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CompCom Inquiry

Framing the fight for fairer digital markets: a journalism-led alliance’s impact

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PICTURE: Sbu Ngalwa of SANEF addressed the Competition Commission’s Inquiry 

Today, we publish a paper by Michael Markovitz which offers an interim assessment of the impact of a journalism-led civil society alliance on the Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry (MDPMI) currently being conducted by the Competition Commission South Africa.

‘Journalism-led’ refers to the central role played by the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) in convening and co-ordinating this alliance.

Drawing on the alliance’s written and oral submissions – culminating in its response to the Commission’s MDPMI Provisional Report in April 2025 – the paper examines how the alliance helped shape the Inquiry’s conceptual framing, scope and initial findings.

At the time of writing, the Commission’s final report had not yet been published.

It is important to clearly situate the alliance’s influence on this ambitious regulatory effort to reform digital media markets in the public interest, and so it is analysed across five key areas:

  • the rights-based and constitutional framing of platform harms
  • critiques of algorithmic opacity and content deprioritisation
  • contributions to structural remedies, including a Media Industry Fund and compensation mechanisms
  • successful advocacy for the inclusion of AdTech, public broadcasting and generative AI, and
  • its procedural role in enhancing the Inquiry’s participatory legitimacy

 

  • Markovitz is Director of the Media Leadership Think Tank at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), University of Pretoria. The Think Tank contributed to the Competition Commission’s MDPMI through joint submissions co-ordinated by SANEF, and Markovitz also made an independent oral submission
  • This paper was originally commission by UNESCO and the Institute for Global Dialogue

 

 

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