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On November 25, Google and the Association of Independent Publishers (AIP) announced a landmark partnership, the establishment of the Digital News Transformation Fund (DNT Fund). This is a $6 million (R114 million) initiative aimed at revitalising South Africa’s struggling independent and local news sectors. MAHMOOD SANGLAY offers a critical perspective on this unprecedented development.
The DNT Fund is set to commence in March 2025, with the goal of addressing the significant challenges faced by grassroots and community-focused media organisations.
The aim of the fund is to support the sustainability, digital transformation and financial viability of small, local and independent publishers. These organisations often operate in underserved areas, producing original public-interest journalism, including content in vernacular languages.
The fund will be managed by Tshikululu Social Investments and overseen by a multi-stakeholder advisory board, including representatives from AIP and the Press Council of South Africa. Google, as the primary financier, will not be involved in funding decisions, ensuring impartiality.
Grants will be provided across three tiers. At the Foundational Level up to R380 000 is allocated per year for publishers with limited digital presence. Up to R950 000 per year is allocated for publishers at the Growth Level, seeking to expand their digital operations. The Advanced Level offers up to R1.9 million per year for mature digital publishers investing in advanced technologies.
Google’s intervention comes against a backdrop of a shrinking journalism industry in South Africa, exacerbated by declining advertising revenues, the rise of digital platforms and widespread job losses. Prominent media houses like Media24 and Independent Media have retrenched hundreds of staff in recent years.
Big Tech altruism?
This gesture by Google is not an act of corporate media altruism. While the fund marks an important milestone for grassroots media, a critical examination reveals a deeper narrative of responsibility for media power asymmetry.
We should credit Google for implicitly acknowledging its role in disrupting independent news ecosystems. As Nathan Geffen and Anton van Zyl argue, platforms like Google and Facebook have adversely impacted the revenue streams of local publishers by monopolising online advertising and driving traffic to parasitic, algorithm-optimised sites that undermine authentic journalism. This ‘platform imperialism,’ as Dal Yong Jin describes in his book, Digital Platforms, Imperialism and Political Culture, is a modern extension of colonial power dynamics, where US-based tech giants extract value from developing nations while offering token reparations in return.
South Africa’s local news publishers, particularly in rural and underserved areas, have borne the brunt of this digital colonisation. By monopolising ad revenues and skewing information flows, big tech companies perpetuate the asymmetrical power relations that Jin identifies. For African nations, the implications are profound: the erosion of local media deprives communities of platforms for self-representation, while narratives are filtered through the lens of Western interests.
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Google’s fund is a symbolically significant step, in light of the billions in revenues tech giants derive from African economies through its ad monopolies. However, the primary need is for meaningful interventions that involve fundamental systemic changes—fair revenue-sharing agreements, greater and more robust support for independent journalism and mechanisms to curb the exploitative practices of digital platforms.
Google’s algorithms, particularly those governing ad revenue generation, are opaque by design. The core of this issue lies in the complexity and proprietary nature of Google’s algorithms, such as the ones powering its advertising platforms, Google Ads and AdSense. These systems determine how advertisements are ranked, displayed, and charged for, using a combination of factors like ad quality scores, bidding amounts, user engagement metrics and relevance.
However, the precise mechanics behind these calculations are not publicly disclosed, leaving advertisers and publishers to speculate or rely on generalised guidelines. This lack of transparency creates challenges for businesses seeking to optimise their ad campaigns and for content creators attempting to maximise ad revenue, as they must navigate a system without fully understanding the rules governing their success or failure.
Additionally, as both the gatekeeper and a participant in the advertising ecosystem, Google remains free to prioritise its own interests, potentially at the expense of advertisers and publishers. For instance, Google’s lack of clarity on revenue-sharing percentages between the company and content creators using AdSense leaves publishers in the dark about the true breakdown of their earnings.
Similarly, the frequent algorithm updates that impact search rankings and ad placements often occur without sufficient explanation, causing disruptions to revenue streams without warning. This opacity can result in a power imbalance, where Google’s dominance in digital advertising gives it significant leverage while stakeholders are left with limited recourse or understanding of how decisions are made.
The DNT Fund simply plasters over this inherent algorithm disparity and ignores Google’s revenue dominance. Beneficiaries of this $6m grant may grow and become more sustainable, but they will also simply perpetuate the disproportionate revenue share arrangement controlled by Google.
The urgency of protecting local journalism is underscored by the glaring biases perpetuated by global corporate media, including Meta, X and other social media platforms. A striking and relevant example is the coverage of the ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians. Studies reveal that mainstream outlets consistently prioritise Israeli narratives, dehumanising Palestinians and obscuring the scale of atrocities.
Exacerbating this crisis in independent journalism globally, is the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists a record 137 journalists and media workers were killed in this conflict. In such a context, local independent media becomes a crucial counterbalance, offering narratives rooted in the lived realities of marginalised communities over the world.
While the DNT Fund provides temporary relief, the industry must urge Google to also address the structural inequalities at the heart of this crisis. True transformation requires challenging the monopolistic practices of tech giants, implementing policies that prioritise local media sustainability and holding platforms accountable for their disproportionate influence.
Google’s $6 million investment is a welcome gesture to mitigate the impact of its own business model. For South Africa—and Africa at large—to reclaim its media landscape, the focus must shift from corporate funding to systemic reforms that empower local publishers, ensure equitable revenue distribution and dismantle the structures of platform imperialism.
It is a matter of fairness, as well as a prerequisite for preserving democratic values and cultural sovereignty in the digital age.
- Sanglay is CEO of Muslim Views, an adjudicator on the Press Council of South Africa and former chairperson of AIP.
