“Platformization of News”, Authorship, and Unverified Content: Perceptions around Local Media

Abstract

In recent years, the growing importance of platforms for producing, sharing, and consuming news has been evident. However, several challenges associated with this growth have emerged, such as those linked with disinformation and news authorship. In this article, which uses part of the data from a more extensive study of local media in the central region of Portugal, we present the results from three focus groups with editors, journalists, and local media consumers. Through this information, we try to understand their perceptions about how platforms change news work and distribution, affecting journalists and the public. The focus groups results showed that although local media professionals consider it essential to be present on distribution platforms, they are concerned about the inability of audiences to distinguish the content created by local media from others that circulate online. We believe the results presented are significant to reflect on changes made by platforms to journalism and to think in terms of new strategies of media literacy concerning how and what ways platforms are involved in news distribution infrastructures.