JOURNALISM AT THE CROSSROADS OF THE ALGORITHMIC TURN O JORNALISMO NA ENCRUZILHada DO ‘ALGORITHMIC TURN’ FRANCISCO RUI CÁDIMA Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas. Centro de Investigação em Comunicação e Cultura Digital (CIC.Digital NOVA FCSH), Lisboa, Portugal [email protected] Recebido / Received / Recibido:26/06/2017 Aceite /Accepted /Aceptación: 16/10/2017 ABSTRACT At the beginning of the digital age new and complex problems for media system, in particular for journalism, are setting up. Online platforms – the new digital intermediaries - are introducing automated systems for distributing con- tent and information through technologies that control access to online news via search engines, news aggregators and social networks. These are new al- gorithmic systems of information and news management that become authen- tic “gatekeepers” of the news. This “algorithmic turn” is a great challenge for the future of journalism whose problems and consequences we address in more detail in this paper. KEYWORDS Journalism; Pluralism; Digital platforms; Algorithms RESUMO Neste início da era digital estão a emergir novos e complexos problemas para o sistema de media, e muito em particular para o jornalismo. As plata- formas on-line - os novos intermediários digitais - estão a introduzir sistemas automatizados para distribuição de conteúdo e informação através de tecnolo- gias que controlam o acesso às notícias on-line, através de motores de busca, agregadores de notícias e redes sociais. Estes são novos sistemas algorítmi- cos de gestão de informação que se tornam também autênticos “gatekeepers” de notícias. Este “algorithmic turn” é assim um grande desafio para o futuro do jornalismo cujos problemas e consequências abordamos mais detalhada- mente neste artigo. PALAVRAS-CHAVE Jornalismo; Pluralismo; Plataformas digitais; Algoritmos HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.14195/2183-5462_32_12 ARTIGOS | 171 INTRODUÇÃO At the beginning of the 21st century, the media in general and journalism in par- ticular are going through a period of great turbulence that derives first and foremost from the transformations generated by new digital environments. We are dealing with issues of great complexity, primarily in the domain of artificial intelligence, determined to a large extent by the technological acceleration introduced into the current media system by information and communication technologies during the last decade. The new post-media landscape has been profoundly altered in three main do- mains: the business and organizational model of the traditional press industry; tra- ditional journalism practices; and, above all, the relationship between news content and its “old” platforms with its own readers and / or audiences. In this paper we will try to show this, explaining the end of the newspaper era, the complex transitions to digital and its asymmetric journalistic practices, and the problematic relations of journalism with the new intermediaries and what we can call the algorithmic turn introduced by the digital media industry. This forms our analysis of the current crossroads of journalism. In the beginning, the word was ‘convergence’. It was the time of the so-called post-television era, when the global network, the Internet, began to take shape. The transition toward the new era of participatory culture was being built. We can say now that with the accomplishment of a new utopia, the convergence culture in the digital era was expected to be fostered by a large mobilization and assertive- ness. This means the rise of interactive networks (Rheingold, 1993), peer produc- tion, (Benkler, 2006) transmedia (Jenkins, 2006), ‘produsers’ (Bruns, 2008), and also a better relationship between interactivity and democratic participation (Chadwick, 2007; Bimber, 2012). The interactive model was stressed in the 1980s by UNESCO in the MacBride Report (1980) and the need to apply the principle of reciprocity in communication was recognized. As Kittler (1996) states, in digital systems real in- formation processing and encoding reciprocity function as an alphabet, although on a digital basis. Today, however, we ask whether the announced interactive commu- nication process is leading us to so-called ‘direct democracy’, or even to a shared new world without barriers, or is it merely another recurring myth of ‘remediation’? (Bolter and Grusin, 2000; Hindman, 2009). Throughout this analysis we will try to understand the role and positioning of journalism in this emergent and complex context of the global communication crisis and to discuss the challenges to journalism in relation to: 1) the end of the newspaper era and the start of the next journalism or the new context of journalism in transition—intermediations, interactions, conver- gences, and new problems with gatekeeping’, audiences and participatory journalism practices (Starr, 2009; Hunter, 2011; Jarvis, 2011); 2) new media literacies, participatory culture and online politics, collaborative new media and the production of media content through new platforms (Jenkins, 2006; Prior, 2007; Bimber, 2012); and 3) journalism and the algorithmic turn—the new ways to access media news through social networks, digital platforms, search engines, apps, aggrega- 172 | MEDIA&JORNALISMO tors, and many other new intermediaries (Pariser, 2011; Foster, 2012; Mo- rozov, 2012; Napoli, 2014). This brave new world needs an in-depth analysis of these new media production avenues in order to ‘save’ the old journalism or to build an alternative to complement the traditional system (i.e., new participatory practices and literacies to implement new interactive content in digital media). This paper aims to discuss the current sta- te of journalism at a time when it is at a crossroads or an inflection point, and will consider complex systems, such as big data and algorithms, which are conditioning pluralism, access to information, and freedom of expression. THE END OF THE NEWSPAPER ERA Paul Starr is an author who represents those who fear the grave implications of the end of the newspaper era: If we take seriously the notion of newspapers as a fourth estate, . the end of the age of newspapers implies a change in our political system itself. Newspapers have helped to control corrupt tendencies in both government and business. If we are to avoid a new era of corruption, we are going to have to summon that power in other ways. Our new technologies do not retire our old responsibilities (Starr, 2009: 35). The question for Starr is, does the decline of newspapers go along with the de- cline of democracy itself, since one of their main strengths was ‘to stand up against pressure from politicians and industries to suppress unfavorable stories’ (2009: 29). Since the press is considered to be the fourth estate and has gradually become eco- nomically strong—and because a financially compromised press is more likely to be ethically compromised—it has been able to better lead the scrutiny of public affairs and to sustain the values of journalism. The direct consequence of the new context remains the danger of a deterioration in the quality of journalism, or even worse, more self-censorship, censorship, and corruption in journalism itself (Moreira, 2008; Rampton, 2007; Greenwald, 2014). In view of this, what is the answer for the digital age? Starr does is not very opti- mistic, because the hope that newspapers ‘as we have known them can make the transition to a world of hybrid print-online publication’ has vanished (Starr, 2009: 30). The old media were unable to update their strategies either by adapting their practices to the full potential of interactive technologies or by integrating the new dynamics of news content in social networks and web platforms. For Starr, ‘the re- sult is that newspapers are shrinking not just physically or in labor power, but in the most important dimension of all—their editorial mission’ (2009: 30). The question is whether the Internet can integrate, within its technical-discur- sive system, the editorial mission of journalism in its full dimension, in issues of in- dependence, research and rigorous scrutiny of public interest, almost returning to Walter Lippmann’s (1919) Utopia, where newspapers are the ‘Bible of democracy’. Paul Starr’s perception represents, in a certain way, the perspective of the journalists. Yochai Benkler proposes an alternative that is probably more suited to these times: ARTIGOS | 173 Perhaps, as Starr proposes, there is room to enlist philanthropic support for local reporting. I would suspect, however, that doing so would achieve more if it created state-level online muckraking organizations with a generation of young journalists who have grown on the Net than by propping up older estab- lishments that still depend on much higher ratios of organizational, financial, and physical capital to talent than the new, lighter, networked models permit. (Benkler, 2009). In fact, the media experience in this new century is not reassuring. We have no- ticed a continuous crash (Otte, 2010) of media scrutiny, in parallel with global crises such as the dot.com collapse, the Iraq invasion, the subprime scandal, and financial toxic products, among others. According to Otte, the media system has been captured by multiple powers and interest groups (political, economic, and financial), which have led to the emergence of a society of misinformation, low transparency, and doubtful accountability. The media has also contributed to a model of ‘democratain- ment’, as described by Mario Perniola (2005). And as Glenn Greenwald (2014: 85) points out, ‘From the beginning . the documents [disclosed by Edward Snowden] constituted an opportunity to bring to light not only the secret NSA spying, but the dynamic system of journalism corruption’. It is crucial to develop new alternatives to overtake the main barriers in the sys- tem and to adopt new solutions and new experiences of open and strong interactive journalism that take advantage of the users’ ability to participate in the co-creation, transformation, and dissemination of digital content. This is a vital moment concern- ing an inevitable rupture in the field of media and new media.