離不開的兩難：新聞媒體的公有地悲劇

To Be Or Not To Be? The Media Tragedy of Attentional Commons on Facebook

新聞媒體透過臉書發布新聞以觸及讀者與導流，媒體深知此舉威脅新聞自主與獲利自主仍舊無法自拔。本研究以「公有地悲劇」假設為基礎，論證：媒體大量分享免費文章鏈結過度掠奪讀者的注意力，在臉書上形成公有地悲劇，解釋為什麼明知不該依賴臉書，卻又無法脫離臉書的兩難困境，並進一步從社群新聞經營中分析，如何因應臉書對新聞業的箝制以及公有地悲劇的解方。研究發現，新聞媒體過度依賴臉書取得短期流量上升如同飲鴆止渴，無暇顧及媒體獨立性與讀者權益的長期隱憂。在這場公有地悲劇中，臉書是唯一受益者，付出代價的是新聞媒體與讀者。新聞媒體與臉書的互動呈現兩層面的矛盾現象：一、新聞媒體深知不可依賴臉書，卻透過臉書培養獨立性。二、為了衝高新聞粉絲數量而做新聞與新聞本質相違背。整體而言，依賴臉書的兩難考驗「媒體聲望」與「內容競爭力」，媒體將臉書視為觸及讀者的「通路」，需仰賴演算法的垂愛。內容提供者應回到「內容競爭力」與「新聞品牌競爭力」，減少免費內容以保有新聞的價值，建立讀者對媒體的信賴以抗衡禁不起再次稀釋的注意力。

The fact that news media distribute their content on Facebook in order to reach more readers and to gain more traffic back to their websites sets up a dilemma. This paper adopts the concept of the tragedy of the commons to explain why news media are aware of the concern of losing control over their content and their business, but still choose to stay on and to utilize Facebook. This paper further explores the strategies that news media adopt when facing this dilemma and investigates possible solutions to the tragedy of attentional commons on Facebook. The results herein show that the Facebook dilemma conforms to the hypothesis of the tragedy of the commons. News media are indeed willing to take the risk to partner with Facebook, because the benefit from providing free content to Facebook outweighs the cost of doing so in the short run, but not necessarily in the long run. For news publishers, sustainability is a much more pressing issue than thinking of a strategy very far out into the future. This paper argues that news publishers ignore the externality of partnering with Facebook, and that the price news publishers are likely to pay covers the loss of news and economic autonomy, because when they build their business on Facebook, if Facebook changes its rules, then these news publishers need to change accordingly. In a sense, Facebook has the power to influence news content. Two contradictions arise from the tragedy of attentional commons on Facebook. 1) News media cultivate their independence from Facebook by investing into more content and interaction with users on Facebook. 2) Producing news that only conforms to Facebook users' interests based on an opaque algorithm fails to override something that is important but not popular among users. Overall, under the tragedy of attentional commons on Facebook, news media and consumers are paying the price, because Facebook is the only beneficiary.