A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF SCHOLARLY LITERATURE ON MEDIA GOVERNANCE AND DIGITAL PLATFORM REGULATION
Abstract
This study employs a systematic literature review (SLR) to critically examine governance frameworks for Video-on-Demand (VoD) platforms against the evolving digital platform regulation across regional and global contexts. The study aims to synthesize extant scholarship to elucidate prevailing trends within the digital and regulatory landscape and to identify critical gaps, thereby generating evidence‐based recommendations to guide future research and policy development. Through a systematic analysis of 49 studies, the research identifies two overarching themes of media governance: as a regulatory framework and as a social process. The former encompasses legal and institutional modalities for content regulation, audience protection, platform competition, and content discoverability, discussing how nation-states strategically adapt legacy media laws to transnational VOD platforms. The latter foregrounds the participatory dynamics among content producers, consumers, and regulatory bodies in shaping digital content curation, self-regulatory practices, and misinformation management. Moreover, some studies reveal inherent tensions between domestic cultural policies and the hegemony of global platforms such as Netflix, highlighting the challenges faced by nation-states in regulating content in a globalized media ecosystem. The findings suggest several important directions for future research, including understanding the rationales behind different media governance strategies, exploring how the media industry and its regulation are perceived by various stakeholders and conducting more comparative studies, especially in the Asia region, with a focus on integrating sustainable development principles into media governance frameworks.
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