Discourse coalitions in the EU: the case of civil society networks in the regulation of post-truth

The emergence of social media platforms during the last decade has opened a wide political and regulatory debate about the role that these companies play in the public sphere, and democracy more broadly. This paper analyses the role of actors coalitions that have emerged to channel specific demands and pressures in relation to the ongoing regulatory struggle. Specifically, we use Social Network Analysis and Discourse Network Analysis (Leifeld 2017) to analyse the cooperation and competition relations and relations among the actors involved in the regulation. We anticipate that despite the existence of a significant network of critical civil society networks, their demands and discourses had little impact upon the regulators. This supports the argument that big tech is engaged in a form of preemptive cooperation (Rone 2021) to minimise the impact of regulation and opportunities that critical discourses on disinformation significantly alter their business model.