In this report you will evaluate and make recommendations related to particular aspects of digital platforms foregrounded by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) Digital Platforms Inquiry. You will be expected to pay close attention to the Final Report including its analysis and recommendations. Your report will be for a particular body with a particular interest in the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry. You will select an organisation and an orientation towards the Inquiry from the ACCC Task Sheet which I have chosen:

Journalism: Quality and choice
Social media and search and news aggregation platforms have transformed the distribution and production of journalism. In this report for Transparency International evaluate the ACCCs analysis of the difficulties facing journalism and the scope of its recommendations for securing quality and choice in journalism in the public interest.

In this Report on Platformisation you will apply the concepts, methods, orientations and course readings (particularly those of weeks 8-13) to your media sector to document, evaluate and make recommendations on processes of platformisation. You will supplement your close reading of the Final Report and submissions to the Inquiry with your own original research on the chosen topic area. You will present these in an integrated and well referenced Report.

You will be assessed on how well you can

apply and integrate the concepts and orientations towards media platformisation generally with those advanced by the ACCC in its landmark inquiry.
research a particular topic considered in detail by the ACCC using ACCC submissions and where appropriate its commissioned as well as journalistic, scholarly and industry research.
integrate into a Report format this combination of concepts and orientations, readings, and research into a well-written and referenced scholarly Report.

Criteria & Marking:
1.Demonstrate a sound understanding of digital platforms and their operations.  (20%)

2. Identify clearly the general public, political, economic or cultural issues that social media and search platforms raise for the organisation your report is being written for.  (20%)

3. Outline the specific challenges social media and search platforms present to your organisation (whether as a media provider, a platform user or a regulator). How do these challenges, opportunities and impacts affect how your organisation/clients/agency go about its business? (20%)

4. Show a good use of concepts, readings and perspectives advanced for the analysis of platformisation processes by both general writings (eg by Julie Cohen) and by the ACCC in its Digital Platforms Report. (20%)

5. Report form, coherence of argument, structure, grammar spelling and referencing. (20%)