Navigating good news, bad news, and no news: issues associated with public and private communication online

Social media platforms are certainly at the centre of some contentious topics at the moment. At the top of the ‘hot topics’ list, when this issue of Communication Research and Practice went to print, was Facebook’s latest audacious move which prevented news outlets’ content from being accessed via its platform. Commentary and condemnation have been widespread. Media scholars, journalists, and politicians did not hold back when it came to expressing their concerns about Facebook’s reaction to the Australian Federal Government’s plans to pass into law its News Media Bargaining Code which, if passed by the Senate, will require internet tech platforms like Facebook to negotiate compensation for news publishers whose content is accessed using the tech platform’s news sharing function.

Facebook’s decision to follow through on its threat to block all news publishers’ in the face of this legislation being passed by the Australian House of Representatives, the lower house of the Australian Parliament, meant that the estimated 14 million Australians who use Facebook daily were unable to view or share news content produced by local or international news publishers and users outside Australia were denied the opportunity to view or post content sourced from Australian outlets for several days.

While the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison described Facebook’s decision to block news rather than agree to negotiate payments for publishers as Google Search did as ‘arrogant’ (Quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald, 18/2/21), it has been more graphically described as the ‘nuclear option’ (See Tim Murphy, Co-Editor of Newsroom, 2021, 18/2/21). Misha Ketchell (2021, 18/2/21), the Executive director of the Australian Edition of The Commentator labelled it ‘aggressive’, ‘a muscle-flex’ and ‘an attempt to throw its weight around’, in an article informed by analysis from leading Australia media scholars including Diana Bossio, a member of Communication Research and Practice Editorial Advisory Group. The action was also described as ‘holding its users hostage’ (John Anthony, 2021, 18/2/21); ‘grossly irresponsible’ (Chris Cooper, Executive Director of Reset, quoted on www.abc.net.au/news) and ‘dangerous’ by Maryke Steffens (AU Edition of The Commentator, 18/2/21). Julien Knight, Chairperson of the British Parliament’s digital, culture, media and sport committee went so far as to describe Facebook’s move as ‘this bullyboy action’ and suggested it will motivate legislators around the World to follow Australia’s example (Quoted in The Guardian, 2021, 18/2/21).

With The Guardian framing Facebook’s motivation as ‘an attempt to bully a democracy’ (18/2/20), and others describing the company’s operating style in less than complementary terms, it is little wonder Facebook is facing an epic public relations crisis. Even in neighbouring New Zealand, where commentary can be less virulent, we saw Duncan Greive (2021), host of media podcast The Fold, describe Facebook as operating like a ‘stubborn mule’ (Quoted on Stuff 18/2/21).

In its defence, Facebook argues that its action was warranted because, unlike Google Search, it does not invite media publishers onto its platform. Publishers willingly post news on Facebook and so it seems unfair that Facebook should pay for their content, particularly when they use the Facebook exposure to sell subscriptions and expand their audiences. William Easton (2021, 17/1/21), Managing Director of Facebook Australia and New Zealand, explained his company’s action saying:

The proposed law fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between our platform and publishers who use it to share news content. It has left us with a stark choice: attempt to comply with a law that ignores the realities of this relationship or stop allowing news content on our services in Australia. With a heavy heart, we are choosing the later

This defence has received some support as has the view that the tech giant was standing on principle. At a more personal level, some users welcomed Facebook’s action because it addressed the issue of tabloid dominance in their newsfeeds. Support also came from those who construe the proposed News Media Bargaining Code as a mechanism for putting money into the hands of a select group of media moguls, not the journalists and others at the frontline of news production. However, among commentators, there was more consensus regarding Facebook’s removal of sites sharing the Australian government’s health information and the Victorian police pages. This caused considerable condemnation and was treated as emblematic of the unbridled power of this and other social media giants. Facebook rapidly reversed these blocks but not before it became clear that the way their news block was managed had been poorly thought through and the decision to proceed was taken in haste. Regardless of the reasons for the sequence of events or the poor execution, the situation has done little to enhance Facebook’s reputation. They have convincingly provided ammunition for those detractors who already had Facebook in their sights. Hugh Marks was quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald (2021, 18/2/21) as saying:

They are trying to prove how powerful they are. They’ve certainly proven that. The purpose of the legislation is actually trying to deal with that power, so they are kicking a massive own goal.

Regardless of 'constructive discussions' held with the Australian government, one outcome is certain – this confrontation between Facebook and the Australian Government has brought into sharp relief critical concerns about power, control, financial exploitation, and natural justice for authors, publishers and consumers of news. Vested interests and the power dynamics that exist between news publishers, digital platforms, government legislators, and the public have been so comprehensively exposed that the tussle in Australia is likely to be game changing, certainly locally but potentially globally too. The good news is that communication scholars everywhere are ideally positioned to examine how the key stakeholders manage their interfaces with each other and, most significantly in my view, how the public grapples with the issue of who to believe when the alternative sources of news are publishers who are likely to benefit financially from legislation such as that being introduced in Australia. Will Facebook ever get ‘a fair go’ when the commentary is able to be strongly influenced by the same news outlets the Australian Government proposes its legislation will protect? Will the legislation actually level the playing field as the Australian government intends? We shall have to wait to see how the issues highlighted by Facebook’s ‘no news’ action and subsequent revision play out.

The first paper in this issue confronts one of the many other issues associated with the digital environment – individual privacy. Barnes and Potter’s (2021) article ‘Sharenting and parents’ digital literacy: An agenda for future research’ explores the challenge of keeping children safe, not just from inappropriate online experiences, but from having others such as parents author their personal online profile. Specifically, it grapples with an emerging concern for the impact on children of their parents publishing content that breaches their privacy. The article highlights how parents can be unaware of how the personal information they post about their children can be potentially harmful and suggests a research agenda to pursue in relation to this aspect of digital literacy.

The second article, ‘Approaching Instagram data: reflections on accessing, archiving and anonymising visual social media’ by McCrow-Young (2021), also addresses considerations of content control and privacy, this time in relation to Instagram, but from a rather original angle. It looks at how Instagram’s decision to permanently disable its Legacy API has increased users control and privacy with regard to their visual content but at the same time has introduced significant barriers for researchers wishing to access personal data. It uses findings from a three-year study to highlight the researcher’s challenges when accessing, archiving and anonymising Instagram data. It observes that researchers seeking to study Instagram are now presented with multiple commercial gatekeepers, who need to be navigate using third-party applications and paywalls that produce access inequalities.

Macnamara’s (2021) insightful article entitled ‘Challenging post-communication: beyond focus on a ‘few bad apples’ to multi-level public communication reform’ is the third article in this issue. He zeroes in on the notion of post-communication – a concept spawned by the proliferation of ‘alternative facts’ and disinformation that have come to be known as ‘fake news’. Informed by a review of reports and commentary about public communication practices and the views of key informants gathered in interviews, Macnamara argues that the responsibility for this era of post-communication does not lie in the hands of a few manipulative and exploitative media oligopolies but rather needs to be distributed across many parties with the result that reforms are required at three levels: top-down (e.g. regulation and legislation); bottom-up (e.g. improved media literacy); and increased attention to ethics and standards by advertising and marketing professionals, public relations consultants, government and political communicators, and journalists.

Mazumdar and Riffle’s (2021) article directs its attention to another issue that undermines the public’s access to objective news – restrictive press laws. It uses social responsibility theory of the press to reveal how press laws can negatively impact on journalists’ freedom and prevent them discharging their professional responsibilities in an objective and socially responsible manner. After looking at the issues, the authors conclude that to achieve objective news reporting in Malaysia would require establishing a non-governmental organisation that is mandated to arbitrate in cases brought against the press so that those using the law to restricted freedom of the press could be confronted and held to account.

The fifth article has a rather intriguing title, ‘Everything is dimming out, little by little: examining self-censorship among Venezuelan journalists’. Using the conceptual frameworks of professional reflexivity and collective professional autonomy, Pain and Korin (2021) analyse the data from in-depth interviews with 25 Venezuela journalists. Their analysis reveals how practices that work against objective news reporting can become normalised. Specifically, their analysis reveals how years of anti-press violence have instituted a journalistic culture characterised by self-censor to the point where, now, various forms of self-censorship are an integral part of news routines. They found that, while the most experienced journalists can still distinguished between self-censorship and other types of suppression, their less experienced colleagues cannot and so accept self-censorship as an integral part of their professional identity. This article is a reminder of why journalists must always take time to critically reflect on their professional practices in ways that ensure they appreciate how their assumptions about professional practice become part of the narratives they write.

Lander and Ragusa’s, (2021 article, titled ‘A rational solution to a different problem; understanding the verisimilitude of anti-vaccination communication’ is the final article in this issue of Communication Research and Practice. Its subject, vaccination, is on everyone’s minds at present as countries start rolling out COVID19 vaccines. These roll-outs have brought to the fore the ongoing debate about the safety of vaccines. Lander and Ragusa (2021) begin by observing that, despite strong evidence supporting the health benefits of vaccination, opposition to this practice persists, and, surprisingly, may be growing. Anti-vaccination sentiments, for those that hold them, run deep and are complicated. Theories addressing science communication and sociological risk suggest such sentiments are rarely a consequence of a lack of scientific information. This highly topical article, by reconceptualising theories of language construction to reflect sociological understandings, demonstrates how scientific and non-scientific dimensions of the vaccination debate rely on different ‘modes’ of communication, each employing distinctly different procedures for verification. The authors postulate that by understanding these modal differences, pro-vaccination communicators can construct messages that may be able to communicate in ways that more successfully address opposition to vaccination.

In conclusion

In various ways, the six articles in this issue of Communication Research and Practice engage with mass communication themes and issues that impact on the quality of news production and the public’s access to this news. They highlight the importance of ensuring freedom of speech and suitable modes of public engagement at a time when many Australians have been confronted with no news in their Facebook feeds and lack of access to important official information as well as misinformation and rumours about vaccination. No doubt our readers, both in Australasia and across the globe, will be watching both unfolding situations with considerable interest as they raise questions across a raft of topics that are of considerable interest to all communication scholars and the public at large.