Nudging as a Tool of Media Policy: Understanding and Fostering Exposure Diversity in the Age of Digital Media

A chapter by Mira Burri in Nudging - Possibilities, Limitations, and Applications in European Law and Economics, ed. by Klaus Mathis and Avishalom Tor (Springer, 2016, pp. 227-247)

The chapter argues that although the balance between state intervention and non-intervention in the media certainly is precarious and individual rights are to be safeguarded, there may be subtler ways of intervening and promoting exposure diversity – i.e. the diversity in the content actually consumed by audiences – under the conditions of digital media. The chapter explores a number of “nudging” tools as potentially more efficient as well as effective instruments of media policy aimed at diversity. In this, it seeks to contribute to the discussions on public service media design, as well as be in line with broader changes in media governance, which denote a move away from conventional command-and-control type of regulation.