Unveiling the Discursive Power of Big Tech: Implications for EU Competition Law and Beyond

Abstract

The public sphere is understood as a place where citizens meet, exchange views and form a public opinion. In today’s platform society, part of the public sphere is comprised by the digital public sphere, whose information flows are largely mediated by big technology companies. This contribution builds on and expands the literature on the power of big technology companies, focusing on discursive power, which refers to the power to shape discourse and narratives. It proposes an analytical framework as a tool to capture a variety of discursive power manifestations in practice that are relevant in the context of EU competition law. Recognising the role of EU competition law in protecting democracy, and that it cannot be considered in isolation from the EU value system as such, we propose three ways of construing discourse-related theories of harm relevant to EU competition law: (i) building on existing theories of harm; (ii) building on the intersection where harms pertinent to EU competition law and plurality in discourse (as a non-economic consideration) converge; and (iii) introducing an independent, democracy-oriented theory of harm.