The rise of a small number of digital platform corporations as the de facto governing institutions of the Internet has generated calls from around the world for greater regulation of platform power in the public interest. Concerns have ranged from monopolistic economic power and adverse effects on other media markets (e.g., advertising, news), to content moderation that addresses concerns about hate speech and platformised violence, to calls for regulation of the uses of personal data, algorithms and artificial intelligence. The identification of forms of concentrated power that are economic, pollical and communicative has presented unique regulatory challenges, as our approaches to such power have traditionally been silo-ised i.e., we look to competition policy, consumer protection and antitrust laws to do different things to provisions to regulate flows of media and digital content, or to set rules surrounding lobbying or political advertising. There is also the challenge that, to a far greater degree than even the most globalized media companies, the major digital platforms are entities whose business operations span the globe and operate in real-time, challenging the historically national basis on which communications and media policies have been developed (Flew, 2021; Picard, 2020; Picard & Pickard, 2017). In this paper I will outline a conceptual framework for thinking through these questions through a neo-institutionalist approach that focuses upon the ‘Three I’s’ of ideas, interests and institutions. With regards to internet governance, I will argue that it has in fact been ideas that have been the core driver of the formation of political and economic interests, and the formal and informal institutional structures through which governance arrangements occur. My approach is thus informed by critical political economy, but also flips the conventional narrative of political economy – that economic interests drive politics, ideas and culture – by identifying the principal barrier to new approaches to nation-state regulation as being cognitive, particularly the pervasive and ongoing influence of the normative ideal of the open internet. I will argue that this has existed among progressive activists to a surprising degree and constitutes an important conceptual barrier to rethinking the challenges of new policies for the regulatory state in light of the new challenges of digital platform power
