Platform dependency of news media across different media systems: An institutional comparative study of the United Kingdom and Greece

The distribution and consumption of news through aggregators, search engines and social media platforms have significant impacts on news organizations. One major effect is an increased dependency on these platforms. The level of dependency is determined by factors such as size, market position and reputation. The findings of this study underscore significant theoretical implications concerning institutional changes of news organizations on account of platform dynamics that have less to do with size, market position and reputation and more to do with the characteristics of the media systems. Based on an analysis of a qualitative comparative study of the United Kingdom as a Liberal and Greece as a Mediterranean Polarized/pluralist system, initiating from news consumption quantitative data, our findings contribute to the scholarship on the platformization of news and shed light on recent understandings of media systems in a changing digital landscape.