Nudging towards news diversity: A theoretical framework for facilitating diverse news consumption through recommender design

Abstract

Growing concern about the democratic impact of automatically curated news platforms urges us to reconsider how such platforms should be designed. We propose a theoretical framework for personalised diversity nudges that can stimulate diverse news consumption on the individual level. To examine potential benefits and limitations of existing diversity nudges, we conduct an interdisciplinary literature review that synthesises theoretical work on news selection mechanisms with hands-on tools and implementations from the fields of computer science and recommender systems. Based thereupon, we propose five diversity nudges that researchers and practitioners can build on. We provide a theoretical motivation of why, when and for whom such nudges could be effective, critically reflect on their potential backfire effects and the need for algorithmic transparency, and sketch out a research agenda for diversity-aware news recommender design. Thereby, we develop concrete, theoretically grounded avenues towards facilitating diverse news consumption on algorithmically curated platforms.