In the age of Big Tech, corporations like Facebook and Amazon provide the ‘infrastructural core’ of society. Their pervasiveness complicates the enforcement of hard regulations, leaving open the question about soft power mechanisms to assure accountability. The metaphor of the ‘Fourth Estate’ captures the role of news media as an independent and institutional but at times also idealistic ‘watchdog’ of corporate power and as guardian of the ‘public interest’. In doing so, news media also play a role in privileging but also questioning and negotiating business and public interests.

This project explores in several studies the power relations between news media and Big Tech corporations. I critically inquire in how far news media hold big tech companies accountable for their growing influence in society and their impact on policy-making through public affairs. In doing so, I aim to further our understanding of the role of news media in (de-) constructing the accountability large tech corporations. By doing so, this project contributes to the normative evaluation of the desired and factual power of Big Tech corporations in a digitized society and a corporate threat to democracy.