News media lobbying and the EU’s Digital Services Act: Strategies and experiences from the small non-EU state of Norway

Abstract The formation of the Digital Services Act (DSA) in the European Union (EU), aiming to regulate platform power, provided a unique policy window to secure media-specific interests vis-à-vis platforms. This study investigates how Norwegian news media actors utilised the policy window. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 20 elite informants in Norway and the EU, the analysis shows how the Norwegian actors strategised to protect editorial independence and autonomy by lobbying to exempt editorial content from platform moderation. Unable to build a broad coalition and facing substantial resistance from an alliance of platforms, fact-checkers, and civil society groups, the attempt failed. The study contributes with insight into how news actors from a small, non-EU member state lobbied to gain influence in a policy process at the EU level. It also illustrates how the blurring boundaries of journalism and the multifaceted European media landscape make supranational news media lobbying particularly demanding for small, outsider actors.