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< Back News Recommenders in Small Media Markets Hanne Vandenbroucke PhD Researcher In a four-year doctoral journey, my research delves into the implementation of recommender systems within news organizations through the lens of media strategies. This comprehensive exploration is divided into two key phases, addressing distinct facets of this transformative technological landscape. 1. Strategic Decision-Making Processes The initial phase of my research centers on unraveling the strategic decision-making processes in the development and implementation of recommender systems within news organizations. Drawing on a multi-stakeholder and multi-objectives framework, scrutinizing the complexities surrounding the strategies in commercial news organizations. From a multi-stakeholder perspective, this research identifies diverse entities such as newsrooms, technology departments, and marketing teams, each holding unique objectives and values. This framework allows to dissect conflicts, trade-offs, and (mis)conceptions that shape the strategic landscape, offering insights into how recommender systems align with overarching organizational goals. 2. User Journeys and Experiences In a second phase the focus shifts towards a user-centric perspective. This stage of the research aims to map user journeys and experiences and examine the added value brought about by recommender systems in the realm of news consumption. By closely examining interaction touchpoints, user preferences, and experiences, I seek to uncover the nuanced ways in which recommender systems influence and enhance the user journey. This comprehensive, dual-phased approach reflects the goal of this PhD to comprehensively understand the role of recommender systems in news organizations. By blending strategic decision-making perspectives with an in-depth exploration of user experiences, my research aims to not only contribute to the academic discourse surrounding media strategies but also offer actionable insights for news organizations navigating the dynamic landscape of digital news consumption. Publications Welcome to the Metrics Jungle: Organizational Stakeholder Perspectives on Evaluation of News Recommender Systems in Industry 28/11/2025 From Experimentation to Strategy: The Ambidextrous Balancing Act of Developing News Recommender Systems 22/11/2025 Not One News Recommender To Fit Them All: How Different Recommender Strategies Serve Various User Segments 22/09/2025 It’s (Not) All About That CTR: a Multi-Stakeholder Perspective on News Recommender Metrics 01/09/2024 Towards a Pragmatic Approach for studying Normative Recommender Systems 18/09/2023 Supervisors Pieter Ballon Full Professor Annelien Smets Research Professor Related news 2 Ciao from EMMA in Rome! Our presentations at the emma Conference 2025 2 Talking about Stakeholder Perspectives at WMEMC Hanne presented her research on stakeholder alignment for news recommender system development 2 Second Annual ALGEPI Workshop Insights on AI, Innovation and Media Regulation Previous Next

< Back Intended, afforded, and experienced serendipity: overcoming the paradox of artificial serendipity Smets, A. Intended, afforded, and experienced serendipity: overcoming the paradox of artificial serendipity. Ethics Inf Technol 27 , 33 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-025-09841-6 Designing for serendipity in information technologies presents significant challenges for both scholars and practitioners. This paper presents a theoretical model of serendipity that aims to address this challenge by providing a structured framework for understanding and designing for serendipity. The model delineates between intended, afforded, and experienced serendipity, recognizing the role of design intents and the subjective nature of experiencing serendipity. Central to the model is the recognition that there is no single definition nor a unique operationalization of serendipity, emphasizing the need for a nuanced approach to its conceptualization and design. By delineating between the intentions of designers, the characteristics of the system, and the experiences of end-users, the model offers a pathway to resolve the paradox of artificial serendipity and provides actionable guidelines to design for serendipity in information technologies. However, it also emphasizes the importance of establishing ‘guardrails’ to guide the design process and mitigate potential negative unintended consequences. The model aims to lay ground to advance both research and the practice of designing for serendipity, leading to more ethical and effective design practices. Previous Read the article Next

< Back Platforms and Exposure Diversity: Towards a Framework to Assess Policies to Promote Exposure Diversity Ranaivoson, H. R., & Domazetovikj, N. (2023). Platforms and Exposure Diversity: Towards a Framework to Assess Policies to Promote Exposure Diversity. Media and Communication , 11 (2), 379-391. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v11i2.6401 The fragmentation of consumption and algorithms’ increasing impact on how content is recommended and displayed makes it even more important to analyse and promote exposure diversity, i.e., the extent to which audiences are exposed to, discover, and engage with diverse content. Although there is a growing literature addressing how to define media diversity in the context of the challenges posed by platformisation, this article translates the normative dimensions into a framework for operationalising exposure diversity into a tangible policy goal, taking into account datafication and its consequences in terms of increasing data requirements towards platforms. The main objective of this study is to analyse initiatives to assess exposure diversity in the platform era and to discuss how such assessment could be improved, particu‐ larly for policy initiatives. This involves addressing several challenges of existing approaches for the assessment of exposure diversity related to defining an appropriate frame of reference, determining the degree of diversity required, dealing with data transparency issues, and promoting user autonomy. To achieve this, we propose a framework for analysing initiatives aimed at assessing and promoting exposure to media diversity. Our framework is composed of four key features: measures (type of initiative), metrics (quantifying exposure diversity), data collection methods, and data requirements. We apply this framework to a set of 13 initiatives and find that policy initiatives can benefit from adopting metrics based on distances and experimenting with data collection methods. Platforms Previous Read the article Next

< Back LLMs and Recommenders Ulysse Maes PhD Researcher My four-year PhD program embarks on an insightful journey to explore the influence of foundational models, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), on recommender interfaces. This research aims to bridge the gap between cutting-edge technology and user-centric design, focusing on how AI can enhance the user experience in recommender systems, thereby contributing to the rapidly evolving field of intelligent user interfaces, The first phase of my research delves into the transformative role of LLMs in shaping more interactive and engaging recommender user experiences. Here, I map out how these advanced models can redefine user interaction, making it more intuitive and appealing. Central to this phase is not only the exploration of the potential of LLMs but also a critical examination of the risks involved. Ensuring the ethical application of these technologies in real-world scenarios is a cornerstone of my study, as it balances innovation with responsibility. Shifting gears in the second phase, the research will pivot towards the creation and evaluation of user interfaces. This phase is dedicated to experimenting with novel layout and presentation patterns, rigorously assessing them both quantitatively and qualitatively. The goal is to uncover design strategies that align with the diverse objectives of various stakeholders in the recommender system domain. By intertwining state-of-the-art AI research with the underexplored realm of user interaction in recommender systems, my project aims to make significant contributions to the discourse on ethical AI applications. The insights gained are expected to fuel discussions around AI ethics in recommender systems and inspire professionals to adopt more user-friendly and effective design patterns. Ultimately, this research seeks to set a new benchmark in how we integrate generative AI technologies into user interfaces, ensuring they are not only advanced but also ethical and user-centric. Publications Not One News Recommender To Fit Them All: How Different Recommender Strategies Serve Various User Segments 22/09/2025 GenUI(ne) CRS: UI Elements and Retrieval-Augmented Generation in Conversational Recommender Systems with LLMs 08/10/2024 Supervisors Annelien Smets Research Professor Tim Raats Associate Professor Related news 2 Impressions of IBC 2025 Ulysse’s Impressions of the International Broadcasting Convention 2025: Shaping The Future. 2 Looking back at IUI 2025 Ulysse attended the conference and presented at the AXAI workshop 2 Looking back at RecSys 2024 Sharing our reflections on the ACM RecSys Conference 2024 Previous Next

< Back Challenges and opportunities for recommender systems in media markets Ranaivoson, H., Smets, A. & Ballon, P. (2024). Challenges and opportunities for recommender systems in media markets. In U. Rohn, M. Rimscha & T. Raats (Ed.), De Gruyter Handbook of Media Economics (pp. 215-228). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110793444-015 Recommender systems have become omnipresent in media markets, fromproduction to distribution and consumption. What is often overlooked, however, isthat the multi-sided nature of contemporary media markets implies that recom-mender systems need to balance the needs and requirements of actors on differentsides of these markets, such as content providers and end-users. Starting from an overview of the rapidly growing literature on recommender systems in media mar-kets, and emphasizing their multi-sided nature, we first describe the main typologies of recommender systems and analyze how various stakeholders might adopt particular strategies to have these systems create novel market opportunities. Then, we discuss media market dilemmas that result from these stakeholders’ often competing objectives in terms of biases, notably filter bubbles, management dilemmas, and is-sues around privacy and transparency. We argue how revisiting these concerns from a multi-stakeholder perspective opens up new angles to understand recommender systems’ impact on contemporary media markets. Recommender Systems Previous Read the article Next

< Back Media policymaking and multistakeholder involvement: Matching audience, stakeholder and government expectations for public service media in Flanders Van den Bulck, H. & Raats, T. (2023). Media policymaking and multistakeholder involvement: Matching audience, stakeholder and government expectations for public service media in Flanders. European Journal of Communication , 38 (2), 132-147. https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231221112199 This contribution analyzes government, opposition, public service media, media stakeholders and audience views regarding the role and remit of public service media in the run-up to and their impact on the renewal of the 2021–2025 management contract between public broadcaster VRT and the Flemish Government. Results show that, despite a shifting media ecosystem and academics and government pushing for fundamental reform, audiences and most stakeholders’ views stick to a centralised, broad and multiplatform public media institution. Moreover, they expect public service media to solve ever more media and societal issues (e.g. fake news) within a shrinking budget. The case illustrates how mature, evidence-based multistakeholderism pushes public service media to meet an increasingly challenging set of expectations, hampers both public service media and government to build a well-balanced, long-term vision of public service media's role and, instead, pushes them to pursue their own agenda. Lastly, an evidence-based process also suffers from issues of validity of the data. Stakeholders, Platforms, Public Service Media Previous Read the article Next

< Back Valdy Wiratama Researcher valdy.wiratama@vub.be Growing up during the Web 2.0 era, the Internet left a favorable impression on my engagement with content. From dissecting events through discourses on Twitter to discovering new music on MySpace, the Internet enabled me to access a wider range of information and adjust my preferences at a reduced rate. While I can easily comprehend these effects as a media consumer, I can only imagine the ramifications on actors, musicians, and even print journalists. Lower barriers to entry amplify their competition, while the resulting oversupply threatens the exposure of smaller creators. With a current comprehension that requires more observations, my professional work is dedicated to understanding the supply side of the media industry and its relationship with the Internet. Particularly, I am invested in recorded music and its ever-evolving response towards platformization, online intermediaries, and the long tail hypothesis. As for the foundation that guides my outset in rationalizing phenomena, the baseline principle that I commonly work with is economics. I earned a Bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Indonesia in 2018 and a Master of Arts degree (M.A.) in cultural economics and entrepreneurship from Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2022. To obtain the latter, I completed a thesis with the title ‘Backstage at the Pandemic: How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Music Production, Distribution, and Promotion among Unsigned Musicians in the United States.’ After defending the thesis, I joined an independent record label in The Netherlands before transitioning to a role that centers around fairness in the music industry (the FairMusE project) at imec-SMIT, VUB in 2023. Visit my research profile

< Back Towards a Pragmatic Approach for studying Normative Recommender Systems Binst, B., Vandenbroucke, H., Li, D., Puskas, I., Van der Elst, P., & Smets, A. (Accepted/In press). Towards a Pragmatic Approach for studying Normative Recommender Systems: Exploring Power Dynamics in Digital Platform Markets. In Proceedings of the the First Workshop on Normative Design and Evaluation of Recommender Systems . Recommender systems (RSs) have become an integral part of digital platforms, helping users to navigate through the abundance of online content and services. This paper argues that the study of normative RSs should go beyond the mere conceptualization of normativity and examine the conditions and contextual factors that might foster normative RSs. RSs often operate within multisided markets, involving multiple stakeholders who influence and are influenced by the RS. Ideally, developers of RSs aim for value alignment among diverse stakeholders, fostering a win-win scenario. However, in practice, system providers hold more power over the design, often optimizing for their own objectives and neglecting the needs and values of other stakeholders. These imbalanced power dynamics in digital platform markets pose significant challenges to the design. This paper critically examines two key economic dynamics in digital media markets that challenge the development of normative RSs. The first hurdle describes the susceptibility of digital platform markets to lock-in and monopolization due to network effects, which skews the power balance in favor system. A second hurdle critically examines the pervasive \"attention economy\" and corresponding engagement-centric logic in the design of RSs that might diverge from explicit or long-term users' preferences despite the success in increasing engagement. To illustrate the importance of these dynamics in real-world RSs, we present how these hurdles manifest in the domains of video-on-demand and news media. In conclusion, this paper advocates for a more pragmatic approach to studying normative RSs by considering the two hurdles affecting the RS development in contemporary digital platform markets. Furthermore, it highlights the fruitfulness of this pragmatic approach by proposing policy recommendations to tackle normative challenges in RSs’ design. Recommender Systems Previous Read the article Next

< Back Challenges and requirements for implementing due prominence: aligning stakeholder interests in Flanders Van der Elst, P., Afilipoaie, A., & Raats, T. (2025). Challenges and requirements for implementing due prominence: aligning stakeholder interests in Flanders. Frontiers in Communication, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2025.1569132 Since the introduction of Article 7a in the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), which enables Member States to impose measures that ensure prominence of general interest services on user interfaces, discussions within media policy on the need of these measures have increased markedly. In Member States such as Germany, France, Italy and Ireland, commitments were already imposed on players offering user interfaces to audiovisual—and in some cases also audio—media services and content of general interest. This article presents the findings of a study examining the desirability and feasibility of implementing due prominence measures in Flanders (Belgium). The research adopts a media policy analytical approach and examines the (i) positions of the different stakeholders on the desirability and feasibility of a revised prominence regime, (ii) the extent to which interests across different stakeholders can be aligned and (iii) the considerations governments need to take into account when developing due prominence measures in Member States. The research is based on a stakeholder consultation conducted with broadcasters, television distributors, streaming services and hardware manufacturers operating in the Flemish market. The research is complemented with interviews with representatives of different market actors. The study identifies considerable oppositional logics between broadcasters and hardware manufacturers and raises challenges in defining the scope of ‘general interest’, the addressees of prominence measures, contextual factors such as markets size and path-dependency in media policy, and the commensurability between different existing legal frameworks at the national and EU level. The authors argue for clearer, more explicit guidelines at the EU level regarding the interpretation of Article 7a. Stakeholders Previous Read the article Next

< Back Elevating Customer Value of media recommendations through Enhanced User Satisfaction and Development Media recommender systems often fall short by prioritizing behavioral data over user perception and experience, resulting in a disconnect between user preferences and actual consumption. The intricacy of multi-dimensional user preferences poses a challenge, compounded by an intention-behavior gap in high-quality media consumption. Unintentional content consumption can be exacerbated by recommendations geared towards engagement or revenue goals, potentially leading to misguided outcomes. Consequently, there is a critical need to refine recommender system designs from a user-centric perspective, accounting for nuanced preferences and intrinsic needs. This project takes a user-centric approach, delving into the role of media recommender systems in aligning user needs, preferences, and consumption. The overarching aim is to cultivate the generation of healthier, more beneficial recommendations, ultimately enriching user satisfaction and overall development. Researchers on this project Dongxiao Li PhD Researcher Consortium partners China Scholarship Council China Scholarship Council 1/1 Tags Recommenders, User studies Previous Next

< Back Noëmie Forest Researcher noemie.janine.forest@vub.be Eager to investigate the role of platforms and streamers in constantly evolving media ecosystems, Noëmie joined SMIT as a researcher in the Media Economics and Policy unit in 2023. She will research personalization and recommender systems, and their value in media markets. Noëmie studied Communication Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, between 2018 and 2022, with a specialisation in media, strategic communication, and marketing. Her specialisation gave her the chance to immerse herself in this subject through her thesis, “Does one size fit all? – How do five Belgian food brands position themselves on the international market?”. Noëmie dived into the world of different brands, and earned herself a great distinction in 2022. Before starting at SMIT, she worked at Think BBDO as strategic executive, to assist organizations in their branding and communication. Visit my research profile

< Back Catching the waves: The case of VRT's digital-first audio strategy Van der Elst, P., Iordache, C., & Raats, T. (2025). Catching the waves: The case of VRT’s digital-first audio strategy. European Journal of Communication . https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231251370877 European public service media (PSM) are increasingly embracing strategies that balance digital platform tactics and meeting the public remit. This article addresses how a small market PSM is repositioning itself in a media landscape dominated by global platforms, streaming services and legacy media adopting platformisation strategies. We examine platformisation at the Flemish broadcaster VRT through the lens of its digital audio strategy. The study combines document analysis and expert interviews. Results show a strategic shift towards more focus on user needs and habits; a branding strategy revolving around the VRT parent brand; a necessary yet precarious presence on third-party platforms; a legacy-driven content offering complemented by online-only commissioning; and a firm editorial grip on content curation. VRT's take on these strategic innovations highlights a series of key dilemmas for PSM to reconcile public remit delivery and competitiveness in a platformised media landscape. Public Service Media Previous Read the article Next