Ants among elephants: regulatory challenges in countries without globally dominant players

This chapter discusses how small states are responding to the economic and cultural dominance of digital platforms, which pose an existential threat to their domestic cultural industries. All the states examined in this chapter are responding by seeking to buttress their information and media ecosystems, although these responses vary considerably in nature and scope. States such as Singapore and New Zealand, with highly commercialised media systems, are intervening to set up or strengthen public service broadcasting to anchor their domestic media. In the Nordic countries, with a tradition of robust public broadcasting systems, the study finds two mutually reinforcing impulses at work - broad structural reforms of the information and media environment, strengthening the local news media ecosystem, while updating their regulatory framework to impose a duty of care on digital platforms. Beyond the European Union’s regulatory moves, some regulatory responses show the way to alternative models of governance imbued with democratic concerns.