A NEW WAY TO THINK ABOUT PRESS FREEDOM: NETWORKED JOURNALISM AND A PUBLIC RIGHT TO HEAR IN AN AGE OF ―NEWSWARE‖ A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION AND THE COMMITTEE OF GRADUATE STUDIES OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Mike Ananny March 2011 © 2011 by Michael Joseph Ananny. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/qw962by3920 ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Theodore Glasser, Primary Adviser I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Jeremy Bailenson I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Sarah Jain I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Frederick Turner Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives. iii (This page intentionally left blank.) ii (This page intentionally left blank.) iii (This page intentionally left blank.) iv ABSTRACT This dissertation presents a new way to think about press freedom in the context of online, networked news production. Essentially, if individual freedom means something other than just being left alone, and if press freedom is anything other than an anachronism from a time when only a privileged few could print or broadcast, then there is a democratic reason to defend press freedom and networked press dynamics to be discovered. To be free, people still need relationships with others and a right to hear – conditions that are, ideally, guaranteed in part by an autonomous press. The need for freedom remains, but the press is negotiating its autonomy in new ways: distancing itself from and depending upon publics, markets and states through online networked infrastructures I call ―newsware‖. I begin by unpacking the idea of autonomy as a general philosophical and democratic concept. I trace autonomy through a number of democratic rationales and situate it within an institutional understanding of the democratic press and an affirmative interpretation of the U.S. Constitution‘s First Amendment. I then use Bourdieu‘s Field Theory and New Institutionalism to show how the press can be understood as a field and use this model to trace how the mainstream press has historically negotiated its autonomy. Focusing on contemporary dynamics of online news production, I identify a new type of infrastructure called ―newsware‖ through which the press negotiates its autonomy today. v My empirical investigation focuses on one type of newsware: news organizations‘ application programming interfaces (APIs) that give publics access to their content. I present what I believe to be the first integrated account of three leading news organizations‘ APIs (The New York Times, The Guardian, and National Public Radio) and identify three ways in which they use them to negotiate distance from and dependences upon software programmers and internet users. I conclude by claiming that this new way of thinking about press autonomy—as a set of negotiated separations and dependencies among distributed actors connected through newsware infrastructures—better lets us both define and defend the press as an ideal networked institution that ensures a public right to hear. vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have many people and organizations to thank for their guidance, support, friendship and love. My advisor, Ted Glasser, patiently and generously taught me how to read literature on the press, journalism, and democratic theory. Through his own writing and our conversations, he showed me how to craft complex and critical research projects by asking seemingly simple questions. My dissertation committee was tremendously helpful, providing critiques that will continue to guide my work. Since coming to Stanford, Fred Turner has taken me on a rich and lively tour of ideas running through social and historical studies of networked technology, always pushing me to see people and technology in conversation with each other. Jeremy Bailenson, at a critical point in this work‘s development, asked hard questions of my empirical study, pressing me to frame my project in a more interesting, realistic and playful manner. Lochlann Jain gave feedback on both my dissertation proposal and final document, rightly urging me to think more critically about what kind of publics and counterpublics my study of the press assumes. Barbara van Schewick was a generous and supportive committee chair; but before assuming this official role, she introduced me to new ways of thinking about the internet in terms of legal and technical architectures. I‘m extraordinarily grateful for our conversations and her wise advice over the last few years. vii I‘m thankful for the financial and administrative support of the Stanford Communication Department: Susie, Barbara, Mark D, Mark S and Katrin patiently and professionally guided me through the university‘s various logistical mazes, with Susie being especially competent and generous throughout. Relatively early in my time at Stanford I was extremely fortunate to meet Woody Powell. Not only did he introduce me to the complex and fascinating field of institutional sociology, but he has been a consistently constructive mentor. I‘m grateful to him, Rob Reich, Deb Meyerson, Kim Meredith, and all the workshop participants for creating a wonderful home for me at Stanford‘s Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS) –and for the PACS fellowship that supported a year of my time at Stanford. I am similarly grateful to Roy Pea in the Education School and Claudia Engel in the Anthropology Department for financially supporting my work and introducing me to new ideas that have helped to shape my work. The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation not only provided me with financial and travel support that made my work more dynamic and interdisciplinary than it otherwise would have been – the Foundation also linked me to Canadians and Canadian ideas that hold special places in my mind and heart. Special thanks to Foundation President PG Forest for being a leader of people and ideas who is simultaneously insightful, principled, caring and irreverent. I look forward to continuing to learn from him. Thanks, too, to my official Trudeau Mentor, Ray Speaker, and my unofficial mentor, Ray‘s wife Ingrid, for their generous friendship and perspective on political populism that I continue to ponder and value. The Foundation staff—especially Josée St. Martin, Dr. Bettina Cenerelli—expertly created viii events and relationships that helped me learn, debate, and contribute in new ways. It was a tremendous honoUr to be a Trudeau Scholar, especially alongside people I now count as good friends: Kate Hennessy, Lisa Helps, Taylor Owen, Jill Boyd, Myles Leslie, Kate Parizeau, Leah Levac, Chris Tenove, Lindsey Richardson, Sonali Thakkar, Lisa Freeman, Jason Luckerhoff, Alex Aylett, Simon Collard-Wexler, Josh Lambier, Scott Naysmith, Elaine Craig, Fiona Kelly, Jay Batongbacal, Emily Paddon, Bob Huish, Meredith Schwartz, Sam Spiegel. I was also fortunate to have come to Stanford with a set of colleagues and mentors from my time at the MIT Media Lab and Media Lab Europe who continued to be generous and insightful friends, colleagues and mentors throughout my PhD. I‘m especially grateful to: Carol Strohecker for providing me with the best ―pre-doc‖ I could have imagined; Bakhtiar Mikhak for his gentle wisdom and razor-sharp thinking; and Lis Sylvan for her easy friendship that gave me new and healthy perspectives on life and work. Carol, Bakhtiar and Lis are all friends and mentors – and developmentalists in the very best senses of the word. I‘m also grateful to have had a set of friends—in San Francisco, at Stanford, and beyond—who made life within and outside of the PhD very enjoyable. This list probably accidentally omits some people who are most certainly not forgotten: Abby Reisman, Adam Smith, Ben Adida, Bob Monti, Brent Bannon, Brent Kawahara, Carina Wendel, Dan Chak, Dan Kreiss, danah boyd, Destiny Lopez, Gian Pangaro, Herve Gomez, Janet Go, Jeff Gubitosi, Jenny Scroggs, Jessie Dorfman, John Pien, Josh Spanogle, Kat Murray, Kim Gomez, Leila Takayama, Lise Marken, Lori Gauthier, MaryBeth Lorence, Matt Vespa, Michelle Hlubinka, Megan Tompkins- ix Strange, Mike Hooper, Ray Bacerdo, Rhonda Fernandes, Scott Cataffa, Seeta Peña Gangadharan, Stacy Abder, Tim Bates, Tom Coates, Tricia Bromley Martin, Vince Fecteau, Wendy Ju. Beyond these friends, I‘m also grateful to the GLBT National Help Center for letting me volunteer, giving me a break from academia, and reminding me every week how difficult and important it is to listen carefully to everyone‘s story. I‘m also grateful to Dr. Lisa Covey, Anju Guirani, Michelle Wallace, Hannah Sowd, and Mary Jenn for literally helping me get on my feet again after the Great Sneeze. I also want to thank my Ananny and O‘Connor families for all their visits, emails, phone calls and support through what often seemed like a never-ending PhD – especially Uncle Frank who first showed me what good journalism is and why it matters long before I ever thought I would study it.