Platform configurations and isomorphism: An analytical framework for longitudinal and comparative research of public service media

Abstract

This article introduces and advances the Platform Configurations and Isomorphism (PCI) framework. It integrates the platform configuration concept with institutional theory to offer a framework for analyzing Public Service Media (PSM) interactions with social media platforms in the provision of news across national contexts and over time. Based on the PCI framework, we conduct a longitudinal qualitative document analysis of how PSM organizations communicate their social media practices and strategies in Australia, Canada, Finland, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, and the Netherlands (2013–2024). The research analyzes PSMs' platform configurations for editorially oriented activities across three organizational levels—macro, meso, and micro—and the interplay between them. It advances novel and cross-cultural empirical insights into contextual differences in PSM organizations' agency vis-à-vis platforms when it comes to producing and distributing news.

Keywords

public service media social media isomorphism platform configurations comparative analysis qualitative document analysis institutional theory PCI framework

Introduction

The rise of global platform ecosystems has profoundly transformed the institutional and operational environment of Public Service Media (PSM), challenging its legitimacy as well as established norms and practices. Competing with digital platforms—particularly social media platforms—for audience attention and cultural influence, PSMs increasingly struggle to realize universality and fulfill their public service remit through proprietary channels (Raats, 2024). The concurrent shift of advertising revenues to digital platforms further strains PSMs' funding models, directly in systems reliant on advertising income and indirectly in publicly funded systems. PSM are recurrently criticized for distorting market competition and exacerbating the challenges faced by commercial media (Grönvall and Karppinen, 2025).

Research has explored how platformization—the growing role of digital platforms in shaping how media content is produced, distributed, and circulated to audiences (Helmond, 2015)—challenges PSMs in the commissioning and distribution of audiovisual content, as they compete with global platforms and video-on-demand (VOD) services (e.g., Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube) with far greater resources and audiences (Johnson et al., 2025). These pressures have encouraged PSMs—historically dominant providers of national culture—to develop VOD-services and extend distribution on third-party platforms to remain culturally relevant and uphold the public value of universal access (Iordache et al., 2025b). This study takes a different approach by examining PSMs' relationship with social media platforms as news publishers, focusing specifically on platformization and PSMs’ news production.

Building a presence on social media platforms has offered PSMs opportunities to reach and engage broader, and particularly younger, audiences, expand digital activities, and gain deeper insights into audience behavior through digital metrics (Laaksonen et al., 2024; Røsok-Dahl and Olsen, 2025). However, it has also created dependencies on the commercial logics of these platforms, characterized by algorithmic filtering, datafication, and surveillance (e.g., Poell et al., 2021). Such mechanisms risk undermining core public service values, including editorial independence, content diversity, and democratic accountability (Nielsen and Ganter, 2022; Van Es and Poell, 2020).

Although these risks and opportunities are shared across borders, empirical research has shown that PSM organizations engage with social media platforms in diverse and context-dependent ways (Dragomir and Túñez López, 2024). Their strategies and positions vis-à-vis social media platforms also fluctuate over time (Olsen et al., 2025). Their approaches range from adapting social media strategies and expanding presence on selected platforms to counterbalancing platform influence or, in some cases, withdrawing from certain platforms to preserve editorial autonomy and/or redirect public discourse back to legacy media. These dynamic approaches are captured by the concept of platform configuration (Chua and Westlund, 2022), which we advance in this article.

These divergent and evolving responses raise important questions about the contextual forces shaping PSMs' platform presence, and how such organizations navigate these forces, whether by pursuing closer collaboration with platforms, adopting confrontational strategies, or lobbying for political regulation to address power asymmetries (Nielsen and Ganter, 2022: 10). Against this background, this article advances an analytical framework for unpacking and comparing the institutional dynamics shaping PSM–platform relationships across cultural contexts and over time, focusing on PSMs' relationships with social media platforms in news provision.

Specifically, we argue that these PSM-platform relationships manifest across multiple levels: at the macro level, in regulatory challenges and policy responses to platform power imbalances (e.g., Helberger, 2020); at the meso level, in organizational strategies and negotiations with platform companies (Poell et al., 2023), where tactical decisions—such as how, and under what conditions, PSMs access platform infrastructures—come into play; and at the micro level, in newsroom practices and adaptations to platform governance, including how journalistic workflows integrate, modify, or disengage from platform-oriented activities (Chua and Westlund, 2022). Collectively, these dynamics reflect socially constructed assumptions and normative beliefs about the role and obligations of PSMs in society, as well as the material practices deemed most effective for realizing the democratic values that underpin this institution.

To conceptualize these PSM–platform relationships, we introduce the Platform Configurations and Isomorphism (PCI) framework, which integrates platform configuration with institutional theory. Drawing on isomorphism (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), we identify push dynamics that drive PSMs toward platform alignment across macro-, meso-, and micro-level configurations. In contrast, reverse isomorphism (Hambrick et al., 2004) and platform counterbalancing (Chua and Westlund, 2019) capture pull dynamics that enable PSMs to resist platform pressures across the same levels. By situating platform configuration within institutional theory, this study bridges macro-structural perspectives with micro-level process approaches shaped by multiple institutional logics (Thornton et al., 2012).

This article operationalizes the PCI framework through a qualitative analysis examining how PSM organizations in diverse national contexts communicate their platform configurations and how these evolve over time. The analysis draws on a systematic reading of annual reports and other relevant documents (2013–2024) from PSM organizations in Australia, Canada, Finland, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, and the Netherlands. By comparing platform configuration discourses across these organizations, we demonstrate the analytical power of the PCI framework identifying both similarities and divergences in how PSMs adapt to platform push and pull forces. Although all navigate platformization driven by global tech companies, differences in public service mandates, legal frameworks, and funding models shape their platform strategies and communications. The study thus contributes to research on the evolving relationship between platforms and PSMs, particularly in news production and distribution.

Institutional perspectives on PSM and platforms

Institutional theory offers a productive framework for understanding how organizations like PSMs adapt to pressures from their external environment. According to this perspective, organizations adjust structures, routines, and practices amid social, economic, and regulatory pressures to maintain legitimacy and access to resources (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). They also navigate multiple, often competing cultural and professional logics, which shape how norms and routines are interpreted and enacted (Thornton et al., 2012).

While early institutional research largely focused on macro-level structures such as societal systems and organizational fields, more recent work has expanded to include meso-level organizational dynamics and micro-level processes within organizations (Abrutyn, 2013). Scholars also highlight the reciprocal interaction between macro-level structures and meso- and micro-level organizational forces (e.g., Turner, 2016; Wang and Polillo, 2016).

From an institutional theory perspective, platformization can be understood as an institutional transformation in which platform infrastructures have become the dominant organizational model of the social web (Helmond, 2015), increasingly shaping news production practices as well as how news organizations reach and engage audiences. These infrastructures also continuously generate new forms of dependency for media organizations through ongoing changes to platform rules and technical protocols (Nielsen and Ganter, 2022).

To capture these dynamics, the concept of isomorphism from institutional theory has been mobilized to explain how news media, including PSM, respond to platformization as a macro-level shift in their external environment that requires adjustments in meso-level organizational strategies and micro-level professional practices. Isomorphism refers to the tendency of highly structured organizational fields to produce similarity in organizational structures, cultures, and outputs as actors seek to manage uncertainty and constraints (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983: 147). Coercive isomorphism results from external pressures exerted by entities or structures upon which organizations depend. Mimetic isomorphism occurs when organizations emulate others perceived as more successful or legitimate to manage uncertainty, while normative isomorphism emerges through processes of professionalization, including the consolidation of shared norms, values, and practices among actors within a field (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983).

Research has highlighted how isomorphic pressures shape PSMs’ responses to platforms. Laaksonen et al. (2024), for example, show how mimetic and normative isomorphism manifest in PSM practices and discourses as platform pressures intersect with content production, audience representation, journalistic values, and organizational development. Their research suggests that organizational structures and forms of innovation are adapting to platformization and demonstrates that platform data and professional roles act as mediators of isomorphism. Adopting a broader media industry perspective, Caplan and boyd (2018) argue that platform algorithms and data-driven technologies foster isomorphic tendencies as media organizations increasingly align their practices with the algorithmic logics of platform society. Specifically, they highlight coercive forces in how news publishers align with Facebook’s algorithmic imperatives. In a recent study, Meese and Seipp (2025) find that major news outlets are beginning to adopt platform features to increase autonomy and disentangle themselves from platform infrastructures. They show that normative, coercive, and mimetic pressures have driven news organizations to align their operations with the institutional logics of the platform field, particularly through the adoption of subscription models, data strategies, and recommender systems.

While private media and PSM show convergence in platform practices shaped by isomorphic pressures from platforms, Sehl and Cornia (2021) also observe divergence in how different news organizations disseminate news on social media depending on their objectives, funding models, and institutional specificities. Building on this, recent research has identified reverse isomorphism in PSM-platform relations (Olsen and Sjøvaag, 2025), referring to a situation where isomorphic pressures weaken, granting greater managerial discretion and resulting in increased heterogeneity between organizations (Hambrick et al., 2004). This challenges assumptions of homogenization by demonstrating how PSMs may leverage institutional autonomy and public service mandates to progressively disengage from social media platforms to assert strategic independence and reaffirm journalistic norms. In contrast, commercial news media are often more deeply entangled in a platform relationship characterized by both coercive and mimetic isomorphism (Olsen and Sjøvaag, 2025).

PSMs are committed to a public service logic rooted in meeting civic needs and premised on a set of core values that prioritize informing and educating the public, cultivating democracy, supporting domestic culture, ensuring universal service, and maintaining a relatively non-commercial and non-governmental character (Lowe and Maijanen, 2019). However, PSMs are not insulated from market influences even though public ownership and funding reduce commercial pressures (Benson et al., 2018). These organizations are required to demonstrate efficiency and popularity to justify public funding, which can incentivize commercially oriented logics and practices (Hilker et al., 2025). As a result, PSMs are torn between proving their market value and upholding their mandate as a not-for-profit institution guided by values opposed to commercial imperatives (Iordache et al., 2025a).

This conflict of logics extends to PSMs’ relationship with platforms, which operate as for-profit enterprises driven primarily by the monetization of user attention and data (e.g., Poell et al., 2021). Platform business models rely heavily on advertising and engagement-based metrics, incentivizing design and algorithmic systems that prioritize content capable of attracting and retaining users. In a context where such platforms increasingly function as gateways to news, especially for younger audiences who have a weaker connection to news brands than in the past (Newman et al., 2024), PSMs are encouraged to use third-party commercial platforms to reach broader audiences and fulfill their public service remit (e.g., Johnson et al., 2025). At the same time, PSMs’ editorial integrity and non-commercial ideals, which are deeply embedded in the public service logic, are challenged by the platforms’ algorithmic filtering mechanisms and attention-driven market orientation (e.g., Martin, 2021; Olsen et al., 2025). This produces tensions but also hybrid practices where PSMs negotiate between platform incentives and pressures and their mission-driven roles (Sehl et al., 2017; Van Dijck and Poell, 2015; Van Es and Poell, 2020).

Taken together, these findings suggest that PSM organizations must navigate a complex web of pressures, values, and objectives that may both push them towards and pull them away from social media platforms. These dynamics unfold at the macro level of the media industry field, the meso level of PSM organizational structures, and the micro level of newsroom practices.

Platform configuration: Alignment and counterbalancing on macro, meso, and micro levels

The concept of platform configuration captures how news publishers enact their institutional relationships with social media platforms (Chua and Westlund, 2022). It refers to how publishers dynamically structure and align their editorial and strategic activities with specific platforms and their technological infrastructures, continuously evaluating these platforms relative to their organizational capacities and objectives. Through these processes, publishers develop and adapt practices and strategies in response to internal and external pressures, thereby institutionalizing specific norms, rules, and routines for engaging with platforms.

Platform configurations are enacted through both internally oriented activities (e.g., adapting workflows, routines, or resource allocation) and externally oriented activities (e.g., distributing content, engaging audiences, or collaborating with platforms). Together, these activities are integral to news organizations’ platform presence, understood as how they establish and maintain their presence on one or several non-proprietary platforms, that is platforms not owned by news organizations themselves (Steensen and Westlund, 2021). The extent of commitment to these activities varies, ranging from limited experimentation to their routinization within news organizations. Thus, news publishers build platform presence when they create accounts and begin publishing content and engaging in other ways with non-proprietary platforms.

Building platform presence represents one form of platform configuration, where new activities are formed or escalated. At the same time, platform configuration also involves strategic countermeasures taken by publishers to mitigate dependence on platforms–platform counterbalancing–which include activities such as limiting engagement with, withdrawing from, or bypassing platforms (Chua and Westlund, 2019; Olsen and Sjøvaag, 2025). Viewed through an institutional lens, these configurations—both the building of platform presence and the use of platform counterbalancing—reflect how news organizations adapt to push and pull pressures in their external environment.

Although the concept of platform configuration originally draws on research on commercial news publishers (Chua and Westlund, 2022), it is also applicable to PSMs. This motivates the development of an analytical framework for examining PSMs, considering macro-level structures that shape their activities and strategies vis-à-vis platforms, meso-level organizational strategies, and micro-level practices among news workers. The following sections elaborate on this framework by outlining these three levels and explaining how platform alignment (push) and platform counterbalancing (pull) dynamics shape interactions between PSMs and platforms at each level.

The macro level: Structural domains

The macro level captures how laws, governmental policies, industry norms, and societal values shape PSMs’ platform configurations. Structural conditions such as funding models, organizational legacy and public service mission also influence platform configurations (Sehl et al., 2024). For example, broad public service remits encourage digital experimentation across multiple platforms, formats and audience segments, while more restrictive mandates constrain such activity, giving rise to variation in platform configurations among PSM (Dragomir and Túñez López, 2024). Furthermore, PSM mandates, public trust, and audience preferences influence whether PSMs expand their presence on social media platforms or withdraw from them (Moe, 2024). These dynamics encompass coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphic pressures that shape platform alignment (push), as well as countervailing norms and institutional protections that shape platform counterbalancing (pull).

On the one hand, platformization exerts coercive pressure by reshaping the competitive position of news media and intensifying competition for audience attention, while also generating uncertainty that fosters mimetic pressure, encouraging news media to adopt platform standards (Meese and Seipp, 2025). Normative pressures operate through institutional norms and societal expectations—such as public service legitimacy, accountability, social cohesion, and democratic responsibility—that shape how PSMs generate public value (e.g., Van Dijck and Poell, 2015). Platformization has profoundly reshaped the environment in which PSMs operate, prompting a renewal of the public service remit centered on universality, independence, innovation, and diversity, and predisposing PSMs to use platforms to reach broad audiences (Van Es and Poell, 2020).

On the other hand, countervailing norms and institutional protections—such as government policies, public service mandates, and funding arrangements—enable PSMs to prioritize public value over commercial incentives and revenue generation, at least in theory. Legal frameworks designed to safeguard privacy, promote competition, and mitigate the influence of misinformation in a platformized media landscape may also function as such institutional protections. In the EU, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA), together with the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), aim to strengthen the digital marketplace, regulate large platforms, and protect the independence of European media, including PSMs (Dragomir et al., 2024). Additional regulatory examples include Australia’s Mandatory Bargaining Code and Canada’s Online News Act (Bill C-18), which influence how news media manage online visibility and funding (Flew et al., 2023).

The meso level: Strategic actions

The meso level captures how PSMs operationalize their strategic priorities and negotiate their relationship with social media platforms, seeking to balance platform dependency with institutional autonomy. Platform configurations encompass organizational strategies and policies, including decisions about distribution across digital spaces, adjustments to platform presence amid shifting priorities and constraints, and the establishment of institutional or staff-conduct guidelines for platform use. Guided by their public service mandate and funded through public resources, PSMs strategically navigate their relationship with social media platforms, adopting approaches intended to reinforce their legitimacy within an increasingly commercialized digital media environment (Sehl, 2020).

Coercive isomorphism manifests in how organizational strategies and policies respond to platform pressures that impose constraints (Caplan and boyd, 2018) or open opportunities for adaptation (Meese and Seipp, 2025). Mimetic isomorphism is evident in how PSMs observe industry peers and adopt what they perceive as best practices within the sector, with other PSMs serving as the primary source of inspiration (Sehl and Cornia, 2021). Relatedly, normative isomorphism operates through professionalization and the diffusion of shared standards for social media conduct among PSMs (Laaksonen et al., 2024). Conversely, platform configurations of specific platforms reflect reverse isomorphism if this breaks away from the established industry practices or norms at the time. Importantly, these boundaries are not static; building platform presence and counterbalancing strategies evolve over time, shifting from isomorphic adaptation towards de-institutionalization (reverse isomorphism), and vice versa.

These push and pull dynamics vis-à-vis platforms are reflected in how PSMs position themselves along a continuum from on-site to off-site strategies (Nielsen and Ganter, 2022). Pull dynamics are evident in coercive, mimetic, and normative pressures that compel PSMs to strategically prioritize proprietary channels and use social media cautiously in order to maintain control over content, user relationships, and data. Conversely, push dynamics manifest in off-site strategies aimed at maximizing reach through the direct distribution of content on third-party platforms. Here, isomorphic pressures become visible as PSMs adapt to platform logics while lacking the power and resources to negotiate with or disentangle themselves from dominant platforms (Van Es and Poell, 2020), and as strategic ideas about how to act as a media organization are imitated from platforms (Laaksonen et al., 2024; Meese and Seipp, 2025).

The micro level: Journalistic practices

The micro level captures the journalistic practices through which news workers engage with, or disengage from, social media platforms. In this context, platform configurations encompass individual, or group-level motivations, justifications, and actions related to the production and circulation of news content on proprietary and third-party platforms. In daily practice, PSM newsroom desk teams and individual journalists decide which stories to share, how to adapt formats to platform affordances, and which channels to prioritize based on genre or audience (Laaksonen et al., 2024).

Push dynamics vis-à-vis platforms are evident in how social media platforms have become integral to news workers’ professional practices, including in PSM organizations, even as dependence on them evolves (Steensen and Westlund, 2021). As part of building platform presence, PSM journalists incorporate social media into their every-day production, distribution, and audience engagement activities (Røsok-Dahl and Olsen, 2025; Van Es and Poell, 2020). Isomorphic dynamics become evident in how these practices and underlying rationales emerge through coercive pressures, mimicry, or adherence to normative professional standards that define what is considered the “right” ways of doing social media (Laaksonen et al., 2024: p.4325). Coercive isomorphism is prevalent when PSMs’ newsroom staff is compelled to adjust content to platform algorithms and moderation to maximize audience reach and/or avoid having content flagged or removed from the platform (Røsok-Dahl and Olsen, 2025), thus adapting to the “laws of the platform” (Van Es and Poell, 2020: p. 5). Normative isomorphism is reflected in emerging professional norms surrounding the increasing use of data and specific platform metrics to measure audiences and evaluate the success or failure of news stories and topics, while mimetic isomorphism can be observed in how PSM journalists are guided by platform standards and affordances when producing news content (Laaksonen et al., 2024).

Pull dynamics come to the fore when editorial judgements challenge algorithmic cues and audience metrics, for example, when PSM newsroom staff monitor analytics to guide performance but use them selectively, prioritizing content that align with public-service values over “soft news” optimized for engagement (Røsok-Dahl and Olsen, 2025). These practices also indicate moments of reverse isomorphism (Olsen and Sjøvaag, 2025), as PSM news workers resist homogenizing pressures by reaffirming institutional principles of editorial independence and social responsibility. In doing so, they cultivate alternative professional values and orientations, including the idea that journalists should “balance the system” rather than simply amplify what is popular on social media (Laaksonen et al., 2024).

The Platform configurations and isomorphism (PCI) framework

Building upon the previous sections, we introduce the PCI framework, which employs the lens of journalistic institutional actors (here, PSMs) to examine their diverse relationships with platform actors. The framework captures platform alignment (push) and platform counterbalancing (pull) dynamics across macro, meso, and micro levels of platform configurations (Table 1). In the framework, the vertical axis represents the different levels of platform configurations—macro (field-level), meso (organizational actions), and micro (journalistic practices). Across these levels, PSMs engage with platforms by either building presence (Steensen and Westlund, 2021) or by exercising counterbalancing strategies (Chua and Westlund, 2019).

Table 1.

Platform configurations and isomorphism (PCI) framework.

Level of platform configuration	Platform alignment (push)—Isomorphic adaptation	Platform counterbalancing (pull)—Countervailing/Reverse-isomorphic dynamics
Macro (structural domains)	Field-level isomorphic pressures: Coercive, mimetic and normative pressures structuring alignment with dominant platform logic	Field-level countervailing norms and institutional protections: Public service mandates, funding models, and regulation enabling less dependence on platform logics
Meso (organizational actions)	Organizational isomorphic alignment: Strategic and structural alignment with platform conventions, metrics, and infrastructures	Organizational counterbalancing strategies: Strategic efforts to limit dependency or assert autonomy vis-à-vis platforms
Micro (journalistic practices)	Practice-level isomorphic emulation: Journalistic practices adapting to platform standards and affordances	Professional resistance and norm reaffirmation: Journalistic practices that resist, reinterpret, or selectively adopt platform logics

The horizontal axis captures the forces shaping these configurations. Push dynamics are driven by coercive, mimetic, and normative isomorphic pressures (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983) that structure alignment with platform logics, while pull dynamics are shaped by countervailing norms and institutional protections, which structure platform counterbalancing and support reverse-isomorphic tendencies (Hambrick et al., 2004), whereby PSMs break away from established industry platform practices or norms (Olsen and Sjøvaag, 2025).

With the PCI framework established, we turn to the empirical phase of the study, using the framework to investigate how PSMs in seven countries communicate about platform configurations and how these communications evolve over time. The following sections detail our method and present the findings.

Method

Our empirical analysis is based on a longitudinal (2013–2024) qualitative analysis of a corpus of annual reports and public statements from PSM organizations in Australia (ABC), Canada (CBC/Radio-Canada), Finland (Yle), Norway (NRK), Sweden (SVT), and the Netherlands (NPO and NOS), as well as a strategic sample of public documents and statements from Mediacorp in Singapore, where annual reports were unavailable (See Appendix A for details). Additional grey literature was consulted for supplementary information regarding regulation and market conditions.

The cases were selected to capture variation across PSM models, media systems, and regulatory contexts. PSMs in Democratic Corporatist systems (Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Netherlands) typically rely on stable public funding through license fees or state subsidies and are relatively insulated from market fluctuations (Hallin and Mancini, 2004). PSMs in Liberal systems tend to depend more heavily on advertising revenue, though notable exceptions exist—such as ABC in Australia, which carries no external advertising, and CBC in Canada, which supplements government appropriations with commercial income. The Asian Developmental Media System model (Singapore) is characterized by strong state involvement in ownership, regulation, and remit-setting. It reflects state-led developmental goals and a distinctive state–media relationship, oriented towards values of consensus-building, public communication, and social cohesion (McCargo, 2012). This variation contributes to diversity in the macro-level representation of media systems within our empirical material.

Corporate annual reports provide insights into the PSMs’ organizational priorities, informing stakeholders about performance, achievements, and how they fulfill their public service mandates (Fernández-Lombao et al., 2017). Prior research demonstrates that annual reports are valuable sources for identifying PSM practices and considerations related to social media, either independently (Iordache et al., 2025b; Olsen et al., 2025) or in combination with other materials (Grönvall and Karppinen, 2025). Annual reports have limitations, reflecting curated narratives rather than the full scope of internal practices, but remain valid for studying how PSMs communicate their platform configurations.

The qualitative material was organized into thematic country reports, in which data were coded across three analytical levels (Appendix A). At the macro level, we recorded structural and regulatory environments shaping PSM–platform relations, including PSM remit, legal frameworks, funding models, market conditions and platform governance pressures affecting autonomy and democratic performance. At the meso level, we coded platform agreements and negotiations, as well as platform strategies and policies, capturing the integration of social media considerations into corporate planning, editorial policy, and resource allocation, alongside the influence of institutional culture and professional norms. At the micro level, we documented newsroom practices related to building, maintaining, or reducing platform presence, including journalists’ accounts of platform engagement and evaluations of associated risks and benefits. In the final analytical stage, communication regarding platform configurations across the country reports was compared, identifying commonalities and divergences in platform alignment (push) and platform counterbalancing (pull) dynamics.

Because this study draws on a large corpus of documents spanning more than a decade, individual references to specific annual reports are not included in the empirical sections. Instead, the analysis synthesizes recurring themes across the corpus, drawing on examples from multiple PSM organizations.

Findings

Macro level configurations: Field-level isomorphic pressures versus countervailing norms and institutional protections.

A recurring theme in the empirical material is the intensifying global competition and growing dominance of major technology companies in the digital media ecology. As audiences migrate to global social media platforms, the PSMs increasingly describe this shift as an external pressure that complicates the fulfilment of public service mandates through proprietary channels alone. Across the cases, platformization is thus portrayed as a form of coercive pressure that challenges PSMs’ institutional position and compels engagement with social media platforms as intermediaries for reaching audiences.

Normative pressures arising from the public service remit—particularly the obligation to reach broad audiences and ensure universal accessibility—also reinforce engagement with social media platforms. This is especially evident in relation to younger audiences, who are frequently presented as a key reason for aligning with dominant platform logics. Other public service expectations—including Indigenous representation, bilingual communication, and civic information provision, as observed at ABC (Australia) and CBC/Radio-Canada (Canada)—similarly legitimize continued engagement with non-proprietary platforms. In Singapore, Mediacorp’s state-defined mandates, emphasizing national cohesion, multilingual outreach, and civic information, likewise sustain the organization’s presence on external platforms despite awareness of associated risks.

Over time, national differences in external pressures have become more visible. The introduction of the News Media Bargaining Code in Australia and the Online News Act (Bill C-18) in Canada provide a useful illustration of this dynamic. These legislations intended to protect news organizations from platform dominance have instead been perceived as provoking platform retaliation. Despite the structural similarities between the regulatory frameworks, the PSMs in the two countries have developed different platform configurations. In Canada, following the implementation of the Bill C-18, Alphabet reached an agreement with the government and obtained an exemption, while Meta discontinued the availability of news content by blocking content from news publishers. In response, CBC/Radio-Canada paused advertising on Meta platforms and redirected audience engagement efforts toward proprietary services and non-Meta channels. In Australia, by contrast, the ABC negotiated funding arrangements with Google and Meta, which it channeled into expanding regional journalism and strengthening youth outreach across multiple platforms.

A comparable pattern of divergence can be observed in Europe. Public service broadcasters in the Nordic countries and NOS in the Netherlands operate within overlapping EU/EEA digital regulatory frameworks and share a common normative framework shaped partly through cooperation within the European Broadcasting Union. However, national regulatory arrangements and public service mandates generate different push–pull dynamics vis-à-vis platforms in these cases. Across the Nordic region, normative pressures reflect broadly shared cultural and institutional expectations surrounding public service media, including commitments to accessibility, civic trust, inclusion, and linguistic diversity. Combined with high audience trust and reach, stable public funding, and EU/EEA-level regulation, these norms appear to have moderated coercive platform pressures, enabling NRK, SVT, and Yle to counterbalance platform dependencies without significantly jeopardizing their legitimacy. By contrast, NOS in the Netherlands has pursued the opposite approach, expanding its platform presence in line with an institutional commitment to accessibility across all media and audience groups—a point we discuss in more detail below.

Taken together, these macro-level dynamics highlight the role of regulatory frameworks and institutional norms—whether embedded in policy mandates, institutional traditions, or state-defined expectations—in shaping the structural conditions under which PSMs engage with platforms. At the same time, the analysis demonstrates that platform configurations vary considerably across national contexts despite similarities in regulatory environments and overarching normative frameworks.

Meso level configurations: Organizational isomorphic alignment versus organizational counterbalancing strategies

The early years under study present a relatively homogeneous picture of PSM organizations actively exploring opportunities associated with building a presence on social media and leveraging platform distribution capabilities—often framed in terms of “being where the audience is” and reaching users through their preferred platforms. Over time, however, it becomes clearer that the strategies guiding how PSMs engage with, prioritize, or limit their presence on social media platforms evolve and become increasingly differentiated across national contexts.

CBC/Radio-Canada provides a useful starting point for illustrating this point: The broadcaster’s experience following Meta’s 2023 blocking of content from news publishers in response to the Online News Act highlights its continued reliance on proprietary channels while maintaining a presence on non-Meta platforms such as YouTube and Snapchat. The case reflects a pragmatic strategic trajectory in which the broadcaster moved from an early pioneer role—as the first Canadian broadcaster to use Facebook’s new tools for broadcast media outlets—and close collaboration with the platform, for example, in election coverage, to a strategic rupture with Meta in 2023. Following the platform’s decision to block such content in Canada, the broadcaster encouraged audiences to access news directly through trusted media websites and criticized Meta’s move as “irresponsible” and an “abuse of their market power,” thereby explicitly challenging coercive platform pressure.

In the Nordic countries, retrenchment from Meta platforms forms part of a broader platform counterbalancing strategy aimed at resisting coercive platform pressures. NRK (Norway) shifted from a “be where the audience is” approach to a “bring the audience home” strategy, gradually reducing its social media presence. Until 2019, annual reports describe extensive use of social media. In 2020, NRK announced a substantial reduction in social media accounts while maintaining a strong presence for its flagship “NRK News” Facebook account. The subsequent termination of this account and further reductions in social media presence by 2022 marked a deeper strategic shift, driven by concerns about platform censorship, lack of transparency, privacy risks, and broader challenges such as influence operations and propaganda. At the same time, NRK maintained selective engagement on Snapchat and re-entered TikTok to reach younger audiences, demonstrating that the PSMs cannot entirely escape the push forces of platformization.

Like NRK, Yle (Finland) has reduced its social media presence, removing about one-third of its accounts. Similarly, SVT (Sweden) reports scaling back certain platform activities, guided by a distribution policy that shapes partnerships and audience targeting. Facebook cross-posting has been paused, while Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube remain active, evaluated based on editorial control, data access, and audience value, with social media primarily used for marketing and audience dialogue and proprietary services prioritized. A comparable counterbalancing strategy is evident at Mediacorp in Singapore, which has become more selective in platform use, focusing on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok and maximizing monetization through proprietary channels. Its 2024 merger of the digital outlet into the main newsroom reflects adaptation to declining referral traffic from global platforms and alignment with national policy priorities emphasizing efficiency and accountability.

By contrast, the expansive platform strategy of NOS in the Netherlands has increased the broadcaster’s presence particularly on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. While acknowledging risks associated with major technology companies, the broadcaster argues that maintaining a presence across multiple platforms reduces dependence on any single intermediary. Accordingly, NOS keeps its content “platform-independent” for distribution across proprietary and third-party services while continuing to explore emerging platforms. A similarly expansive approach can be observed at ABC in Australia, which has maintained a broad social media strategy to reach audiences, particularly younger users. While acknowledging the maturity of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, the broadcaster emphasizes expanding its presence on higher-growth platforms, including TikTok, to engage audiences “on the platforms they prefer.”

In sum, these examples illustrate how the PSMs’ organizational strategies reflect varying combinations of alignment with platform infrastructures, demonstrating coercive isomorphism, and efforts to manage platform dependency by breaking away from platform pressures. Across contexts, PSMs have adjusted their strategies in response to evolving push–pull dynamics vis-à-vis platforms, revealing differing priorities and capacities to assert autonomy.

Micro level configurations: Practice-level isomorphic emulation versus professional resistance and norm reaffirmation

Across the empirical material, multiple accounts show how journalists adapt storytelling formats and production practices to the affordances of social media platforms. In Australia, ABC describes a wide range of practices aimed at building and sustaining a social media presence, including integrating social media interactions into programming and audience competitions, encouraging participation through hashtag campaigns and user-generated content on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, and producing platform-native formats such as Instagram-first explainers and interactive tools, including a Facebook Messenger bot. Similarly, CBC/Radio-Canada reports that its journalists have increasingly incorporated practices such as live streaming and cross-platform formats, including Facebook Live, YouTube, and podcast–video hybrids, although some of these activities were curtailed following Meta’s 2023 blocking of content from news publishers.

The material illustrates the normalization of social media in both routine news production and extraordinary events. In Singapore, for example, the 2015 general election catalyzed this integration, and within a few years, multiplatform production became institutionalized. This is highlighted, for instance, in Mediacorp’s communication about its coverage of the 2018 DPRK–US Summit, where journalists used digital platforms to engage younger viewers by embedding live audience reactions to signal immediacy and relevance. The material also shows the professionalization and specialization of social media practices. In the Netherlands, NOS demonstrates this through its dedicated NOS Lab, which monitors emerging platforms and produces content tailored to audience expectations.

Together, these examples illustrate how social media practices have become integrated into PSM journalism for distribution, audience engagement, and experimentation with new digital formats. The pattern reflects mimetic isomorphic pressures, whereby social media platforms shape presentation formats and working practices that PSMs subsequently adopt. This mimesis persists even among organizations that have implemented more restrictive platform strategies. For instance, both NRK (Norway) and Yle (Finland) report that their digital teams focus on formats that resonate with younger audiences, producing vertical, short-form news videos for TikTok and Snapchat.

There are also numerous examples of how the professionalization of platform presence is reflected in success stories highlighting social media engagement linked to specific programs, content types, or individual PSM journalists, signaling alignment with platform logics focused on maximizing audience attention. This represents a form of normative isomorphism: although not explicitly tied to journalists’ daily editorial decisions, frequent references to social media metrics indicate that these numbers serve as markers of the PSMs’ ability to “do social media right” and constitute a central component in how newsrooms evaluate the success or failure of news stories and topics.

Coercive platform pressures at the micro level are most evident when resisted or mitigated through critical reflection on platform risks and the adoption of counterbalancing practices. One such risk concerns digital safety, which receives increasing attention in annual reports as PSMs recognize the mental toll of social media use on staff, particularly regarding online abuse and bullying. For example, ABC in Australia reports that staff are supported by a dedicated social media wellbeing advisor, while CBC/Radio-Canada disabled Facebook comments to reduce harassment and misinformation, and paused activity on X after the platform applied a “government-funded media” label, with some activity later resuming. Despite these measures, ABC and CBC journalists continue to use social media for civic engagement, audience interaction, and innovative storytelling.

In the cases of NRK and SVT, coercive platform power is explicitly linked to counterbalancing practices motivated by concerns about autonomy, impact, and trust. While similar concerns are raised by other PSMs, NRK and SVT invoke them to justify strategic retraction from social media. This retrenchment shapes journalistic practices, as broadcasters prioritize proprietary channels to maintain control over content dissemination.

In sum, these observations show that the PSMs have adopted divergent platform practices aligned with differing strategic priorities. Some increasingly resist coercive platform pressures, emphasizing editorial integrity and control in news production and dissemination, reflecting pull dynamics in everyday newsroom routines. Others expand and adapt social media activities to remain culturally relevant and maintain audience reach despite platform risks, indicating a stronger influence of push dynamics on journalistic practices.

Discussion and conclusion

PSM organizations worldwide struggle to reconcile their public remit with dependence on third-party platforms and their commercial logics. Although platformization (Helmond, 2015) and growing power asymmetries between platforms and news media are global trends (e.g., Nielsen and Ganter, 2022), this study demonstrates how national contexts create varying conditions for platform alignment and counterbalancing. The Platform Configurations and Isomorphism (PCI) framework introduced here enables systematic analysis of how PSMs navigate push and pull dynamics vis-à-vis social media over time, moving between isomorphic adaptation to platforms (Meese and Seipp, 2025; Laaksonen et al., 2024; Caplan and boyd, 2018) and efforts to counterbalance platform influence (Chua and Westlund, 2019). These dynamics are reflected in distinct platform configurations at the macro, meso, and micro levels.

Using this framework in a longitudinal analysis of how seven PSM organizations communicate about platform configurations across these levels, we show that PSMs initially sought to build a presence on platforms to make their content available where their audiences are. However, over time, they have come to display increasing awareness of the tensions between their public remit and the commercial logics of platforms. While some PSMs strive to break path dependence by counterbalancing platform logics through reduced presence or even withdrawal from platforms, others maintain strategies aimed at fulfilling their public remit by remaining active across a broad range of social media platforms. This illustrates how the PCI framework—by conceptualizing isomorphic pressures alongside countervailing institutional dynamics—helps explain both tendencies toward isomorphism and conditions of non-isomorphism in PSMs’ platform relations. Whereas push forces drive homogenization by aligning PSMs with platform logics, pull forces may mitigate these effects, resulting in more diversified platform configurations across national contexts.

We observe shifting understandings of platform dependence between 2013 and 2024, from viewing platforms as serving the public interest by enabling PSMs to reach broader audiences, to concerns that platform presence may undermine their public service remit—a shift mirrored in macro-level laws and regulations aimed at safeguarding digital sovereignty. We find that these macro-level configurations influence, but do not determine, the PSMs’ responses to platform pressures. Isomorphic pressures from platforms increase when regulatory frameworks and funding models deepen platform dependency. At the same time, public service mandates, stable funding arrangements, audience reach and public trust, as well as supranational regulation, may function as counterbalancing forces that enable PSMs to mitigate coercive and mimetic platform pressures and disrupt path dependencies.

Cross-country variation—even within relatively homogeneous regulatory contexts—suggests that macro-level pull forces exert differing isomorphic influence on how PSMs strategically configure their social media presence, as seen, for example, in the case of Dutch and Nordic PSMs. While NRK show signs of reverse isomorphism (Hambrick et al., 2004) by reducing its platform presence contrary to broader industry patterns (Olsen and Sjøvaag, 2025), NOS pursues an expansive social media strategy motivated by a central institutional principle of ensuring accessibility across all available media and for all segments of society. This demonstrates the analytical value of examining the combined dynamics of macro-level forces and meso-level platform strategies within the PCI framework. Across contexts, PSMs respond to regulatory and platform pressures, adapt to platform conventions, and articulate professional standards grounded in public service values. These dynamics illustrate how the PSMs seek to balance visibility, autonomy, and accountability within the digital media environment.

Furthermore, by examining how strategic priorities translate into micro level journalistic practices, our analysis reveals platform configurations that deepen understanding of the dynamics shaping PSMs’ platform presence and show how these practices are shaped by both coercive and mimetic platform pressures. While coercive pressures sometimes lead to the termination of specific platform presences—such as in the case of conflicts between CBC and Meta—or to broader platform retrenchment strategies, as observed in the Nordic countries, mimetic isomorphic pressures exert more subtle influence. In these cases, PSM journalists adapt storytelling formats and production practices to the affordances of social media platforms. Notably, push forces driving platform alignment persist even among PSMs that have adopted explicit counterbalancing strategies, suggesting that although some organizations seek to reduce platform dependence, journalistic practices remain influenced by platform logics.

Capturing the institutional dynamics through which patterns of isomorphism manifest and are challenged at the macro, meso, and micro levels is thus a key strength of the PCI analytical framework. Moreover, it facilitates analyzing the interplay between changes on the various levels and highlights the variety of pathways PSMs can pursue. While PSMs are subject to increasing scrutiny and political pressures, their public service mandate is arguably becoming even more important for safeguarding the population’s fundamental right to information. The concentration of power and the capture of communication infrastructures by global platforms (Nechushtai, 2018) challenge PSMs’ sovereignty as critical communication institutions. Amid global developments marked by the rise of semi-authoritarian regimes, democratic backsliding, and heightened polarization, platform dependency renders PSMs vulnerable both to platform exits from local markets and to the weaponization of platforms by undemocratic actors. We argue that these risks should be brought to the forefront and be continuously monitored in discussions about PSMs' platform configurations and the isomorphic pressures they must navigate.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental Material - Platform configurations and isomorphism: An analytical framework for longitudinal and comparative research of public service media

Supplemental Material for Platform configurations and isomorphism: An analytical framework for longitudinal and comparative research of public service media by Ragnhild Kr. Olsen, Oscar Westlund, Sherwin Chua, Ori Tenenboim, Marcel Broersma, Kristy Hess and Carl-Gustav Lindén in Convergence

Footnotes

Author note

Use of AI: ChatGPT (OpenAI; GPT-5.3 model) was used to assist with language editing; all scientific content, interpretation, and conclusions were developed and verified by the authors.

ORCID iD

Ragnhild Kr. Olsen

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by Norges Forskningsråd (The Research Council of Norway): [Grant Number 314257].

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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