Online content governance: Towards a framework for analysis for prominence and discoverability

Abstract

In an internet-connected era, prominence and discoverability propose new challenges for content providers, as search and discovery functions become essential to access content online. However, general definitional confusion on these notions has contributed to a lack of understanding of what discoverability means for the online audio-visual media industry, which in turn leads to a lack of clarity over the scope, values and intentions of related regulatory proposals. This article criticizes these policy approaches and proposes a fine-tuned understanding of content discoverability that is suited to our contemporary media system and informs media and communication policy debates in this area. By contextualizing it in an industry-led governance system with opaque content-curation strategies, I apply a new analytical lens to discoverability that shows its implications for three media policy issues: namely organizations’ decisional transparency, users’ diversity of exposure and the fostering of a plurality of media independent from undue power and influence.