Political scientist and media expert Rasmus Kleis Nielsen: ‘You must invite in order to be heard’
The social contract between the press and the public has been broken, says media expert and political scientist Rasmus Kleis Nielsen. “It’s becoming increasingly easy for those in power to shrug off what appears in the press.”
Text: Casper Thomas
“Irrelevant and unpopular.” The assessment of the press that political scientist and media expert Rasmus Kleis Nielsen recently made in the British magazine *Prospect* leaves no room for doubt. Yes, he endorses the frequently cited diagnosis of a “crisis in journalism,” but as far as assigning blame goes, in his view, the responsibility truly lies with the newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters themselves. The public is quite satisfied with the way it gathers information, even outside of traditional media, Kleis Nielsen asserts, based on years of research among news consumers. These studies were conducted by the Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford, where he served as director until recently.
At the same time, public opinion about journalism and the news is “quite scathing,” according to Kleis Nielsen, who was recently appointed as a professor at the University of Copenhagen. In his essay, he lists the problems: half of the public believes that news media are too heavily influenced by commercial interests. An equally large group believes that journalists deliberately mislead the public to serve a political agenda. Trust in news outlets has plummeted. Kleis Nielsen refers specifically to figures from the United Kingdom, but his assessment easily applies to the situation in most democracies. “The press likes to see itself as a watchdog. In the eyes of large segments of the public, it is more of a lapdog,” he writes.
Kleis Nielsen reached this conclusion after more than fifteen years of studying the relationship between news media and the societies they serve. He earned acclaim for his book *Ground Wars* (2012), a study of how campaign teams in the United States discovered “personalized political information” as a tool for winning elections. In *The Power of Platforms* ( 2022), Kleis Nielsen analyzed how news media became dependent on digital channels for distribution, with the result that companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter became more powerful players. His most recent book, *Avoiding the News*, which he co-authored with media researchers Benjamin Toff and Ruth Palmer, is dedicated to the phenomenon of the “news avoider.” According to the trio, the fact that more and more people are consciously shutting themselves off from the news cannot be attributed simply to the nature of the reporting. A complex interplay between identity, ideology, and the infrastructure through which it is disseminated means that, for many, news “does not fit into daily life.”
Kleis Nielsen’s research thus spans the years of digital transformation, during which traditional media distribution channels—print media, scheduled television broadcasts, and radio stations—faced competition from the kaleidoscopic landscape of social media, digital platforms, and podcast channels. Control over which content is available at any given moment thus shifted from the provider to the user. This transformation—which Kleis Nielsen, as a scholar, views simply as a development and prefers not to attach any normative judgments to—has reached a critical point. And that means a loss of connection between news media and the public, resulting in plummeting circulation and viewership figures.
“You have to view the relationship between the press and society as a social contract,” Kleis Nielsen explains during a conversation that takes place in Amsterdam. Both parties have expectations of each other, and the relationship only works if both participants believe that the other is adhering to the informal terms of that contract. According to Kleis Nielsen, this is precisely where things go wrong. “The contract has unraveled, not because people can no longer access journalism.” His research shows that people’s needs have changed little: they still want relevant, reliable, and independently gathered information—so those ideals of journalism are widely valued. “But,” he concludes, “the point is that large segments of the public no longer believe that existing journalism can deliver this.”
And so citizens have started looking for alternatives. Their media consumption has become “unbundled,” he says, turning into “a collection of disparate voices and sources” mixed with information from their own social circles. The traditional idea of a public sphere where a fixed set of providers supplies people with their news and information has given way to a system in which competing, commercial companies offer a confusing mix, through inscrutable rankings and algorithms. The group that feels a slight shiver down their spine upon hearing this diagnosis is a minority. “It is primarily journalism itself that views its work as a kind of public good,” says Kleis Nielsen. “When they talk about a crisis, they’re actually talking about the sum total of millions of citizens who choose to spend their money and time elsewhere—and who generally do so with full awareness and complete satisfaction.”
According to Kleis Nielsen, we have gradually but surely found ourselves in this situation. “Initially, there was a certain naivety among publishers regarding digital platforms,” he says. Players like Google were warmly welcomed because they offered a way to make digital news accessible. It then became clear that search engines are platforms that also attract many advertisers, shifting a significant flow of revenue from the media themselves to the new distribution channels. Then Facebook entered the scene, and that platform was also welcomed, especially as an alternative to Google’s algorithms. The same pattern repeated itself: publishers flocked to Facebook, but it soon became clear that Facebook itself is also competing for attention and uses inscrutable algorithms. And so it goes every time a new platform emerges. Publishers switch over en masse because they want an alternative. “The sum of all this,” says Kleis Nielsen, “is a whole host of ‘unhappy marriages’ between journalistic media and digital platforms.”
And now we’re seeing the result. The owners of the platforms the press chooses for its reach are sitting in the front row as Trump is sworn in.
“The main takeaway from Trump’s inauguration was that the tech sector has always had a libertarian-right-wing slant and has now simply come out into the open. But that’s a bit too simplistic for my taste. Musk, in particular, was there out of deep ideological conviction. As for the others, they made business decisions: being targeted by the erratic Trump is bad for the bottom line. And so they caved. Zuckerberg was even personally threatened with jail time by Trump. This kind of corporate hypocrisy is nothing new; large companies always want to curry favor with those in power and will go to great lengths to achieve that. Nevertheless, we must consider what this means: European news media have, to a significant extent, made themselves dependent on American companies that are aligned with a president who is hostile toward Europe. The good relationships that publishers in Europe, Canada, and Australia had with American tech companies suddenly look a lot less rosy.’
Will this be used as a weapon against Europe?
“You can’t rule anything out when it comes to Trump, but I think the situation with digital platforms differs from other ways in which Europe is connected to the U.S. The dollar, military aid—Trump can easily use all of these as tools to put pressure on other countries. It’s not that easy with tech companies. Europe is wealthy, has a wealth of talent, and is a market in its own right, where many of these companies earn more than they do in the U.S. itself. It would be catastrophic for them—and thus for the U.S. economy as a whole—if they were to lose market share in Europe in any way because they became part of a political game.”
So we’re continuing down the same path, having traded a mix of in-depth reporting and analysis for entertainment, lifestyle, and superficial news—without consumers being dissatisfied with that?
“That would suggest a kind of false consciousness, but I don’t believe in that. My point isn’t that the public is, by definition, sufficiently informed and infallible in its judgment. My point is that if people are increasingly turning away from traditional news media and getting their information from other sources, journalism must take that as its starting point. You won’t boost circulation or viewership by arguing that people should actually spend their time on other things. And to be honest, it’s journalists themselves who are consuming less and less news and have fewer paid subscriptions. Even if everyone behaved like a professional journalist, the industry would still be in crisis.”
At the same time, some publications are actually doing quite well. You mention them in your article: The Guardian, The Economist, and the Financial Times.
“Those are examples of what I call ‘haut bourgeois’ media. They primarily serve a wealthy, highly educated, and often older audience that is particularly interested in politics. That doesn’t change the fact that, outside of that circle, the news media are rapidly losing their audience. In this way, the press is starting to resemble classical music or contemporary art: very important to a privileged minority, while the masses remain indifferent to it. But of course, this could be a sustainable situation in the long term, especially since “haut bourgeois” journalism has an audience that can and is willing to pay for the product.’
From a historical perspective, this wouldn’t be the first time journalism has become a niche product, as Kleis Nielsen explains in a brief history lesson. “News publishing began as a tool through which governments communicated with citizens. This was followed by a phase of more autonomous news publications, in which the media served primarily as a means for political and commercial elites to exchange information and engage in discussion among themselves, with a fair degree of autonomy from the state. Then came the great commercial revolution of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during which news publishing became a mass enterprise, driven by commercial advertising. It was at that time that journalism also emerged as a professional occupation, because all those newspapers had to be filled day after day.”
Our image of journalism has more or less remained stuck there, with the journalist as a craftsman who, within a large, bureaucratic organization, informs the public on a daily basis about a wide range of topics. The problem is that the foundation under this image has been swept away. That type of journalism requires a larger financial base than an elite alone can provide. I can well imagine journalism returning to something resembling the situation before the commercial revolution, in which publications were extremely expensive, had limited print runs, and were run by a handful of editors who gathered freelance copy for a small segment of readers. But whether that is desirable from the perspective of journalism as an institution is another question.’
What are the risks?
“In any case, the information gap is widening. The public as a whole may consider itself sufficiently informed, but the highly educated, affluent segment believes that they alone are truly well-informed, while the rest are not. This reinforces the already existing clash of views and values between the elites and the rest of society. And the press’s role as a counterbalance is being eroded. How can you hold those in power accountable and engage in naming and shaming if you don’t have a large audience that takes notice? This makes it increasingly easy for those in power to shrug off what appears in the press, because the risk of losing support is becoming smaller and smaller.’
So only the elite media pose a threat to democracy?
“Yes, although I hesitate to conclude that the current changes in the media landscape are a cause of democratic erosion. Keep in mind that democracy—in the sense of free elections, the rule of law, and individual rights—already existed before the advent of mass media. The other reason is that the public can feel well-informed and engaged in politics without necessarily consuming traditional media. Moreover, being thoroughly informed is not a prerequisite for political participation. Voters can easily cast their ballots for someone they believe will serve their interests without relying on journalistic input. In political science, this is known as “low-information rationality.”
The argument that people are either insufficiently informed or not properly informed has traditionally been used to exclude certain groups from politics on the basis of class or skin color. I don’t want to deny concerns about the erosion of democracy, but I do question the dominant narrative that democracy is in crisis precisely because the public is not sufficiently aware of what appears in certain types of media. That is a complaint heard primarily from within the journalism profession itself. And it seems to miss its audience more than the other way around. In any case, that accusation does not help in reaching a broader audience.’
What actually works?
“I don’t like to tell others how to do their jobs, but if journalists and news publishers want to renew the social contract with the public, they will have to take responsibility for that themselves. It won’t come from the public, which doesn’t perceive the idea of a crisis as such.” Study after study shows that large segments of society find the news irrelevant and depressing. It gives them a sense of powerlessness.”
With that as a starting point, you might ask yourself how to reach readers or viewers given their current mental state and social position. Presenting one message after another that highlights everything that’s going wrong in the world is not the way to achieve that. You can also offer a perspective for action. The idea that people are given information and will automatically act on it doesn’t align with how communication works in our societies. I see many media outlets publishing excellent pieces that, however, remain purely contemplative. They inform, but do not inspire action. Without the question “what to do,” you might as well, say, read Julius Caesar’s diaries about the conquest of Gaul.’
“Impress rather than depress,” you write in your article in Prospect Magazine.
“That’s part of it, too. A medium should invite people to listen, not force them to accept its message based on fear.” The assumption that if the world keeps getting worse, people will naturally find their way to journalism, doesn’t hold up, in my opinion. It’s much more important to forge strong bonds between the public and the press. And that starts with a clear understanding of the role a media outlet plays in an individual’s life.
Not every publication needs to reach everyone. It’s about finding a sense of connection between the publication and its audience. People need to feel that a certain kind of journalism resonates with who they are. In this way, the media have always played a role in shaping communities and social movements. Perhaps journalists can reflect on how they can fulfill that role once again.”
The Democracy and Media Foundation is conducting a series of conversations with various thinkers on the topic of shared reality. This interview was the first in the series, in collaboration with *De Groene Amsterdammer*. The other episodes can be found here.
