< Back 27 Mar 2025 Findings and recommendations on the organisational and cultural challenges facing PSM in Belgium In this new policy brief Tim Raats and Cataline Iordache share results from the latest research conducted during the second year of the PSM-AP project . Their findings show that Public Service Media (PSM) organizations in Belgium, being RTBF (French-speaking) and VRT (Flemish) face growing competition from global tech giants such as Netflix, Apple, Google, and Amazon. This requires a transition into fully digital, online-first broadcasters. While both are integrating digital tools and skills, structural barriers rooted in traditional broadcasting, such as bureaucracy and departmental silos, slow down this transformation. They are adapting their commissioning and distribution strategies to better meet audience needs while maintaining their public service mission and managing brand perception. However, their digital transition differs: VRT is positioning VRT MAX as the central platform for content, whereas RTBF struggles to rebrand Auvio beyond a catch-up service, as linear TV is still dominant for reaching audiences. Their study identifies the following four key factors that shape the way in which both Belgian PSM organizations are managing the rise of internet delivery and increasing competition with international streamers: If you want to learn more about the outcomes of in-depth interviews with employees in both PSM organizations, have a look at the full policy brief here . Previous Next Policy Brief on Public Service Media in Belgium

< Back How Should We Measure Filter Bubbles? Michiels, L., Vannieuwenhuyze, J., Leysen, J., Verachtert, R., Smets, A., & Goethals, B. 2023. How Should We Measure Filter Bubbles? A Regression Model and Evidence for Online News. In Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems. News media play an important role in democratic societies. Central to fulfilling this role is the premise that users should be exposed to diverse news. However, news recommender systems are gaining popularity on news websites, which has sparked concerns over filter bubbles. More specifically, editors, policy-makers and scholars are worried that these news recommender systems may expose users to less diverse content over time. To the best of our knowledge, this hypothesis has not been tested in a longitudinal observational study of real users that interact with a real news website. Such observational studies require the use of research methods that are robust and can account for the many covariates that may influence the diversity of recommendations at any given time. In this work, we propose an analysis model to study whether the variety of articles recommended to a user decreases over time in such an observational study design. Further, we present results from two case studies using aggregated and anonymized data that were collected by two western European news websites employing a collaborative filtering-based news recommender system to serve (personalized) recommendations to their users. Through these case studies we validate empirically that our modeling assumptions are sound and supported by the data, and that our model obtains more reliable and interpretable results than analysis methods used in prior empirical work on filter bubbles. Our case studies provide evidence of a small decrease in the topic variety of a user's recommendations in the first weeks after they sign up, but no evidence of a decrease in political variety. Recommender Systems Previous Read the article Next

< Back Dongxiao Li PhD Researcher dongxiao.li@vub.be We are surrounded by a technologically evolving media world where journalism agencies and media firms are increasingly utilizing innovative technologies like artificial intelligence(AI) to improve the production efficiency and meet our personalized requirements. For a media organization, how to use the technologies to optimize the informative value and its commercial benefits? And for the media industry, how to reach a win-win situation among the main stakeholders including the media firms, the users, the technology developers, and the government, so as to boost the social welfare? Those questions intrigued me to carry out researches on illustrating the relations between the technology, the media industry and the human at different socioeconomic dimensions by both qualitative methods like interview and case study, and quantitative approaches including survey and online data analysis. After achieving the Bachelor’s degree of Economics (Shandong University, China), I worked as an overseas engineering project manager for years in other countries like India and Malaysia, which helped me gain the ability of project management as well as the vision of inter-culture communications. Then I found my enthusiasm in media study and pursued the Master’s Degree of Communication (Tsinghua University, China) with the thesis on AI adoption in the media and creative industry. Having an educational background where economics and communication converge, I am also interested in the economic communication, especially on how the business news could be better accepted via digital technologies like AI and VR. Visit my research profile

< Back 19 Apr 2024 An overview of our presentations at Media Industries in London From April 16 to 19, 2024, the Media Industries Conference took place at King’s College London. Our SRPMedia team was well represented with presentations related to our doctoral research tracks on news recommenders and public service media , our living lab project on streaming affordances in small media markets , and presentations on the ALGEPI and PSM-AP projects. Last but not least, the De Gruyter Handbook of Media Economics was presented, which contains several contributions from our team and is co-edited by Tim Raats. In this post, we provide an overview of the various presentations delivered by our team. Integrating Recommenders and Platformization in Small Media Markets’ Legacy Players In our presentation we offered insightful perspectives on navigating the challenges and opportunities within the evolving media landscape in Flanders. From exploring streaming and recommender systems in Flemish media to analyzing the importance of scalability in small markets. The Flemish public service media VRT has been working to establish a strong central brand with content brands inspired by findability. They are challenged to reclaim control over their audiences, rather than have to rely on third parties (like social media) to reach audiences. In their distribution strategy they adopt a 50% human, manual curated, and 50% curation by algorithms both for audio and video taking into account contextual factors for example offer a podcast in the morning and user is in the car, but entertainment or series when user is at home watching on TV. VRT chooses taste-broadening as way to go by recommending unconsumed content that is deemed to be in range of consumers interest, but still diverse enough. Additionally, we question the value of news recommender systems by examining the return on investment for commercial news organizations. Finally, the findings from the diary study show that the social aspect remains relevant even with the rise of VOD services, with viewing giving a sense of community. Also while SVOD services provide personalized interfaces, local BVOD services seem to function more as generic content collections with limited navigation support. Gatekeeping in the Digital Age: Newsroom Resistance to News Personalization? Aina Errando shared some valuable insights from her research, conducted in collaboration with Heritiana Ranaivoson and Adelaida Afilipoaie as part of the ALGEPI project . Their presentation highlighted the current challenges in implementing News Recommender Systems (NRS) in Spanish newsrooms, emphasizing the importance of bridging “tech-editorial gaps” and promoting collaboration among stakeholders within news organizations. Platformization Meets Universality Catalina Iordache presented insights from the comparative policy analysis of the platformization process of public service media (PSM) in seven media markets, as part of the PSM-AP project. Findings show a wide range of priorities set in the policy documents and digital strategies of PSM organizations, with a focus on People--connecting to and with audiences, Personalization - the use of recommender systems and the development of (public service) algorithms, and Prominence - with regard to PSM services/apps, content, and brands. Universality remains a core principle in the formulation of online strategies and regulatory recommendations. De Gruyter Handbook of Media Economics During a roundtable the new Handbook of Media Economics was presented, edited by Ulrike Rohn , M. Bjørn von Rimscha and Tim Raats . The handbook presents key contributions from scholars worldwide, providing a comprehensive exploration of current trends in media industries from diverse perspectives. Within the framework of understanding contemporary and future trajectories in media markets and industries, the volume delves into their influence on media organization and delivery, along with broader societal and market implications. Encompassing research at the crossroads of economics, management, political economy, and production studies, the handbook emphasizes the necessity for a robust interdisciplinary dialogue. Beyond scrutinizing present and forthcoming industry developments, the handbook addresses pivotal issues pertaining to media economics research methods and pedagogy. It serves as a valuable resource for scholars, students, and media professionals, providing insights into media economics as an academic field and delving into the multifaceted dynamics that shape the media landscape. Doing this, it contributes to the ongoing discourse on the evolving nature of media markets and their profound impact on society. The handbook is co-edited by Tim Raats and contains the following contributions from our team: Tim Raats, Developing a curriculum for media economics Alessandro D’Arma, Jeanette Steemers & Tim Raats, Public service media: Challenges for delivering universal public service in the platform age Catalina Iordache, The effects of streaming on media markets Heritiana Ranaivoson, Annelien Smets,& Pieter Ballon, Challenges and opportunities for recommender systems in media markets De Gruyter Handbook on Media Economics will be published on 20 May, 2024. Previous Next Media Industries Conference, London

< Back Multistakeholder challenges and opportunities of news recommender systems in newsrooms: a comparative systematic literature review Errando, A., Vandenbroucke, H., & Kulig, M. (2026). Multistakeholder challenges and opportunities of news recommender systems in newsrooms: a comparative systematic literature review. Annals of the International Communication Association In today’s digital environment, where audiences seek relevant news across platforms, news recommender systems (NRS) personalize news feeds, presenting both opportunities and challenges for different stakeholders. Despite increasing industry and academic interest in NRS, a comparative perspective across media systems remains absent. This systematic literature review addresses this gap by exploring the opportunities and challenges related to NRS studied across media systems in Western Europe and the United States (U.S.) and highlights current research gaps. Using Hallin and Mancini’s framework and Brüggemann et al.’s clustering for our comparative analysis, as well as Smets et al.’s multistakeholder perspective, we perform an in-depth analysis of 59 publications from Web of Science, Scopus, and Litmaps. Our findings reveal that (a) NRS research is concentrated in the U.S., Netherlands, and Belgium, (b) more interdisciplinary studies are needed to understand the nuanced effects of NRS across media systems, and (c) research on NRS implementation in newsrooms is not a one-size-fits-all process. Previous Read the article Next

< Back 1 Oct 2024 The SRP team presented their work at the ECREA 2024 Conference The 10th edition of the European Communication Research and Education Association Conference (ECREA) took place on 24-27 September 2024 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The VUB’s Communication Sciences department had a large delegation of over 25 researchers at the conference, including several SRP team members. On Wednesday 25 September, Tim Raats presented a paper entitled ‘ Ensuring visibility of European public service media. An analysis of policy, industry and academic views on prominence measures in Belgium ’, as part of the session ‘Public service and the public interest in European Media’, in the Communication, Law and Policy section. The presentation was based on research conducted together with SRP colleagues Adelaida Afilipoaie and Pieter Van der Elst . On Thursday 26 September, Catalina Iordache presented research conducted together with Catherine Johnson (University of Leeds) on ‘ Balancing the scales between public service algorithms and editorial curation , the cases of BBC and VRT. The presentation was part of pre-constituted panel on ‘Comparative approaches to public service media disruption: The transformation of values, norms and prevailing structures in the age of platforms’, hosted by the Public Service Media in the Age of Platforms ( PSM-AP ) project. And on the final day of the conference, Friday 27 September, Noëmie Forest presented the paper ‘What will we be streaming tonight? And why? An analysis of motivations for VOD consumption in Belgium’, co-authored with Isabelle Puskas, Wendy Van den Broeck and Tim Raats. The presentation was part of the session on Audiovisualities and Audiences, in the section Audience and Reception Studies. Tim Raats and Catalina Iordache also presented their ongoing work on assessing discoverability and prominence on VOD services as part of the roundtable ‘ Re-conceptualising the television 'text' for the platform age: textual analysis, texts and interfaces ’, organised in the Television Studies section. As part of the business meetings, Catalina Iordache and Tim Raats have also be re-elected as vice-chairs of their respective sessions Media Industries and Cultural Production and Communication, Law and Policy . Previous Next Our presentations at ECREA

< Back From Experimentation to Strategy: The Ambidextrous Balancing Act of Developing News Recommender Systems Vandenbroucke, H., & Smets, A. (2025). From experimentation to strategy: the ambidextrous balancing act of developing news recommender systems. Journal of Media Business Studies , 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/16522354.2025.2590880 Despite advances in news recommender systems (NRS) research, their application in news organisations remains limited, hampered by practical obstacles and organisational challenges. This study applies the multi-stakeholder framework alongside ambidexterity theory to analyse the complex decision-making dynamics in applying NRS within two large commercial news organisations. Based on 11 in-depth interviews with different stakeholders, two “balancing acts” emerged. The first is stakeholder alignment through two strategies: knowledge management with dummy-proof presentations and “showcasing success” to help increase stakeholder buy-in for NRS. The second balancing act is managing trade-offs between exploration and exploitation in a roadmap developed by the multidisciplinary team of product owners (POs), ensuring a balanced allocation of resources for NRS innovation and optimisation. This research shows how organisational ambidexterity supports successful technology integration and provides insights for implementing emerging technologies in complex multi-stakeholder news media environments. Recommender Systems, Stakeholders, Newsmedia Previous Read the article Next

< Back Public Service Media in the Age of Platforms PSM-AP Public service media (PSM) organizations have to compete with global streaming services (e.g. Netflix and YouTube), for audiences, revenue and talent. They have had to develop new on-demand services and online content that can only be delivered through the online systems owned by global platforms such as Google, Apple and Amazon. The PSM-AP project asks how PSM organisations, and the regulators and policymakers that legislate for and enforce their remits, are adapting to this new platform age, and how their responses might be altering the social and cultural values of PSM and its ability to operate in the public interest. It focuses on television, which remains at the heart of PSM. It asks how the new environment within which PSM organisations are operating might affect the values that underpin the production and distribution of TV programmes by PSM organizations, and the policy debates and regulatory structures that shape the remits and structures within which PSM organizations operate. The project will compare data gathered within and across six countries and 12 PSM organizations: Belgium (RTBF, VRT), Canada (CBC), Denmark (DR, TV 2), Italy (RAI), Poland (TVP), UK (BBC, Channel 4, S4C, ITV, Channel 5). Researchers on this project Catalina Iordache Guest Professor Tim Raats Associate Professor Consortium partners Aarhus University University of Leeds University of Warsaw Aarhus University 1/5 Tags Platforms, Media Policy Previous Next

< 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 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 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 Ashley Amerson Product Manager This is placeholder text. To change this content, double-click on the element and click Change Content. Want to view and manage all your collections? Click on the Content Manager button in the Add panel on the left. Here, you can make changes to your content, add new fields, create dynamic pages and more. Your collection is already set up for you with fields and content. Add your own content or import it from a CSV file. Add fields for any type of content you want to display, such as rich text, images, and videos. Be sure to click Sync after making changes in a collection, so visitors can see your newest content on your live site. info@mysite.com 123-456-7890