To regulate or not to regulate: unravelling institutional tussles around the regulation of algorithmic control of digital platforms

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesResearchpeer-review

Authors

Regulating how digital platforms use algorithms to determine and control content displayed to their users is both a controversial topic and an important societal challenge. Existing research acknowledges institutional tussles around regulating how digital platforms use algorithms to determine and control content. However, we lack research showing how the development of regulation unfolds. We build on data from a longitudinal discourse analysis of 410 media articles and 483 policy and industry documents to study two cases of algorithmic control regulation in Australia. The first involves algorithmic control for content display, the second for content moderation. We develop a process model of institutional work towards regulation of algorithmic control. It captures the institutional tussles between governments, digital platforms and third parties as each expresses their perspective on legitimate forms of algorithmic control and shapes the process and outcome of regulation. Building on our model, we discuss the dynamics of regulation development in light of the constellation of actors and their power position in the process. We further consider the regulatory outcome and highlight future research questions that build on our findings.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Information Technology
Volume38
Issue number2
Pages (from-to)160-179
Number of pages20
ISSN0268-3962
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 06.2023
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Association for Information Technology Trust 2023.

    Research areas

  • Algorithmic control, digital platforms, institutional work, regulation process
  • Management studies

Recently viewed

Researchers

  1. Eva Kern

Publications

  1. Sustainability in Business: Integrated Management of Value Creation and Disvalue Mitigation
  2. Patients' experiences in a guided Internet- and App-based stress intervention for college students
  3. Group membership does not modulate automatic imitation
  4. Law-making in complex processes
  5. Global Governance and the Interplay of Coordination and Contestation
  6. Advancing Decision-Visualization Environments—Empirically informed Design Recommendations
  7. Sprache
  8. Klimapaket
  9. The Actions that Make a Musical Instrument
  10. Bis in den Kern
  11. Simulation of composite hot extrusion with high reinforcing Volumes
  12. Why Art Criticism? A Reader
  13. Is Lean Production Really Lean?
  14. Intelligent Diagnostics of Radial Internal Clearance in Ball Bearings with Machine Learning Methods
  15. Development of a magnesium secondary alloy system for mixed magnesium post-consumer scrap
  16. Ecologies of Change
  17. Drachen über Helsinki
  18. TIMSS
  19. How art becomes organization
  20. Datenmodellierung mit dem Entity-Relationship-Ansatz
  21. Endogenous Environmental Policy when Pollution is Transboundary
  22. The impact of supervisory board composition on CSR reporting
  23. Bias-corrected estimation for speculative bubbles in stock prices
  24. Institutional Perspectives on Digital Transformation
  25. What Is the Impact of Financial Penalties on the Performance and Stock Returns of Banks?
  26. Walter Benjamin
  27. Foundation of digital badges and micro-credentials
  28. Consumer reaction on tumbling funds
  29. The rhetorical structure of marketisation in selected emails of tertiary institutions
  30. Wer oder was bestimmt "Wirklichkeit" in Organisationen?
  31. Markierungen in Sprache und Raum
  32. Managing CSR Communication
  33. Ist Dauerreflexion kommunizierbar?
  34. China schweigt