into how journalists made sense of their industry‟s changing agency during the pivot, and how journalists ultimately made sense of the changing media landscape at the time.

v

Introduction

Facebook has had a measurable and long-lasting impact on the practice of modern journalism. On June 23, 2014, Facebook announced that its News Feed algorithm would be changed to increase the visibility of video published to the platform (Bell et al., 2017).

Two years later, Facebook made financial deals with 140 video creators like and to produce content for Facebook Live. Madrigal and Meyer

(2018) argue that more than 350 journalists from national media companies were laid off from 2016 to 2018 due in part to Facebook‟s incentives to produce video content. In “The

Facebook Rescue that Wasn‟t,” Bell (2017) shows an expectation that Facebook was going to play a role in the future of local journalism:

The publishing tools and hosting services Facebook offers for free are compelling.

But in sparse or poorer areas, they do not allow for the traditional civic bargain of

the local press, wherein the businesses and individuals who can afford to

advertise, in effect pay for the journalism that covers a community (p. 21).

Bell‟s report looked at the online presence of four small, locally-focused newsrooms over a two-month period and determined that Facebook could only work as a platform for those publishers if the cost of advertising was to increase or if advertising revenue from social media could be more directly transferred to those organizations. Partially in response to pushback by journalists about the negative effects of the platform on local journalism, Facebook announced plans to invest $300 million to support news content, with an emphasis on local news (Brown, 2019).

1

There has been research about the measurable impacts of Facebook in news production, such as the research of Tandoc and Maitra (2018), which provides evidence that news organizations increased the number of videos uploaded directly to the platform following changes to the platform‟s algorithm promoting those videos. The authors wrote that “faced with a „threat of invisibility‟ on Facebook... news organizations have to play by Facebook‟s rules if they do not want to risk losing audiences” (p. 1691). This also forced the newsrooms to adjust their content to meet the specific demands of auto- playing native videos, which encourage brevity and the use of captions and subtitles.

There has also been research on the metajournalistic discourse – that is, the discourse about journalism within journalism – surrounding Facebook‟s role in the news ecosystem. Carlson (2018) asserts that Facebook qualifies stories for its Trending Topics section not through editorial judgment, but user activity:

In doing so, popularity becomes the key criterion for inclusion as a Trending

Topic rather than an effort at identifying story importance or content diversity. To

make this happen, Facebook leans heavily on algorithms not as powerful actors

but as tools that actualize user preferences (p. 18).

However, there has not been research investigating the metajournalistic discourse surrounding Facebook‟s efforts to promote the creation of video content on its platform, both through direct financial incentives and adjustments to the platform‟s algorithm to favor video content. This research sheds light onto the platform-related ethics surrounding Facebook, and the changing autonomy possessed by journalists and media organizations in the social media age. This research also explores the increasing role of platforms as gatekeepers of journalistic content, and the relative loss of autonomy to the

2 field as a whole as newsrooms change their news priorities and practices to align with that of Facebook and other platforms like it.

The purpose of this research is to explore the metajournalistic discourse regarding

Facebook by focusing on the evolving perspectives of journalistic “thought leaders” as

Facebook altered its own algorithm to promote video content. This was done through the combination of textual analyses of articles written by identified thought leaders, which then informed semi-structured follow-up interviews with technology journalists who have also written about the pivot to video. The interviews sought to understand their thoughts on Facebook as it relates to journalism, including their opinions about the perceived power Facebook has as a platform over journalism, the perceived effects of Facebook‟s

“push to video” in various newsrooms, and how their thoughts and attitudes have changed towards Facebook (if at all) and if so, why.

3

Literature Review

This literature review will explore the ways that Facebook affects journalism, namely through the use and reliance on algorithms which autonomously review, rank and play a part in how content is displayed on the platform. The review will then address

Facebook‟s unique gatekeeping role, which places it as an “irregular gatekeeper” in the modern media landscape. The review will conclude by addressing some of the philosophical differences between the Silicon Valley giants and the norms of journalism, as well as the measurable impacts Facebook has had on the practice of journalism and defining metajournalistic discourse and its importance.

Facebook, Algorithms, and Journalism

Algorithms used by social media sites like Facebook and have an important effect on how media organizations operate. Napoli (2014) argues that because platforms like Facebook are institutions, and that institutions primarily serve as a framework in which humans interact, some algorithms should be analyzed as institutions themselves which have processes that can exact coercive and normative pressures on media organizations. Facebook‟s algorithms emphasizes popularity in part, which serves as one key way to frame content: because popular content is what is featured, popular content will continue to grow in popularity. This, in turn, can prevent less popular content from becoming popular. Facebook is not particularly unique in its use of algorithms;

Google, Twitter, Netflix, and even some media organizations like Patch use algorithms as a part of their business models. What sets Facebook‟s algorithms apart is the extent of the effects that it has on human behavior through encouraging certain forms of interaction

4 with the platform (in the forms of likes and shares) and subsequently on newsrooms which act in response to those interactions (Napoli, p. 350).

Bucher (2017a) examined the number of ways that a Facebook user may encounter Facebook‟s algorithm, and the many effects that can have. Bucher found that common frustrations around the platform range from not getting many “likes” to motivating individuals to use the platform more frequently in fear of being ignored.

Bucher proposes the concept of “algorithmic imagery” to understand how people and algorithms interact. This would examine the “ways of thinking about what algorithms are, what they should be, how they function and what these imaginations in turn make possible” (pp. 39-40). A majority of participants in Bucher‟s study played around with the algorithms, whether by posting at a different time to increase engagement or intentionally acting in ways to distort the algorithm by liking contradictory posts.

Some journalists are wary about algorithms‟ role in journalism. In examining the concept of “computational journalism,” Bucher (2017b) interviewed several editors, developers and managerial staff at Scandinavian news organizations and found that many of the interviewees viewed journalism‟s primary role as informing the public to ensure a functioning, democratic society. One staffer said the aim of his organization

is to provide everyone a balanced and objective view on what is happening in the

world right now. The best way to guarantee an informed public is to show a broad

view of the world and the only way to do that is to “prioritize with human eyes”

(p. 926).

The staffers viewed the use of algorithms to prioritize the news as compromising the credibility of journalism and failing to adequately inform the public. Given Facebook‟s

5 sophisticated and extensive use of algorithms to order and prioritize content on the platform, this sets the stage for a fundamental conflict between the norms of professional journalism and those of Facebook.

Facebook as an Irregular Gatekeeper

David Manning White was the first to introduce Kurt Lewin‟s theories regarding

“gatekeepers” into communication theory (Shoemaker & Vos, 2009). White followed the editing choices of a wire editor at a small newspaper in Iowa in 1950 (referred to under the pseudonym “Mr. Gates”). White analyzed why certain news items were published and others were rejected. White concluded that the selection process was very subjective; almost one-third of the stories Mr. Gates rejected were based on “his personal evaluation of the merits of the item‟s content” (Shoemaker & Vos, p. 15).

An analysis of the gatekeeping influence Facebook has on newspapers‟ Facebook pages by Welbers and Opgenhaffen (2018) revealed a duality in Facebook‟s gatekeeping role. The authors wrote that Facebook‟s platform and its algorithm does lead to the further dissemination and consumption of news content. However, the news content shared on Facebook is engaged with and can be shared outside of the platform as well.

This means that Facebook pages, “are indeed not gatekeepers in the traditional sense, where they control discrete gates and decide which items are in or out” (p. 4744).

Facebook acts not as a standard gatekeeper, but an irregular one.

Dwyer and Martin (2017) analyzed journalism‟s dependence on social media and the platforms‟ news sharing analytics, as well as its effect on the diversity of news media.

The authors note that social media companies and their metadata are transforming how news is commoditized and distributed through its use of algorithms. However, this study

6 relies on the assumption that Facebook‟s status as a significant external referral site for news traffic strongly affects profits. This may not be the case. Myllylahti (2018) analyzed data from four New Zealand-based media companies and found that even though 24% of news companies‟ total traffic comes from social media, abandoning the platforms would cost those companies less than one percent in total revenue. More empirical evidence is needed with regard to other news organizations‟ social media revenue before these findings could be broadened to make claims about journalism at large. However, these findings call into question the common assumption that news organizations are largely dependent on social media.

It is also worth noting that platforms themselves can be economically unstable.

Langley and Leyshon (2017) argue that the high valuation of privately-owned platforms

“encourage doubts and anxieties about the sustainability of the platform business model in general and its capacity to deliver revenues and returns on investment” (p. 27). The authors describe budding platforms‟ economic models as inherently destructive, warning

“not only is the business proposition of unconstrained platforms troubled… but a round of destructive competition amongst constrained platforms becomes necessary to their prospects for revenue growth” (p. 27). They argue that, under this economic model, money keeps being invested in new startup platforms in the hope that they will eventually become a “home run” in the vein of Uber or Facebook.

The Philosophical Fault Lines between Facebook and Journalism

Facebook has a gatekeeping effect on news shared on the platform that some journalists have expressed runs counter to their journalistic values. Bell et al. (2017) write that “audiences have moved onto the mobile and social web, and news organizations have

7 had no choice but to follow” (p. 25). Facebook and Google rank as two of the most important external reference sites for news traffic, with Facebook alone making up 45 percent of referral traffic to publisher sites in 2016.

One of the most important factors that led to the current relationship between journalism and Facebook is the philosophical difference between journalists and Silicon

Valley about how news should be distributed. Ingram (2019) notes the cynicism among journalists towards Facebook because of its changing content preferences and algorithm changes: “Critics say accepting help from the company is like the fly accepting an invitation from the spider” (para. 4). However, the platform did not used to rely quite so heavily on its algorithms.

In May 2016, Gizmodo revealed that Facebook employed a team of human curators to moderate Facebook‟s Trending Topics section. Following an allegation from an unnamed curator that conservative news was suppressed in the Trending Topics section, Facebook took steps to minimize human influence in the Trending Topics section, including an overhaul three months later further automating the product to, as

Facebook put it, “minimize risks where human judgment is involved” (Carlson, 2018, p.

11) by eliminating the short, human-written descriptions which accompanied Trending

Topics. Carlson argues that Facebook‟s shift away from human influence towards user preference runs counter to how journalism typically operates. Carlson wrote, “instead of news producers dictating to an audience what is important, Facebook privileges the actions of its users to generate a list of news. Instead of a common set of stories, news becomes personalized” (p. 12). Because of the reliance on user activity as judgment criteria, popularity becomes the most important criterion for evaluating whether a story

8 can be included as a Trending Topic. Story importance and content diversity are pushed aside as Facebook relies on algorithms to distance itself from any association with news production or human curation.

An analysis of 21 interviews with journalists and technology executives, developers, investors, and entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley showed that Silicon Valley itself is emerging as an institution, and that its institutional values differ from those of journalism (Russell, 2019). Russell found that interviewees believed Silicon Valley largely governs communication exchange over digital networks, and that it serves as an intermediary between citizens and journalists. However, Russell states that journalists had more control over the exchange of information with legacy media platforms than they do now with Silicon Valley platforms like Facebook, and are thus losing authority over its own industry. Russell also found that some interviewees that work in Silicon

Valley expressed concern for providing information citizens need in a democracy, but said that journalism may not be the answer. These actors insisted that technological solutions can solve any problems journalism can or will face, and argued that a large problem is how to algorithmically filter news so users can find relevant information.

Russell wrote, “in their view, news does not need to be unbiased, but can come from sources with strong ideological views, as long as users have access to multiple perspectives” (p. 644). The author then cites the spread of misinformation during the

2016 U.S. presidential election as a weakness in this belief system, saying that in this view they, “do not need journalists as watchdogs, because citizens will have tools to hold the powerful accountable. However, these tools do not serve the public well if platforms

9 cannot prioritize „high civic value‟ over „scale and shareability‟” (p. 644). This then prioritizes the role of citizens, activists, and other groups acting as collective gatekeepers.

Johnson (2017) has argued that digital intermediaries like Facebook and Twitter highlight an ethical dilemma: should the platforms emphasize and promote free speech on their platforms, or should the platforms moderate in ways to prevent harm to its users?

Johnson proposes two ethical frameworks which could be used to justify each decision: a duty to speech and a duty to prevent harm. He wrote that platforms must “must make their policies abundantly clear to their users, and they must open themselves up for scrutiny and accountability through transparent management of users‟ content” (p. 25).

Johnson also argues that accountability can be encouraged through the adoption of self- regulative, industry-wide measures.

Johnson and Kelling (2018) examined how , The New York Times,

Columbia Journalism Review, and Poynter editorialized Facebook‟s role in three controversies from 2016 to make sense of the strained relationship between the institution of journalism and Facebook and to differentiate the normative values between journalism and Facebook. The authors found that the journalists surveyed argued that Facebook should not be able to enjoy “control without liability,” and that Facebook should follow a journalistic ethical imperative and become more transparent. The journalists cast

Facebook as “haphazard, unethical and in denial of the important role it now plays in democracy” (p. 829). The authors found contradictions in judging Facebook by the norms of professional journalism, saying that urging Facebook to apply more human moderation contradicts the idea that Facebook should try to be an open platform for any outlet to post any kind of content to. However, by urging Facebook to be a global leader in protecting

10 freedom of speech, it “plays into Facebook‟s own narrative that it (already) is a neutral and open platform, which allows it to eschew duties to operate more transparently” (p.

830).

Facebook‟s Impact in the Practice of Journalism

According to , in February 2017 Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out his view of video on the platform, saying “I see video as a megatrend… that‟s why

I‟m going to keep putting video first across our family of apps” (Patel, 2018, para. 1).

Facebook was reportedly willing to spend $1 billion investing in video content for

Facebook Watch in 2018, which would rival other streaming services like Netflix and

Hulu. This came after the company ended subsidies to content creators for the creation of live and on-demand videos at the end of 2017.

Rein and Venturini (2018) studied Facebook‟s strategy to adopt and shape live video streaming, as well as Facebook‟s influence on an editorial and storytelling level within the format. The authors found that, “by shifting news consumption off-site, publishers become more and more dependent on social media platforms, subject to their influence” (p. 3374). In the case of live-streaming, Facebook exerted its influence indirectly through the adjustment of its feed algorithm to promote live video content and directly by partnering with publishers and subsidizing them to create a large quantity of content. The authors wrote that Facebook made it difficult for publishers to use their own strategies for content diversification. In their view, “while Facebook‟s partnerships give publishers the financial freedom to try out an innovative format, their contractual clause dictating the high quantities of live monthly videos make this market experiment risky in itself” (p. 3375). Rein and Venturini argue that Facebook‟s efforts to steer the

11 development of video streaming is worrying in part because it highlights the growing financial and technological leverage that platforms have over media organizations.

Though algorithm changes are indirect by nature, they can have large and measurable effects. After Facebook announced in June 2014 that its News Feed algorithm would prioritize videos uploaded to the platform over other posting formats, news publishers of all types increased the number of Native Videos produced after the announcement, with the largest increase coming from broadcast organizations. Despite these increases, the number of Native Videos accounted for a very small amount of difference in audience interaction (Tandoc & Maitra, 2017).

Facebook is also affecting journalistic practices outside of its production of video content. One study found that Facebook is affecting both how news is selected, presented, and distributed (Paulussen et al., 2016). The study found that sites like Facebook gave access to many sources unavailable outside of social media, and that a journalist‟s interactions on Facebook can change their perception of who and what is newsworthy.

However, the study also found that news stories and its headlines were presented to increase their shareability and likelihood to “go viral.” The authors also content that

Facebook challenges journalists‟ independence and power of gatekeeping by prioritizing certain news stories over others.

Poell and Dijck (2014) focused on the intersection of social media and journalistic independence, arguing that social media are not neutral technologies that simply allow user activity. The authors posit that platforms actively shape how information is shared and curated, and how individuals express their point of view through the platforms. The authors also draw a historical parallel, writing:

12

The strategies pushed by social media algorithms are, in this regard, not very

different from those of the penny press in the late 1900s or the popular press in

the 1980s, which were equally predicated on pushing large volumes of “fast”

news. What is more troubling is the tendency of leading news organizations,

including The New York Times and LA Times, to adopt a rhetoric that equates

algorithmically elicited user activity to audience empowerment, implying that

“social traffic” intrinsically enhances the democratic power of citizens. (p. 196)

The authors argued that social media may take away one of the last aspects of autonomy journalists have: the ability to select content regardless of popularity amongst audiences.

Metajournalistic Discourse

This study focuses on metajournalistic discourse, which is a useful means of gaining insights into journalism. Metajournalistic discourse refers to “public expressions evaluating news texts, the practices that produce them, or the conditions of their reception” (Carlson, 2016, p. 350). Carlson states that metajournalistic discourse is a way in which definitions are established, journalistic boundaries are set, and judgments about journalism‟s legitimacy are made from both within and outside of the industry.

Metajournalistic discourse is typically done within the news media through metacoverage of communication practices and news industry trends, as well as problems and controversies within journalism. Put differently, this kind of metajournalistic discourse refers to journalism about journalism.

13

Research Questions

This project addresses the metajournalistic discourse of selected journalism

“thought leaders” surrounding Facebook‟s “push to video” and if this coverage changed over time. Specifically, this study will address the following research questions:

RQ1: How have journalism‟s “thought leaders” discursively constructed the

relationship between journalism and Facebook‟s pivot to video?

RQ1a: Is this relationship constructed as positive or negative?

RQ1b: Has this construction of Facebook changed over the course of the pivot to

video?

14

Method

This study will examine the relationship between journalism and Facebook as constructed in the discourse of journalistic “thought leaders,” as well as how that relationship has changed (if at all) over time. I took a qualitative approach to this research because I sought to obtain rich data rooted in the perspectives and people‟s lived experiences, which is a unique feature of qualitative research (Yin, 2018). I used textual analysis and semi-structured in-depth interviews as the specific qualitative methods.

Textual analysis can provide rich data by taking information stored in various texts and derive key themes and messages, while semi-structured in-depth interviews can yield rich information through follow-up questions and observation of characteristics like body language and tone of voice (Hall & Rist, 1999).

Research Design

First, I performed an analysis of approximately 11 articles published primarily in meta-journalistic publications. The number of texts to study and interviews to conduct was reached using Guest, Bunce, and Johnson‟s (2006) experiment with data saturation and variability, where the authors argued that “if the goal is to describe a shared perception, belief, or behavior among a relatively homogeneous group, then a sample of twelve will likely be sufficient” (p. 76). These texts included publications like Nieman

Lab, Columbia Journalism Review, and Poynter. I then attempted follow-up interviews with the authors of the analyzed texts. If the authors could not be reached or an interview could not be arranged, the qualitative interview portion of the research would be supplemented with interviews with other technology and media journalists. All authors

15 interviewed have written about the pivot to video. The primary purpose of focusing on both analyses and interviews with authors in metajournalistic publications are twofold: because many of the authors are journalists themselves (or people affiliated with journalism, such as journalism educators or think tank workers), they will have opinions about Facebook‟s impact on how they do their jobs. Just as importantly, these authors will have extensive experience from speaking with other journalists and expert sources for their stories, thus providing a perspective knowledgeable about the expressed opinions of their industry colleagues as well as significant industry trends and changes.

Textual Analysis

Sampling and Data Collection. Purposeful sampling involves selecting a series of cases or individuals that are especially knowledgeable or experienced with a set of phenomena in order to make the most effective use of limited resources and to produce the richest data possible. The purpose of this type of sampling is not to be able to generalize from these findings, but to explore phenomena through a series of perspectives

(Palinkas et al., 2015). The texts were purposefully sampled using a few sets of criteria.

First, the piece itself must be published by reputable publications such as Columbia

Journalism Review or Nieman Lab, or by an author that is considered authoritative outside of the publication that their work is published through. For example, content from

The Atlantic‟s Derek Thompson qualified because of the wider perspective on the state of media provided by the text during the throes of the pivot to video. The articles spanned several years of the pivot, with the earliest dating to early 2016 and the latest written in early 2018. This serves a variety of purposes for the study. Using texts across this span of time provided insight into the variety of ways that journalists perceived Facebook‟s

16 promotion of video and its perceived role (or lack thereof) in the field of journalism at that particular point in time and as the trend became more apparent and cemented into the minds of journalists working at the time.

Coding Procedures. Each text was analyzed to determine if it perceived

Facebook as a positive or negative force within the context of the story and if Facebook is presented as a “disruptor” within the media landscape within the story. The analysis determined the company‟s perceived role by analyzing the language used when describing the company or its actions, as well as the sources and quotes used by the author in the text. Each text was analyzed to determine what the relationship between different sectors of the media are at that point in time and how journalists at that time made sense of the role of Facebook in their profession as well as their everyday job.

I also examined the texts for themes of disruption with regard to Facebook‟s effect on the field of journalism, looking for how the author situated Facebook in regards to journalism, whether as a positive force that can provide opportunities for (at the time) new forms of journalism or as a negative force that has detrimental effects. The text was also analyzed to ascertain if Facebook was presented in a position of authority or gatekeeping power in relation to journalism. While prior research has already been conducted assessing the gatekeeping power of the platform over media outlets, I also wanted to investigate if and how this sentiment is reflected in the selected texts.

After the individual texts were coded, the texts were compared to show any trends in attitude, coverage, or perception of the organization and its relationship to journalism through the company‟s promotion of video content. Each text was entered into a separate

Google Spreadsheet, with each row containing one paragraph of a piece, a condensed

17 meaning unit, and axial codes. The axial codes were then compared across all texts, which was then used to quantitatively measure the number of times certain themes emerged across all analyzed texts. The text was openly coded, so themes could emerge after the analyses began.

Semi-structured Interviews

Semi-structured follow-up interviews provided rich sets of data and added vital, updated context to the thoughts, predictions, and concerns expressed in the authors‟ original texts. This method added new context to the viewpoints presented in the text, as well as provide a current look at the opinions and perspectives of these and other thought leaders.

After the texts were selected and coded, contact information for the author and their organization was gathered. I created and used an adjustable email template to draft an email to reach out to the author requesting an interview. If the authors did not responded within 3-4 business days, I sent a follow-up email and later attempted to contact by phone call. When a phone number could not be found, I reached out in another secondary manner by sending a direct message to the social media account of the writer or a current colleague. For details about interview protocol, see the Appendix.

Sampling and Data Collection. Participants of semi-structured interviews were selected through purposeful sampling. The authors of the analyzed texts were contacted first, with authors outside of those that authored the texts contacted as needed. These subjects provided valuable data as to how the discursive construction of the relationship between Facebook and journalism has changed over time.

18

The semi-structured interviews were conducted after the texts were selected and coded. Each interview was conducted by Zoom. Audio from the interviews were recorded. The interviews were uploaded to otter.ai for partial transcription. I then reviewed and corrected this partial transcription where necessary. The interview files were stored on my computer and backed up to my university Zoom account. The interviews were semi-structured, so as to provide a set of questions to provide a strong set of data, but with the flexibility to allow me to improvise follow-up questions to obtain in- depth information (Hall & Rist, 1999).

Coding Procedures. Once the interviews were conducted and completely transcribed and corrected, each interview was analyzed to determine if the interviewee perceives Facebook as a positive force that can provide opportunities for new forms of journalism and/or as a negative force that has a detrimental effect towards the autonomy of the media as a whole. The interviews were also coded to see if Facebook is seen as a

“disruptor” within the media landscape. The semi-structured interview analyzed the language used when describing the company or its actions, as well as the sources and quotes used by the author in the text.

The interviews were also analyzed to ascertain if Facebook is presented in a position of authority or gatekeeping power in relation to journalism. While prior research has already been conducted assessing the gatekeeping power of the platform over media outlets, I wanted to investigate if and how this sentiment is reflected in the semi- structured interviews and how those views compare to those expressed in their accompanying pieces.

19

After the interviews were coded in isolation, the interviews were compared to show any trends in attitude, coverage, or perception of Facebook and its relationship to journalism through the company‟s promotion of video content. The interviews as a whole were coded to show if there has been a shared change in perception amongst these thought leaders/sensemakers, and if there are common events that inspired these changes in opinion.

Trustworthiness

I used several strategies to maintain the validity of both the textual analysis and the semi-structured interviews. First, the study used triangulation, specifically the combination of article analyses and semi-structured interviews. According to Yin (2018), this serves as a way to strengthen the validity of a study. I also incorporated participant feedback into the study, to ensure that the views of the writers are accurately represented from my interpretations of the text and the interviews.

Researcher‟s Role

In the interest of transparency and accountability, it is worth noting several aspects of my personal and professional background and how it may have affected the analysis. I am a practicing journalist and have many friends and acquaintances within journalism, so I have a personal interest in the topic at hand as well as a professional one.

I will employ the use of peer review and participant feedback to mitigate as much of my bias as possible, and to ensure that the expressed opinions of the participants are reflected honestly. In addition, I have used Facebook since July 2011 for both professional and personal reasons.

20

Findings

Several themes emerged from the textual analysis and interviews with technology reporters. Two of the most universal themes were that the pivot to video itself did not work and that Facebook influenced publisher decision-making. While there were publications that were able to succeed through pivoting to video such as various Conde

Nast properties (e.g. Bon Appétit and Wired) and Vox, the trend was universally acknowledged as short-sighted and unsuccessful. Several texts referred to Facebook as an actor that set up several incentives encouraging video production, ranging from algorithm tweaks which benefited video on the platform to direct subsidization of video content.

Several journalists chastised Facebook‟s conduct, writing that the platform acted in a myriad of dishonest or non-transparent ways. One author also called for Facebook to be treated more akin to that of a publisher than simply as a platform. Authors noted that despite the failure of the trend, video had and has a place in the modern media ecosystem.

Publishers were urged to approach video production as but one part of a holistic, varied strategy that spans media.

Publishers Made Important Decisions Directly Because of Facebook

There is one theme prevalent in every analyzed article directly pertaining to the industry‟s pivot to video: publishers made decisions based on the decisions of Facebook or under the immense influence of Facebook as a platform.

Madrigal and Meyer (2018) argued that Facebook “set up new and fast-changing incentives for video that altered the online ad market as a whole” in addition to allegedly and “egregiously” overstating the watch time on videos on its platform. Madrigal and

21

Meyer referenced online-centered publications like Upworthy, , Fusion,

Vocativ, and MTV News as publications that fired a combination of print journalists, editors and other non-video journalists as part of efforts to create more video content.

Owen (2018) wrote that the pivot to video was “driven largely by a belief that if

Facebook was seeing users, in massive numbers, shift to video from text, the trend must be real for news video too,” despite doubts cast by research from outside organizations and from within the publishers themselves.

Digiday senior reporter Max Willens chronicled the fate of , a media organization which exploded in popularity after benefitting from waves of traffic from

Facebook. Mic drew nearly 18 million unique users in November 2016. This sharply fell to 5.5 million unique users in October 2018. Mic investor Jeremy Liew blamed the decline on Facebook, tweeting “If you live by the sword you die by the sword” (Willens

2018). In a follow-up interview, Willens said Mic figured out what kind of video content performed well on Facebook. “All of a sudden, they probably didn't realize this until it was too late, but they basically quickly got addicted to Facebook as a source of referral traffic,” Willens said. “They found themselves almost riding this big, unpredictable animal basically, and they wanted to avoid getting thrown off. They wound up sort of moving in whatever direction best suited the Facebook beast.”

Facebook‟s promotion of video content worked both because of its large audience and because of the platform‟s dominance with regards to digital advertising revenue.

Thompson (2017) wrote that Facebook and Google “cinch the bloated web into the straitjacket of vertical content known as results pages and feeds” and they collect

“unparalleled information about the interests and aspirations of their users and profit from

22 their roles as digital gatekeepers”. Thompson also reveals that Google and Facebook were projected to account for 61 percent of the total U.S. digital advertising market in

2017. Moore (2017) wrote that Facebook and Google collected 99 percent of all digital advertising revenue growth in the United States as of 2017. This combined with the fact that traditional banner advertising “is cheap and doesn‟t bring in enough money to support the cost of many newsrooms” (Moore 2017) meant that video advertising revenue was an effective lure for publishers.

In a follow-up interview, Thompson explicitly framed the cause of the pivot as a confluence of different factors. “For a variety of reasons – the rise of Google, the rise of

Facebook, the rise of programmatic advertising, the decline of print advertising – it was very clear that advertising was struggling in terms of a web page model.” Thompson said these factors led to the prospect of video advertising revenue becoming lucrative for media executives, which propelled the pivot to video.

It is also worth noting that this stage of the dynamic between Facebook and publishers began with Facebook‟s perception of video consumption as eclipsing text on the platform. Owen (2018) cited Facebook‟s VP for Europe Nicola Mendelsohn who, at a panel in June 2016, said “we‟re seeing a year-on-year decline on text… if I was having a bet I would say: video, video, video.” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reiterated this logic to BuzzFeed News in 2016, and argued “I wouldn‟t be surprised if you fast-forward five years and most of the content that people see on FB and are sharing on a day-to-day basis is video.” Facebook clearly saw video as a trend that was not going away, and aimed to capitalize on it.

23

It was Facebook‟s decisions to prioritize video content, as well as live-streaming content via Facebook Live, on its immense platform that would start as an unofficial start of the media industry‟s pivot to video. Facebook began tweaking its algorithm in 2015 to promote video content (Moore, 2017) and began directly paying certain publishers and personalities to promote Facebook Live videos in March 2016 (Brown, 2018).

The Pivot to Video Did Not Work

Every article that addressed the pivot to video acknowledged the trend as a failure. Moore (2017) argued that the outlets that pivoted to video served as a cautionary tale. Hundreds lost their jobs “while shiny-object-chasing publishers are no closer to creating cohesive video strategies to replace the traffic those writers were producing”.

Moore wrote that publishers lost a majority of their native audiences “in only a year of churning out undifferentiated, bland chunks of largely aggregated „snackable‟ video.

That‟s no one‟s idea of success.” Moore cited a Digiday article showing that publishers that pivoted to video during summer 2017 saw a 60 percent drop in traffic in August from the same period one year prior.

Facebook Live videos produced by paid partners of the platform dropped by 51 percent on average in the nine months following the end of direct subsidies from

Facebook as compared to prior 12-month period, according to Brown (2018). Brown elaborated that it was difficult for publishers to make Facebook Live into a sustainable source of revenue, concluding that Facebook Live wasn‟t the problem but “Facebook‟s inability or unwillingness to figure out how to pay publishers” was.

The failure of the industry‟s pivot to video strategy resulted in many articles that were pessimistic or downright apocalyptic in tone. In “How to Survive the Media

24

Apocalypse,” Thompson (2017) lamented that 2017 was “a uniquely miserable year in the media business” due to waves of layoffs and revenue shortfalls at publications from

Vanity Fair to The New York Times. He noted that so many media companies had altered their budgets around video production that the pivot became an industry joke, “less like a business strategy and more like end-of-life estate planning.”

Kelleher‟s (2017) VentureBeat article, “Let‟s Call „Pivot to Video‟ What It Really

Is: Desperation” struck a pessimistic tone, comparing the industry‟s pivot to video to a

“running (if cruel) joke”. This article and several others explicitly tied the industry‟s pivot to video with layoffs through examples of layoffs from Fox Sports to Vice to Mic.

Kelleher noted that publications either made the changes while “promising more hires in video,” or, as in the case of Mic, outright stating the layoffs were made as part of efforts to help the publisher become “the leader in visual journalism.” Levy (2018) opened his article by sarcastically asking publishers the following question: “Dissatisfied with your audience engagement and revenue? Just fire a chunk of your existing digital staff and

„pivot to video.‟” Curtis (2017) provided a personal perspective on the industry‟s pivot to video, citing the effects of layoffs at three publications on him:

It‟s grueling to write about this stuff. I have pals at all three places including

Grantland alums who were the founding mothers and fathers of the rebooted MTV

News. It‟s one thing to think of a video replacing a writer in theory. It‟s another

when the writer is Brian Phillips.

Curtis also compared the dialogue surrounding the industry‟s pivot to video to gallows humor, yet lamented that “behind all gallows humor stands a gallows” and that as one of his contemporaries pointed out, “„pivoting to video‟ is just another way to say „layoff‟”.

25

Curtis also expressed fear that the media‟s pivot to video will be a pivot away from good reporting, commentary, and text-based journalism itself.

In an October 2020 follow-up interview, Derek Thompson said the pivot to video may be viewed in the future as “a period of really astonishing short-sightedness on the part of a lot of media executives who were just out to chase the hottest thing and forgot how to build sustainable businesses.” Thompson compared the strategy of news media during and prior to the pivot as analogous to “eating free lunch on other people‟s budgets” and argued that the industry relied on platforms like Facebook or other shortcuts in order to attract audiences.

Thompson said one of the most important lessons of the pivot to video is one of unit economics, arguing “you don‟t build businesses by chasing the latest shiny distraction and hoping against hope that you will find a way to monetize it somewhere down the line.” Technology and media journalist Simon Owens echoed Thompson‟s sentiment in an interview with the researcher. Owens said that publishers must learn to avoid building on someone else‟s platform “because that platform can take away your reach and revenue at a moment's notice.” This stands in stark contrast with the tone expressed by one article written during the pivot, which posited Facebook Live as a

“useful tool” for experimentation (Shawley, 2016).

Facebook Acted in Misleading, Opaque, or Dishonest Ways

Several authors criticized Facebook or platforms generally for withholding information or operating without transparency. In “Facebook is eating the world”, Bell

(2016) emphasized the loss of control publishers face when relying on its algorithms to determine how content is presented to its users:

26

We have no option but to trust them to do this… in truth, we have little or no

insight into how each company is sorting its news. If Facebook decides, for

instance, that video stories will do better than text stories, we cannot know that

unless they tell us or unless we observe it. This is an unregulated field. There is no

transparency into the internal working of these systems.

Both Madrigal and Meyer (2018) and Owen (2018) wrote about a lawsuit filed against Facebook which alleges that the platform inflated metric measuring time spent watching videos by as much as 900 percent. Madrigal and Meyer wrote that Facebook has a history of disrupting industry, citing the company‟s push into live video streaming and media distribution. The authors write that perhaps “as this new lawsuit alleges, it was a negligence so extreme that it rose to the level of fraud.” The lawsuit was settled in 2019 with Facebook paying $40 million (LLE One, LLC v. Facebook, Inc., 2019).

Bell (2016) shared a quote from Mark Zuckerberg in July 2016 where he said that he was pleased with Facebook‟s progress in video as the company moves “towards a world where video is at the heart of all our services”. Bell then wrote that “one might cruelly remark that you would be pretty pleased with progress if its engagement statistics were routinely stated as almost double their actual number.” Bell (2016) then delved into another common argument made across several other analyzed articles: Facebook should conduct itself as not simply a neutral technology platform, but as a publisher in and of themselves. Bell cited an interview between Vice and the editor-in-chief of the

Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten in which the Norwegian journalist described

Facebook as

27

by far… the most important carrier of news today, and it is editing at least in two

ways. Every post you see on your feed is there for a reason; it‟s not neutral at all,

it‟s an algorithm that decides.

As Digiday senior reporter Max Willens phrased it in a follow-up interview, Facebook

“can pull all kinds of levers to sort of manufacture the perception that video is a central part of everyone‟s Facebook experience and a sought after part of it.”

It is also worth noting that there was disagreement among those interviewed as to whether to define Facebook as a gatekeeper. Digiday senior media editor Tim Peterson described Facebook as an extremely passive gatekeeper, citing the spread of misinformation on the platform as a primary example of the platform not acting in a gatekeeper-type role. Technology and media journalist Simon Owens defined a gatekeeper as an agent that creates “a bottleneck that keeps content from succeeding”, and thus argued that Facebook was more akin to a meritocracy than a gatekeeper.

Thompson said in the follow-up interview that Facebook does possess gatekeeping power to a certain extent, but that “there‟s too many gates to keep.”

However, as several of the analyzed texts and researcher interviews reveal, the failure of the pivot to video did not and does not spell the end of video on the Internet.

Online Video is Not Inherently Bad

Despite the failure of the industry‟s pivot to video, several authors emphasized that production of video for online consumption was not inherently a bad thing. Levy

(2018) argued that while pivoting to video content did not solve the journalism publishers‟ problems, the medium was not to blame for the failure of the pivot. Levy wrote that the plights of venture-capital funded startups like Mic and Mashable should

28 not represent the entire publishing industry; venture funded companies seek acquisitions, public offerings or private equity recapitalization as a part of their typical business strategy. Levy also quoted an article from Mic that had argued that traffic isn‟t the best measurement to define success as it aims for engagement on platforms like

Facebook and via video distribution. Shawley (2016) wrote about Facebook

Live when the service was relatively new to general users and praised Facebook Live as a new method of storytelling and as a tool of engagement for journalists.

Technology and media journalist Simon Owens said in an interview that many outlets that failed in the pivot did so because they weren‟t creating compelling content.

“It was a bunch of stock images, and stock video footage with some kind of like background musac and some text overlaid on the video,” Owens said. “It was commoditized content that anybody could create.” Owens said once there was an abundance of that type of content, the desire for this type of content dropped and

Facebook altered its algorithm to not recommend those kinds of videos as often. Owens also argued that Facebook doesn‟t deserve all of the blame for the failure of the pivot to video, arguing that media executives that made “an investment based on some kind of future hopeful projection of revenue” should bear responsibility as well. Owens acknowledged the large role Facebook played in the pivot, as YouTube was the only major video platform on the Internet of that scale prior to Facebook‟s investment in video content.

The authors also called for a more thoughtful approach to video content production. Moore (2017) urged publishers to acknowledge that the media‟s pivot failed and set about to create good video content: “[Video content] should be original, clever,

29 entertaining, and part of a balanced multimedia approach to digital journalism that includes well-written, well-reported stories, strong data and graphics, and good art.” The author compared the state of video to text-based digital journalism, saying “visually most

[video] is right around the Geocities, circa 1999, with intrusive ads and ugly text.” Moore then praised video as a powerful investment for publishers and urged publishers to address the underlying problems in the industry and diversify traffic streams.

30

Discussion

Journalism‟s pivot to video, which lasted approximately from 2015 to 2018, can reveal quite a bit about the relationships between publishers, Facebook, and how the publishers thought of the platform and themselves. Attempting to chronicle every layoff or hire as a result of a publisher‟s shift to increase video production was not the aim of this research. Rather, this research aimed to provide varied perspectives on the shift within the media industry – one that has seemingly ended – and provide further insight into the boundary work that journalists engage in by reflecting on this industry-wide pivot.

My analysis reveals that publishers felt compelled to create and increase production of video content directly as a result of Facebook‟s vast influence. Facebook used many different incentives to create video, ranging from the promotion of native videos to the platform through algorithm changes to direct financial compensation.

Facebook‟s role as one of the top two companies for digital advertising revenue in the world secured Facebook‟s ad money as valuable for news publishers.

My analysis also concludes that the pivot to video was widely regarded as a failure. Hundreds of employees were fired as a result of poorly-planned shifts towards video production, with many in the industry referring to the shift as a pessimistic joke. To many of the writers interviewed by the researcher and in many of the written works analyzed by the researcher, the pivot to video seems to be seen as a cautionary tale of the results of forgoing journalistic autonomy in exchange for views and fleeting advertising revenue; outlets that give up control of the content they create and the audience they foster will serve at the mercy of a platform that acts in its own self-interest above all else.

31

Thompson echoed this sentiment with the researcher in the follow-up interview talking about the period of time following the pivot:

[The end of the pivot to video] also had to do with news organizations reclaiming

their ownership of their readers. Because if you rely on Facebook for your

business to work, then you're basically just like Facebook‟s vassal. You're

Facebook‟s serf. You‟re not actually your own company. You‟re entirely reliant

on algorithmic technologists you'll never meet.

This work also sheds light into how journalists evaluated and thought of Facebook as the pivot was happening. Journalists cited Facebook‟s alleged inflation of viewership metrics as primary evidence that the platform acted dishonestly and without transparency towards publishers. Bell (2016) argued that Facebook should conduct itself as more of a publisher than that of a seemingly neutral platform, as the use of algorithms designed by humans still makes important decisions that affect publishers‟ reach and what an audience member sees on their feed.

Despite the widespread acknowledgement of the industry‟s pivot to video as a failure, my analysis also shows that journalists didn‟t and do not currently think of online video as bad in and of itself. Authors that touched on the subject called for publishers to invest in producing entertaining, informative, high quality video content that is a part of a multimedia approach to storytelling.

Limitations

There are, inevitably, limitations to this study. Gaining access to the authors who wrote the analyzed texts was difficult, and necessitated reaching out to qualified authors outside of the analyzed texts. Ascribing a timeframe to the pivot to video was important

32 but difficult, as trends do not began or end on a set date. It was important to establish a rough timeframe however, in an effort to present this shift within journalism as occurring as a result of a specific set of decisions and taking place over a period of time.

Directions for Future Research

Future research should examine the lasting impacts of the pivot to video on the wider media landscape, such as how the incentives to pivot to video on Facebook affected the production and style of online video across the internet. Additional research should also try to place the pivot to video in context with other media trends that preceded this one, such as the so-called “pivot to SEO” and the popularity of social media in journalism. Researchers should also examine the metajournalistic discourse surrounding other platforms such as Twitter, , and Snapchat. Further work should be done to examine how journalists make sense of these platforms‟ algorithms, and how it impacts the autonomy of the media industry as the technology grows and matures.

Conclusion

This analysis of the pivot to video reveals important lessons about online video as a medium during this time period, as well as publishers and the platforms they use to distribute their content. This analysis provides insight into the pressure journalists felt because of Facebook‟s promotion of video content, and gives perspective on why certain outlets succeeded during the pivot while others failed. This research also suggests that the pivot to video can serve as a prime example of what can happen if publishers invest too heavily into producing content for a platform outside of their own without a clear path to monetization.

33

References

Bell, E. (2016, March 7). Facebook is eating the world. Columbia Journalism Review. https://www.cjr.org/analysis/facebook_and_media.php

Bell, E. (2017, Spring). The Facebook rescue that wasn‟t. Columbia Journalism Review. https://www.cjr.org/local_news/facebook-rescue-watershed-post.php

Bell, E., Owen, T., Brown, P. D., Hauka, C., & Rashidian, N. (2017, March 29). The platform press: How Silicon Valley reengineered journalism. Columbia Journalism Review. https://www.cjr.org/tow_center_reports/platform-press-how- silicon-valley-reengineered-journalism.php

Brown, C. (2019, January 15). Doing more to support local news. Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/facebookmedia/blog/doing-more-to-support-local- news

Brown, P. (2018, February 23). RIP Facebook Live: As subsidies end, so does publisher participation. Columbia Journalism Review. https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/facebook-live-over-as-payments-end.php

Bucher, T. (2017a). The algorithmic imaginary: Exploring the ordinary affects of Facebook algorithms. Information, Communication & Society, 20(1), 30-44. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2016.1154086

Bucher, T. (2017b). Machines don‟t have instincts: Articulating the computational in journalism. New Media & Society, 19(6), 918-933. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444815624182

Carlson, M. (2016). Metajournalistic discourse and the meanings of journalism: Definitional control, boundary work, and legitimation. Communication Theory, 26(4), 349-368. https://doi.org/10.1111/comt.12088

Carlson, M. (2018). Facebook in the news: Social media, journalism, and public responsibility following the 2016 Trending Topics controversy. Digital Journalism, 6(1), 4-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1298044

Curtis, B. (2017, July 3). What "pivoting to video" really means. The Ringer. https://www.theringer.com/2017/7/3/16045198/fox-sports-mtv-news-vocativ- layoffs-pivot-to-video-77e441a49cb7

Dwyer, T., & Martin, F. (2017). Sharing news online: Social media news analytics and their implications for media pluralism policies. Digital Journalism, 5(8), 1080- 1100. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1338527

Guest, G., Bunce, A. & Johnson, L. (2006). How many interviews are enough? An

34

experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods, 18(1), 59-82. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X05279903

Hall, A. L., & Rist, R. C. (1999). Integrating multiple qualitative research methods (or avoiding the precariousness of a one-legged stool). Psychology & Marketing, 16(4), 291–304. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1520- 6793(199907)16:4<291::AID-MAR2>3.0.CO;2-%23

Hassan, R. (2018). Egypt‟s watchdogs: Citizen journalism before, during and after the 2011 revolution. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research, 11(1), 45-60. https://doi.org/10.1386/jammr.11.1.45_1

Ingram, M. (2018, Winter). The Facebook Armageddon. Columbia Journalism Review. https://www.cjr.org/special_report/facebook-media-buzzfeed.php

Ingram, M. (2019, March 22). Facebook: We care deeply about journalism. Please believe us. Columbia Journalism Review. https://www.cjr.org/the_new_gatekeepers/facebook-journalism.php

Johnson, B. G. (2017). Speech, harm, and the duties of digital intermediaries: Conceptualizing platform ethics. Journal of Media Ethics, 32(1), 16-27. doi:10.1080/23736992.2016.1258991

Johnson, B. G., & Kelling, K. (2018). Placing Facebook: "Trending," "Napalm Girl," fake news, and journalistic boundary work. Journalism Practice, 12(7), 817-833. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2017.1349546

Kelleher, K. (2017, August 27). Let's call "pivot to video" what it really is: Desperation. VentureBeat. https://venturebeat.com/2017/08/27/lets-call-pivot-to-video-what-it- really-is-desperation/

Langley, P., & Leyshon, A. (2017). Platform capitalism: The intermediation and capitalisation of digital economic circulation. Finance & Society, 3(1), 11-31. https://doi.org/10.2218/finsoc.v3i1.1936

LLE One, LLC v. Facebook, Inc., Case No. 4:16-cv-06232-JSW (2019)

Levy, N. (2018, March 29). What's next for video, now that the pivot to video is dead? Folio. https://www.foliomag.com/whats-next-video-now-pivot-video-dead/

Madrigal, A. C., & Meyer, R. (2018, October 18). How Facebook‟s chaotic push into video cost hundreds of journalists their jobs. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/facebook-driven-video- push-may-have-cost-483-journalists-their-jobs/573403/

35

Moore, H. N. (2017, September 26). The secret cost of pivoting to video. Columbia Journalism Review. https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/pivot-to-video.php

Myllylahti, M. (2018). An attention economy trap? An empirical investigation into four news companies‟ Facebook traffic and social media revenue. Journal of Media Business Studies, 15(4), 237-253. https://doi.org/10.1080/16522354.2018.1527521

Napoli, P. M. (2014). Automated media: An institutional theory perspective on algorithmic media production and consumption. Communication Theory, 24(3), 340-360. https://doi.org/10.1111/comt.12039

Owen, L. H. (2018, October 17). Did Facebook's faulty data push news publishers to make terrible decisions on video? Nieman Lab. https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/10/did-facebooks-faulty-data-push-news- publishers-to-make-terrible-decisions-on-video/

Palinkas, L. A., Horwitz, S. M., Green, C. A., Wisdom, J. P., Duan, N., & Hoagwood, K. (2015). Purposeful sampling for qualitative data collection and analysis in mixed method implementation research. Administration and Policy in Mental Health, 42(5), 533–544. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-013-0528-y

Patel, S. (2018, January 2). 2018 will be a pivotal year for Facebook's video ambitions. Digiday. https://digiday.com/media/facebook-video-ambitions-2018/

Paulussen, S., Harder, R. A. & Johnson, M. (2017) Facebook and news journalism. In B. Franklin & S. A. Eldridge II (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Digital Journalism Studies (pp. 427-435). Routledge.

Poell, T. & van Dijck, J. (2014). Social media and journalistic independence. In J. Bennett & N. Strange (Eds.), Media independence: Working with freedom or working for free? (pp. 182-201). Routledge.

Polar. (2019). State of Digital Media: Marketing Brief Q1 2019. https://app.hubspot.com/documents/4934439/view/35492787?accessId=d58b35

Rein, K., & Venturini, T. (2018). Ploughing digital landscapes: How Facebook influences the evolution of live video streaming. New Media & Society, 20(9), 3359-3380. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817748954

Russell, F. M. (2019). The new gatekeepers: An institutional-level view of Silicon Valley and the disruption of journalism. Journalism Studies, 20(5), 631–648. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2017.1412806

Shawley, P. (2016, October). Facebook Live: The new tool for storytelling. Royal Television Society.

36

https://rts.org.uk/article/facebook-live-new-tool-storytelling

Shoemaker, P. J., & Vos, T. (2009). Gatekeeping theory. Routledge.

Smith, A., & Anderson, M. (2018, March 1). Social Media use in 2018. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewinternet.org/wp- content/uploads/sites/9/2018/02/PI_2018.03.01_Social-Media_FINAL.pdf

Tandoc, E. C., & Maitra, J. (2018). News organizations' use of native videos on Facebook: Tweaking the journalistic field one algorithm change at a time. New Media & Society, 20(5), 1679-1696. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817702398

Thompson, D. (2017, November 29). How to Survive the Media Apocalypse. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/11/media- apocalypse/546935/ Welbers, K., & Opgenhaffen, M. (2018). Social media gatekeeping: An analysis of the gatekeeping influence of newspapers‟ public Facebook pages. New Media & Society, 20(12), 4728-4747. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444818784302 Willens, M. (2018, November 30). Pivoting to nowhere: How Mic ran out of radical makeovers. Digiday. https://digiday.com/media/mic-transformations-pivoting-nowhere/

Yin, R. (2011). Qualitative research from start to finish. Guilford.

37

Appendix: Interview Protocol

The researcher aimed to employ two general groups of questions. The first series of questions aimed to be partially biographical in nature. The first questions also attempted to establish the journalist‟s prior experience with Facebook and its push to video content.

● Do you remember what your first personal interaction is with Facebook as a

platform?

○ What were your initial thoughts about using Facebook as a platform for

journalism?

● Are modern media outlets currently reliant on using Facebook? Why or why not?

○ If so, at what point do you think it became a necessary platform for media

outlets to use?

○ How have news organizations changed their strategies about Facebook

use? Why?

● When did the idea to create video content for Facebook first take hold from your

point of view?

○ What were the incentives to create this content? What were the thoughts in

those newsrooms at the time?

○ What did you perceive as the effects of these kinds of incentives?

○ In your view, did increased video production for Facebook change

journalism online? If so, how? If not, why not?

38

○ Why was it important to you to write about how Facebook‟s promotion of

video content was affecting journalism?

The second group of questions will inquire about the writers‟ current thoughts on

Facebook‟s “push to video”, and ascertain if the company had any power over media companies then and if they believe the platform does currently.

● What are your current opinions about Facebook as a platform?

○ Have your opinions about the company changed? If so, why have your

views changed?

○ What effects do you believe Facebook is having now in the modern media

landscape?

● Does Facebook act as a gatekeeper for journalism content?

● Do you believe there are any long-lasting effects resulting from Facebook‟s

promotion of video content? If so, what are those effects?

39