Platforms, the new online gatekeepers of public value in media?

Over the past decade, the rise of platformization (Nieborg & Poell, 2018) has disrupted the media landscape in which public service media (PSM) operate and make an effort to pursue their core public values (Van Es & Poell, 2020). Growing online competition, in combination with technological developments and changing media use, has urged Dutch PSM organization NPO to reconsider their media strategies. This raises the question how NPO and its broadcasters cope with the strategic challenges brought by platformization while at the same time promoting their public values in a commercialized online media landscape. PSM managers and editorial employees play a key role in this strategic transition. This research seeks into the question how Dutch PSM employees strategically manage public values in an online environment in the platform era. To gain understanding of how PSM professionals perceive challenges brought by platformization and how they contribute to the strategy and overall success of their PSM organizations, thirteen in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with media professionals working in the Dutch PSM industry. The grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) provides the theoretical foundation for the analysis of the data. In total, three overarching themes have been found. PSM professionals are involved in managing transitions in the media landscape. Second, media professionals managed public values internally and externally and showed how awareness and internal communication contribute to the creation of an overarching media brand identity (Siegert et al., 2011) based on public values. Lastly, PSM professionals appeared to struggle in managing dilemmas in online public value distribution. Overall, strategic management of public values in the platform era poses a contradictory challenge for PSM professionals in their attempts to retain and their public values in the online landscape. While PSM professionals are trying to promote public values, they use platforms with commercial objectives that are at odds with PSMs core values of fostering independence, transparency, and pluriformity. PSMs legitimation rests on reaching their audience. Yet, paradoxally, by relying on commercial platforms to promote their public values, PSM is at risk of becoming too dependent external actors and, hence, compromising their own core values in the process. Furthermore, the findings of this study provide several implications for existing strategic media management theory in the context of public service media, as well as ramifications for other media organizations, public institutions and media managers. Based on the findings of this research, the a number of recommendations are for future research will be made.