Working within the framework of the IIC’s mission to ‘inform and shape the global policy agenda for the ICT and digital ecosystem’, the IIC’s Future Leaders Competition (FLC), open to individuals aged 35 and under, examines a single issue each year.
In 2025 the title of the FLC was: ‘Grabbing your attention: media plurality and the digital ecosystem’. It questioned the effectiveness of regulatory responses (usually national) in a fast-changing media environment where both the production and distribution of content (user-generated and curated) come from a wide, often global variety of channels, many of which use algorithms to amplify viewer attention. Asking what effect this might have on the concept of media plurality, 1the competition invited entrants to consider if it matters ‘where you get your information from’.
The judging panel was made up of policy specialists and included regulators from national regulatory bodies, legal experts and those working within relevant industries. Like the judging panel, essayists came from diverse disciplines and from different parts of the globe.
Every essayist referenced the importance of access to a variety of information sources as key to the democratic process and noted that the prominence given to certain information, shaped by algorithms, might threaten this. A number of the essays also discussed the difficulties of creating effective regulatory responses at a national level in an increasingly global environment where information can be provided without any filters and with an immediacy that more ‘traditional’ forms of media are not permitted.
When asked why the topic had appealed to him, this year’s competition winner, Sarvjeet Pal, said: ‘I’m a public policy student with a strong interest in digital tech policy. Given the reputation of the event and exact alignment with this year’s topic, I was super enthused to participate and contribute to the global discourse around media diversity and algorithmic governance. Also given the current landscape I think the given topic was of importance vis-a-vis the crisis around democratic digital space across the globe.’
Below are abstracts for the winner and runners-up, from India, Malaysia and the UK.
The winner
Sarvjeet Pal with co-author Nishat Bhatotia, Indian Institute of Technology
The algorithm’s grip: How digital gatekeepers are reshaping media pluralism
The essay aims to discuss how algorithms influence the distribution of content and ownership of media, which results in filter bubbles, echo chambers and information monopolies. So far, attempts to regulate cross-border algorithmic attention monopolies have been futile, ultimately resulting in global jurisdictional issues. The analysis exposes overlapping regulatory silos in tandem with outdated metrics for assessing concentration in traditional media systems. The essay proposes solutions, including proactive algorithmic design for diversity, holistic regulatory frameworks, such as the EU’s Digital Services Act, economic rebalancing to support independent journalism and enhanced digital literacy programmes to empower citizens in navigating algorithm-mediated information environments.
Read Sarvjeet’s essay in this issue of Intermedia
Runners-up
Nurul Iman Khairil, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission
Visibility is power: media plurality in the algorithmic age
This essay discusses how media plurality must be redefined in the algorithmic age as visibility is shaped by platform algorithms rather than editorial decisions. It examines Malaysia’s 15th general election to illustrate the impact of user-generated content and algorithmic amplification. This essay argues that while national regulation remains important, it must evolve through hybrid frameworks and regional cooperation.
‘Grabbing your attention’: media plurality and the digital ecosystem
Gabriella Kountourides, Ofcom
At every transition of media, from print to radio and now to digital, the same questions have emerged: who controls the narrative, how do we preserve media plurality. While the platforms have changed, the core concerns have not. Digital algorithms and global platforms compete with newspaper proprietors as the owners and disseminators of information. Drawing on historical patterns from radio, television and early internet transitions, this essay shows that today’s challenges: algorithmic influence, regulatory fragmentation and liability asymmetries, represent familiar problems in new forms rather than entirely novel threats. It contends that national and international regulatory bodies must adapt to address algorithmic dominance, blurred lines between curated and user-generated content and increasingly globalised information systems. Far from being obsolete, regulation must become internationally coordinated, algorithmically informed and adaptively robust to uphold democratic discourse and prevent the rise of personalised monopolies.
and then