The old-new epistemology of digital journalism: how algorithms and filter bubbles are (re)creating modern metanarratives

The paper challenges the prevailing view that digital journalism represents a postmodern turn grounded in subjectivity, relativism, and dialogic multiplicity. Instead, it proposes a new epistemological paradigm: in an algorithmically curated environment marked by selective exposure, homophilic networks, and ideological bubbles, journalistic narratives become metanarratives that offer absolute, closed meanings to polarized audiences. The article develops a conceptual argument (not empirical) to redefine how theoretical studies frame online journalism, aiming to spur future empirical research under this paradigm. The scope focuses on practices in the global North (especially Europe and the United States), with brief pointers for examining implications in the global South (e.g., African contexts) where digital literacy, access, and pre-digital polarization interact with algorithmic dissemination.

The paper traces journalism’s normative model of objectivity to scientific modernism and Enlightenment rationality (e.g., Lippmann; Tuchman; Schudson; Hallin), in which journalism functioned as a bearer of factual truth via codified procedures. From the 1960s–70s onward, critiques of rationalism and an affective turn paralleled a journalistic shift toward interpretive, subjective practices (e.g., New Journalism; “objectivity 2.0”), aligning with postmodern notions that “there are no facts, only interpretations.” Digital media and the hybrid media system intensified postmodern features: erosion of boundaries (professional/amateur, genres, hard/soft news), participatory production, affective and personalized news streams, and a move from objectivity to authenticity. However, the article contends that more recent platformized dynamics complicate the postmodern association by reintroducing modern-like metanarratives within algorithmic environments.

Conceptual/theoretical argumentation without new empirical data. The author synthesizes existing philosophical and journalism studies literatures to reframe the epistemology of digital journalism. Heidegger’s interpretation of Nietzsche is used to argue that contemporary subjectivism constitutes a subjective fulfillment of modern metaphysics rather than a postmodern condition. The analysis focuses on the global North, with illustrative references to cases in the global South; it does not attempt comprehensive coverage of all digital journalism practices.

• Algorithmic curation, selective exposure, filter bubbles, and echo chambers undermine postmodern assumptions of equivalence of interpretations and dialogic openness. Instead, they foster polarization and radicalization, producing narratives that function like modern metanarratives—absolute, totalizing, and resistant to refutation.
• Cognitive dynamics such as confirmation bias and the backfire effect help explain the impermeability of these narratives to factual denial within online communities.
• Platformized attention economies privilege content engineered for immediate, closed meanings and emotional impact (e.g., sharebaiting headlines). A cited study reports that almost 60% of links shared on social media were never opened by users, indicating reliance on headline-level meaning for virality.
• Journalism has absorbed platform logics (datafication, spreadability, audience-based gatekeeping), leading news organizations to produce content tailored to ideologically homogeneous bubbles to maximize engagement and revenue. This yields subjective metanarratives perceived as absolute truths within bubbles, emphasizing antagonism rather than dialogue.
• The paper reframes Nietzsche’s aphorism via Heidegger: instead of a foundation for postmodern relativism, it signals a subjective inversion of modern metaphysics—reinforcing scientific-rationalist tendencies in a subjective key.
• In parts of the global South, low digital literacy, limited access (e.g., paywalls), and already ‘tribalized’ contexts can amplify platformized polarization and misinformation dynamics (e.g., Myanmar, Philippines, Nigeria).

By showing that algorithmically induced polarization produces closed, absolutist narratives within information bubbles, the paper argues that digital journalism’s epistemology is better seen as a subjective fulfillment of modernity rather than postmodern relativism. This reframing addresses the initial question—whether online journalism is postmodern—by demonstrating how platform logics and cognitive biases reintroduce modern-like metanarratives at the level of polarized groups. The significance lies in reorienting theoretical and empirical journalism studies away from assumptions of dialogic pluralism and toward examining how platformization reshapes news production and reception into ideologically totalizing, affect-laden narratives. This has implications for democratic discourse, audience fragmentation, and the public role of journalism, suggesting the need to interrogate metrics-driven editorial practices, headline design, and the influence of algorithmic gatekeeping on epistemic quality.

The article proposes a new conceptual framework: contemporary online journalism, conditioned by algorithmic curation and ideological bubbles, embodies a subjective reversal of modern metanarratives rather than a postmodern condition. It revisits journalism’s modernist objectivity, the post-1960s shift to subjectivity, and argues—via Heidegger’s Nietzsche—that current subjectivism yields absolute, closed meanings within bubbles. Platformization drives news toward antagonistic, emotionally charged, and ideologically consistent narratives that ‘explain everything’ for in-group audiences. Future research should empirically test and elaborate this paradigm across platforms and contexts, and examine how it intersects with differing media ecologies, literacy levels, and access conditions, including integrative work with epistemologies specific to the global South.

• The study is theoretical and synthesizes existing literatures; it does not present new empirical findings or capture all practices of digital journalism.
• The proposed paradigm focuses on the global North and may not directly generalize to the global South. Brief examples are offered for comparative reflection, suggesting future work to integrate this framework with epistemologies specific to journalism in the global South.