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< Back Join ALGEPI's workshop on Epistemic Welfare! 21 Mar 2024 What are the conditions under which the use of algorithms can contribute to, or threaten, epistemic welfare? “Epistemic Welfare“ stands as a cornerstone concept for understanding how individuals and groups interact with knowledge in today’s digital society. How do we define it? What is the conceptual and methodological framework for the concept? ALGEPI is organising its first annual workshop on the 12th of April 2024 from 10:00h to 13:00h CET to discuss what are the conditions under which the use of algorithms can contribute to, or threaten, epistemic welfare and how can we translate this into actionable parameters or metrics. Join us in the discussion! 🕙 Time: 10:00h to 13:00h CET. 🗓️ Date: 12th of April 2024 📍 Venue: Collegium Veteranorum (109-20) – Sint-Michielsstraat 2-4 , 3000 Leuven ( 02.10 – MGR. O. ROMEROZAAL ). Are you planning to attend? Places are limited and will be allocated on a first come first served basis so please let us know by sending us an email ! Registrations will close on the 5th April 2024. In the meantime, if you would like to learn more, have a look at our concept note dissecting the concept of epistemic welfare ! ➡︎ Read the full programme here . Previous Next

< Back Looking back at IUI 2025 31 Mar 2025 Ulysse attended the conference and presented at the AXAI workshop Pristine beaches, a bright turquoise sea, impressive rock formations and pink flamingo’s… Cagliari has it all. Despite the undeniable beauty of Sardinia’s capital, the most memorable element of my stay was however related to Intelligent User Interfaces. You read that right: I was lucky enough to attend the yearly conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) - which turned out to be an exceptionally inspirational and instructive experience. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that my interest was sparked by the central theme - the conjunction between Artificial Intelligence (AI), and how User Interfaces (UI) can optimally accommodate for them. But the real experience went above and beyond my initial expectations. In this article, I break it down in 3 key elements. 1. The overarching theme: AI should benefit the user Believe it or not, but the word “user” was mentioned even more often than “LLM” (see paragraph 3; “There is no escaping LLMs”). Shouldn’t be too surprising for a conference focusing on user interfaces, right? Well, it struck me that this community really tries to model user preferences and -needs accurately, for which it draws a lot more often from cognitive and behavioral research than is common in computer science. As I’m also considering to conduct user experiments to evaluate the effects of explanations on the complex experience of the system, this focus meant that I learned a lot about suitable methodologies. During the course of the week, my belief in the importance of putting the user central has been fortified as well. Now more than ever, it is important to guard user agency and autonomy, and to prevent over-reliance on increasingly capable and connected AI systems. The current generative AI boom raises a lot of concerns among various affected stakeholders. Sometimes, it feels like these tools are at least partly exploitative in nature - a concern that was vividly expressed by professor Giulio Jacucci in his opening keynote at the HAI-GEN workshop. 2. The AXAI workshop: Explanations should be adaptive to be impactful Throughout the presentations in the AXAI (Adaptive eXplainable AI) workshop session, I learned that adaptivity can be geared towards multiple users and use cases, and is therefore often interpreted differently by various researchers and fields. Some focus on adapting explanations to the user at hand, in terms of content, or complexity. Others consider adaption to context. In any case, it seems that LLMs offer a great avenue to increase the level of adaptation in many cases, although this may spark concerns regarding trustworthiness. Related to that topic, I presented our paper ( link ), co-authored with Lien and supervised by Annelien. What set it apart was mainly its ridiculously long title: “Mitigating Misleadingness in LLM-Generated Natural Language Explanations for Recommender Systems: Ensuring Broad Truthfulness Through Factuality and Faithfulness”. Not exactly the title of Sabrina Carpenter’s next hit, but it certainly sparked some lively discussion. I opened my presentation with a straightforward example of gender bias in a job recommender: it generated the exact same “high-quality” explanation for two different users—a female designer recommended design jobs and a male designer steered toward management roles. This example served as a way to illustrate the benefit of incorporating uncertainty and interactive counterfactuals into explanations, to enable greater transparency and scrutability. I recognized a similar call for communicating uncertainty as a means to obtain transparency in Prof. Q. Vera Liao’s keynote on Thursday. I was also pleased to see Prof. Turchi present “Talking Back - human input and explanations to interactive AI systems“, an inspiring study on interactive counterfactuals using SHAP values as sliders. It sparked my interest in further exploring the integration of interactive explanations with SHAP in content-based recommender systems. My presentation then proceeded with stating the difference between explanations and justifications, and how LLMs enable the generation of plausible justifications at scale. This can pose a problem of unfounded trust in recommender systems, especially since earlier research has shown that the mere presence of explanations already enhances the trust and item acceptance. This underscores the importance of truthful explanations - which brought me to the core of my presentation: to assess “truthfulness”, we should agree on a definition and an operationalization. This is where I propose to frame truthfulness as “providing accurate information”, consisting of both factuality and faithfulness. Unfortunately, we often see that different research disciplines consider different aspects of truthfulness: while computer science works often focus on factuality, social science merely investigates faithfulness. Luckily, as Krzysztof Gajos mentioned in Wednesday’s morning panel, the field of IUI is well-positioned to bridge these different perspectives into truly useful interfaces. Slide from AXAI presentation: "Defining truthfulness" I proceeded with mentioning the 4 evaluation perspectives to assess explanation quality in recommender systems, as proposed by Ge et al., while also mentioning the 7 explanation goals as defined by Tintarev in 2007. I was curious if the audience would deem this evaluation method useful outside of recommender systems as well, and it indeed proved to be fertile ground for discussion. While most workshop participants agreed that the dimensions could be useful, the explanation goal of “persuasion” was contested, as this should be seen as a side-effect or external result, not something to optimize for. To end my presentation, I went over some possible mitigation strategies that focus on prompting, interface and model-based approaches (all are further discussed in the paper). Slide from AXAI presentation: "Mitigation strategies for LLM-generated misleading explanations" Besides the "Talking back" paper, the presentations most relevant to my area of interest in this session were "Toward a Human-Centered Metric for Evaluating Trust in Artificial Intelligence Systems" and "'Loss in Value': What it reveals about WHO an explanation serves well and WHEN". By the way, in the morning, I attended another great workshop: HAI-GEN, in which the shift to an intent-based paradigm was stressed multiple times. I was very happy to hear this, as I’m also convinced that we are effectively moving to a new way of interaction with our systems, were we move from command-based interaction towards a more natural way of communicating our goals to digital systems. As far as I’m aware, the term “intent-based interaction” was coined by Jakob Nielsen in a now-famous blog post . I find this very inspiring and consider it one of the main guiding threads for my research. There is no escaping LLMs As announced in the opening talk, I indeed noticed that LLMs were ubiquitous. From self-improving LLM-agents that learn to play Minecraft, to LLMs that optimize meeting schedules: a lot of authors (including myself) reported on the promises and perils of incorporating language models to enhance interactivity, accessibility or automation. The popularity of LLMs should however not be mistaken for devotion. Many times I realized, as a scientific community, we have the privilege to be critical, and look beyond the hype - so that we can report on both the opportunities as well as the limitations of LLMs. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be excited about the seemingly endless possibilities of this new technology of course. But as was rightfully highlighted by Prof. Burnett, we should consider it in a responsible way. By doing so, we can provide valuable insights that help to steer the development and implementation of AI-models beyond purely profit-driven goals. Conclusion: An inspiring conference at the heart of my research interests This post could have been much longer if I had included all my notes. I'll end it here for now, but in the coming weeks, I hope to frequently revisit these notes to reignite the inspiration I felt from attending the conference, listening to speakers, admiring impressive research projects, and meeting some of the most influential HCI researchers. Two memorable encounters will forever remain in my mind: the first was a lunch conversation with Professor Ted Selker, the creator of the well-known red pointing stick on my ThinkPad (though there's a more familiar term for it; if you know, you know). The second? A close encounter with a startled yet adorably cute beaver during a run around Cagliari’s stunning salt mines. I hope to reconnect with many of the inspiring individuals I met at the conference in the future. In the meantime, let’s continue our ongoing pursuit of the perfect intelligent interface. Previous Next

< Back Webinar: Streaming in Vlaanderen 1 Oct 2024 Ontdek alle trends en inzichten in ons webinar! Benieuwd naar hoe Vlamingen hun favoriete content streamen? Sluit op 31 oktober aan bij het 1e proeftuin webinar! We introduceren de eerste inzichten uit ons project 'Streaming Affordances voor kleine mediamarkten', ondersteund door VLAIO en de Vlaamse Minister van Media. Tijdens het webinar krijg je een diepgaand overzicht van: De voorkeuren en motivaties van Vlaamse streamers Hoe technologie, context en content hun kijkgedrag beïnvloeden De resultaten van interviews, dagboekonderzoeken en een grootschalige survey Mis deze kans niet om waardevolle inzichten op te doen over de snel veranderende wereld van streaming. Schrijf je vandaag nog in en ontdek hoe de Vlaming met media omgaat! Details: 📆 Datum: 31 oktober 2024 🕚 Tijd: 11u-12u 💻 Online Meld je aan voor deze webinar via onderstaande link: Registreren Previous Next

< Back Streaming Affordances for small media markets Living Lab 2023-2026 Delayed viewing, major ad giants like Google and Facebook, and the rise of American streaming platforms have significantly increased the pressure on local providers. In response, Flemish broadcasters and distribution entities have launched their own streaming services in recent years. Some offer free services, with or without ads (such as VRT MAX, VTM GO, and GoPlay), while others operate on subscription models (like Streamz). The local platforms often adopt the successful features of major streaming services. It is crucial for local providers to differentiate themselves with a wealth of local content, giving them a competitive edge over foreign platforms. However, a key challenge in our market is the limited scale, which necessitates strategic choices in purchasing, production, distribution, and marketing. At the heart of these changes is a shift in our viewing habits. To give Flemish streaming services the best chance in this highly competitive market, it is essential to understand how Flemish consumers watch video content, identify key viewing patterns, know what viewers expect from streaming services, and gauge the effectiveness of brand or content positioning strategies. Our living lab, ‘Streaming Affordances for Small Media Markets,’ seeks to address this through five key deliverables: a (1) SOTA analysis, (2) diary study, (3) viewing survey, (4) a living lab, and (5) experiments. 1. SOTA analysis The SOTA analysis compiles data from recent studies and reports, aiming to provide a clear view of trends impacting our audiovisual sector. It covers international, European, and Flemish media usage, alongside 10 trends in the global streaming market that are likely to influence Flanders. 10 trends in de internationale streamingmarkt .pdf Download PDF • 2.21MB The policy brief (in Dutch) 2. Diary study This deliverable explores the motivations that guide Flemish viewers in their selection of VoD services and content. It draws on a large-scale multifaceted audience study with VoD consumers in Flanders and consists of an exploratory survey (N=77), a diary study (N=62) and semi-structured face-to-face interviews (N=60). Motivaties voor VoD-consumptie in Vlaanderen .pdf Download PDF • 1.26MB 3. Viewing survey Building on the diary study, the SMIT viewing survey (N=2000) serves as larger-scale quantitative research. It explores viewers’ attitudes toward linear TV, their familiarity with and use of VoD services, associations with specific platforms, device preferences, and the dynamic between cinema and streaming. Voorkeuren in VoD-consumptie in Vlaanderen. Resultaten kwantitatieve bevraging. .pdf Download PDF • 1.26MB The policy brief on the diary study and the viewing survey (in Dutch) Future research The living lab and related experiments will take place in 2025-2026. Researchers on this project Jeroen Peeters Senior Researcher Manager Tim Raats Associate Professor Wendy Van den Broeck Associate professor Annelien Smets Research Professor Consortium partners VLAIO.png VLAIO.png 1/1 Tags Platforms, Public Service Broadcasting, Streaming Previous Next

< Back 12 PhD positions available 9 Dec 2025 The RePim Doctoral Network is looking for 12 PhD positions The Revisioning Public Interest Media (RePIM) Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Doctoral Network is starting! We are recruiting 12 fully funded PhD positions, which are due to begin in May 2026 across eight leading European universities. RePIM’s research addresses key transformations in the media landscape, spanning content and format innovation, platform infrastructures, organisational change, audience engagement, and policy development. The 12 Doctoral Candidates will, supported by a comprehensive training programme, work across five thematic clusters: Content production and Distribution Infrastructures Organisation Policy and Regulation Audiences Each PhD project focuses on a specific dimension of Public Interest Media transformation, ranging from AI-assisted content creation, emerging storytelling formats, and recommender systems, to organisational restructuring, sustainable operational models, audience inclusion, and platform-era regulation. Successful applicants will join a vibrant, interdisciplinary community committed to ensuring that Public Interest Media can thrive and innovate in the digital age! Deadline for applications: 31 January or 8 February 2026 (depending on project) Interested in how Public Service Media and other quality media are affected by technological changes? Want to study the impact of AI on content development and distribution strategy, their infrastructures, and the implications for policy and audiences? Do you want to become one of 12 PhD students in a Europe-wide EU-project? How to apply Previous Next

< Back Workshop: Best Practices for Responsible News Recommender Design 24 Sept 2024 Our takeaways from the workshop part of the NWO-funded project "Rethinking news algorithms" On 23rd of September, Aina, Hanne, and Ulysse traveled to the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam for the workshop "Best practices for responsible news recommender design," part of the NWO-funded project "Rethinking news algorithms". This one-day event aimed to foster collaboration between academia and industry, focusing on the ethical design of news recommender systems. Aina and Hanne presented initial insights from their systematic literature review that aims to uncover the organizational challenges, opportunities and social implications of news recommendation systems studied in Western media systems. One significant observation from the day highlighted the challenges in aligning all aspects of responsible news recommenders with diverse stakeholder goals. A key takeaway from our engaging conversations with colleagues and industry professionals is that diversity is frequently considered essential for the development of responsible recommenders, given the close relationship between the democratic function of news and media pluralism. The workshop enabled a cooperative sharing of ideas, fostering the co-creation of optimal strategies for responsible news algorithms. Attendees also pinpointed prospective research paths, underscoring the necessity of ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration to explore the societal implications of these systems. Previous Next

Unveiling groundbreaking research, innovative projects, and insights on Streaming, Recommender Systems, and Platformization (SRP) in European Media Markets. Streaming, Recommenders and Platformization in European Media Industries S trategic Research Programme at imec-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel SRP Media In our digital age, understanding the interplay between technology, society, and economics is crucial. Our research aims to analyze and ensure the economic and cultural sustainability of content production, aggregation, and consumption in an era of streaming, recommenders and platformization in European Media Industries. SRP Media is part of the Media Economics & Policy unit at imec-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel . Our research Latest news updates Out now: Handbook of Platform Urbanism 12 PhD positions available Impressions of IBC 2025 AI Summer School 2025 Report Published: How to Ensure Visibility and Prominence for Media Services of General Interest in Flanders Ciao from EMMA in Rome! Talking about Stakeholder Perspectives at WMEMC Second Annual ALGEPI Workshop More updates Contact us Pleinlaan 9, 1050 Brussels, Belgium Submit Thanks for your message!

< Back Promoting Fairness of the Music Ecosystem in a Platform-Dominated and Post-Pandemic Europe Fair MusE The overarching goal of Fair MusE is to promote fairness for music creators and stakeholders from an interdisciplinary perspective, thus leading to a more transparent, competitive and sustainable music ecosystem in Europe. Fair MusE focuses specifically on the domination of online platforms and their algorithms and will investigate: the legal responses that have been proposed in the EU the changes these platforms have brought to the music industry and music professionals the impact of such algorithms on music consumption. Fair MusE will provide an interdisciplinary analysis of fairness in the music industry involving music creators and stakeholders in the research; promote and enhance transparency concerning music industry practices and standardisation in data collection in the European music ecosystem; and assess the risks created by the reinforced dominance of the largest online platforms prompted by COVID 19 as well as making policymakers, stakeholders and the general public aware of such risks. To do so, Fair MusE will provide an innovative, strong and future-proof set of co-created responses and solutions: the ‘Music Copyright Infrastructure’, a data-sharing model agreement enhancing transparency; a ‘Music Data Dashboard’ of statistical indicators on the economic and societal value of the European music sector; the ‘Fairness Score’, a tool to assess music services and social media in terms of fairness’ multiple facets; and a ‘White Paper’ embodying policy recommendations to enhance competitiveness, sustainability, transparency and fairness of the EU music ecosystem. Our consortium is a carefully designed interdisciplinary group of academic and industry partners with strong expertise in the fields of law, economics, political science and computer science, supported by an Advisory Board composed of a highly qualified and broadly representative group of industry experts. Researchers on this project Heritiana Ranaivoson Research Professor Consortium partners Universidade Católice Portuguesa Católica Research Center Verifi Media Limited Universidade Católice Portuguesa 1/12 Tags Artificial Intelligence, Copyright, Media Policy, Music Industry, Platforms Previous Next

< Back Public Service Media and Platformization Pieter Van der Elst PhD Researcher This part of the SRP research project aims to develop in-depth knowledge on how an increasingly algorithmized media industry compels European Public Service Media (PSM) to alter their operational and value-related strategies. During a time period of 4 years, we will scrutinize how PSM’s part in the media value chain is affected and what that means for the company, the content and the end-user. A first phase of the research focuses on the organizational side of PSM. More specifically, we concentrate on the case of Flemish public broadcaster VRT and how they are operationalizing a digital and user-first approach in their digital audio strategy. Complementary analysis of the decision-making behind this organizational shift will be key to developing a thorough understanding of what it means for a public legacy media player to adapt to the ever-changing industry it operates in. In later stages of the project, our focus will shift towards what said transition implies for PSM on the levels of content production, distribution and the societal core values imbued. This part of the research will also broaden our scope geographically by including scrutiny of other European PSM organizations and how their methods compare to one another. Examinations of audience perspectives will conclude our research journey and provide us with indispensable insights on the topic. Through this research programme we aim to consolidate our understandings on algorithm-driven media operations and media-economics and media policy oriented PSM-research, not only serve the academic community, but also to provide small market PSM-organizations with tools to better understand and integrate algorithms, and assist policymakers in developing ways of regulating and measuring the impact of algorithms on media output and audience reach. Publications Catching the waves: The case of VRT's digital-first audio strategy 02/09/2025 Challenges and requirements for implementing due prominence: aligning stakeholder interests in Flanders 18/07/2025 Towards a Pragmatic Approach for studying Normative Recommender Systems 18/09/2023 Supervisors Catalina Iordache Guest Professor Tim Raats Associate Professor Related news 2 Report Published: How to Ensure Visibility and Prominence for Media Services of General Interest in Flanders Commissioned by the Flemish Minister of Media, this research report investigates findability, discoverability, and due prominence for audiovisual and auditive media services. 2 Ciao from EMMA in Rome! Our presentations at the emma Conference 2025 2 Media Industries Conference, London An overview of our presentations at Media Industries in London Previous Next

< Back Close Contact for Context: Qualitative Methodological Considerations for Assessing Prominence and Discoverability Iordache, C., Leiva, M. T. G., & Raats, T. (2025). Close Contact for Context: Qualitative Methodological Considerations for Assessing Prominence and Discoverability. Media Industries, 12(1), 111-132. https://journals.publishing.umich.edu/mij/article/id/7625/ This article advocates for a “close contact for context” approach as a crucial step before, or in combination with, automated data collection and comparative analyses to assess the prominence and discoverability of European works in video-on-demand (VoD) catalogs. Grounded in media industries research, the method emphasizes the importance of close observation within the dynamic interface environments of VoD services. To this end, we present a set of reflections based on an exploratory study conducted on four US-based subscription VoD services in Spain and Belgium and propose three key sets of methodological considerations to be integrated in future assessments of prominence and discoverability tools and practices. First, a broader analysis of market characteristics and their interrelations is essential for conducting comparative research and understanding the strategies of transnational players within each market. Second, VoD services must be treated as individual cases shaped by specific industry practices and business models. Third, we recommend “getting personal” with the object of study through detailed analyses of interface architectures and consumption affordances, and propose the concept of a title’s discovery arc to analyze its spatiotemporal placement. This approach underscores the value of contextual, qualitative insights to complement quantitative evaluations. Previous Read the article Next

< Back The platformization of Public Service Media. A comparative analysis of five BVOD services in Western and Northern Europe Iordache, C., & Raats, T. (2023). The platformization of Public Service Media. A comparative analysis of five BVOD services in Western and Northern Europe. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics , 19 (1), 3-22. https://doi.org/10.1386/macp_00070_1 Recent developments in the media industries have signalled the need for public service media (PSM) organizations to reposition themselves in order to reach audiences, and also secure financial sustainability and programming rights. In repositioning themselves, PSM have increasingly embraced some of the core characteristics of platforms by developing a central video-on-demand (VOD) service as portal to PSM services, investing in exclusive content and using data to create richer user experiences and gain insights into audience practices. However, this ‘platformization’ process comes with both challenges and opportunities to reach the public service remit. This article conducts an analysis of the on-demand portals of PSM, to uncover how platformization is reshaping the PSM core remit and values, and how these are transposed in online services and offerings. The research employs a comparative case study analysis of five VOD services of PSM in Western and Northern Europe: Belgium-Flanders (VRT.NU), BelgiumWallonia (RTBF Auvio), Finland (Yle Areena), Ireland (RTÉ Player) and Norway (NRK TV). The results discuss three main categories: interfaces and features, strategies for catalogue and content curation, and tools for discoverability and prominence. Platforms, Public Service Media Previous Read the article Next

< Back New publication: NORMalize Workshop (@ RecSys23) 15 Sept 2023 Exploring Power Dynamics in Digital Platform Markets: A Pragmatic Approach to Normative Recommender Systems We are excited to share that our research team has contributed a paper to the first workshop on Normative Design and Evaluation of Recommender Systems (NORMalize), co-located with the 17th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems in Singapore. Our paper, titled "Towards a Pragmatic Approach for studying Normative Recommender Systems: exploring Power Dynamics in Digital Platform Markets" examines two key economic dynamics prevalent in digital media markets that challenge the development of normative RSs. The first hurdle focuses on the susceptibility of digital platforms to lock-in and monopolization due to network effects, skewing the power balance towards system providers. The second hurdle delves into the "attention economy" and the engagement-centric logic in RS design. This logic, while successful in boosting engagement, might compete with explicit or long-term user objectives We illustrate the real-world significance of these dynamic with insights from the domains of video-on-demand and news media. Furthermore, by offering policy recommendations we wish to address the normative challenges that arise in RS design. PhD researcher Hanne Vandenbroucke will be presenting this paper during the NORMalize workshop on Tuesday, September 19. Previous Next