Different stakes, different struggles, and different practices to survive: News organizations and the spectrum of platform dependency

Abstract

As people access news via digital platforms, existing literature provides foundations for institutional approaches to news organizations’ platform dependency. Yet, platform dependency also exists on a spectrum: size, business model, and market position impact how each news organization strategizes its reliance on digital platforms. I draw on in-depth interviews with 22 South Korean news professionals to delve into different survival strategies in dealing with South Korea’s biggest search portal and news aggregator, Naver. Findings reveal that contrary to the common belief, journalists in legacy news organizations experience more pressure and compromise journalistic values with clickbait headlines. They deem their relationship with the platform more in hierarchical and inevitable terms while journalists from new, emerging organizations are relatively freer from the competition for clicks and strive for more quality journalism. However, the difference stems from the Naver platform’s news organization ranking system and its tiered visibility structure that systematically creates the difference in audience reach and news distribution.