Abstract

The impact that social media platforms and technology companies (search and internet related services) are exerting on online news media is much more relevant than that produced by the first wave of digital transformation, from paper to digital. Companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter and Snapchat are increasingly playing an editorial role in relation to and in competition with traditional publishers. Evolving beyond the function of news distribution channels, online platforms have the control on what kinds of contents can be visible to the public, on the commercial dynamics of information and on the news story formats of online journalism. This transformation affects information's validation and verification mechanisms, which are taking place within a more complex system of content distribution and visibility, where the logic of the algorithms are combined with those of networked social relations.