The shortcomings of the diversity diet: Public Service Media, algorithms and the multiple dimensions of diversity

With the case of public service media, this chapter discusses the multiple and conflicting understandings of diversity among different actors in the media industry. The use of recommender algorithms in PSM organisations exposes a fundamental incompatibility of journalistic and computational understandings of diversity, highlighted by analyses of PSB practitioners understanding of diversity. The incompatibility is further examined via a thought experiment of implementing a diversity algorithm for public service media. The experiment shows the incompatibility of the journalistic diversity concept with computational diversity as applied in the context of algorithmic recommender systems. Finally the chapter concludes that the idea of an algorithmic diversity diet undermines the purpose of PSB/PSM as a place for development of free thoughts.