Incidental News Exposure and Algorithmic Governance of Social Media Platforms in Ambient Journalism

Abstract

The emergence of social media platforms as the leading platform for people to access news has brought essential changes in journalism. People encounter news in a diffuse news environment. The news algorithmic distribution of social media platforms determines the content ecology of people's chance encounter with news, and the problems of information overload, information cocoon, vulgar news, and so on brought by news algorithmic distribution are becoming increasingly prominent. Algorithmic governance as a trend is unstoppable. This study adopts a qualitative research method to focus on the challenges and governance of the algorithmic distribution of news in social media to provide lessons for establishing an excellent online news ecosystem and promoting efficient management of cyberspace.