The EU soft regulation of digital campaigning : regulatory effectiveness through platform compliance to the Code of Practice on Disinformation
Borz, Gabriela and De Francesco, Fabrizio and Montgomerie, Thomas L. and Bellis, Michael Peter (2024) The EU soft regulation of digital campaigning : regulatory effectiveness through platform compliance to the Code of Practice on Disinformation. Policy Studies, 45 (5). pp. 709-729. ISSN 0144-2872 (https://doi.org/10.1080/01442872.2024.2302448)
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Abstract
How does the European Union handle the soft regulation of digital political campaigning? We assesses the effectiveness of the EU's soft governance concerning digital campaigning by examining how global digital platforms respond to the EU Code of Practice on Disinformation. In doing so, we advance a framework for analysis which measures specific steps in the platform compliance with soft law. Our results, based on the content analysis of platforms' annual reports, show that compliance depends on the priority assigned to regulatory themes by on-line corporations. Overall, we find higher levels of platform formal commitment rather than symbolic commitment through forms of report editing to signal compliance with the code of practice. Our analysis also shows evidence of implementation following from formal commitments when reporting requirements are less rigid. Consequently, EU soft governance can be effective for digital campaigning in areas prioritised by the addressees of regulation.
ORCID iDs
Borz, Gabriela ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0101-0297, De Francesco, Fabrizio ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0054-8984, Montgomerie, Thomas L. and Bellis, Michael Peter;-
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Item type: Article ID code: 87774 Dates: DateEvent2 September 2024Published24 January 2024Published Online29 December 2023AcceptedSubjects: Political Science > Political institutions (Europe) Department: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (HaSS) > Government and Public Policy > Politics Depositing user: Pure Administrator Date deposited: 10 Jan 2024 15:28 Last modified: 06 Nov 2024 01:58 URI: https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/id/eprint/87774