Unpacking Property: Media, Ownership, and Power in Transformation| Toward Media Environment Capture: A Theoretical Contribution on the Influence of Big Tech on News Media

Abstract

This study aims at offering an overarching theoretical frame for analyzing different forms of direct and indirect influence of Big Tech on news media. It does so by expanding the concept of media capture to media environment capture. The latter provides an analytical tool that helps categorize various patterns of Big Tech’s influence on news media (as institutions) leading to the capture of information environments that journalism (as a practice) needs to work (well). The concept makes clear that tech giants do not simply capture “the news” or news media by means of acquiring media outlets and/or by producing and distributing the news. Instead, media environment capture stresses that Big Tech influences entireinformation environments, consequently shaping our lifeworld while privatizing the public sphere.